The post post

So, it's post-graduation. I should be overwhelemd with a sense of accomplishment and pride. I should feel as though I have conquered a mountain and slayed a dragon. It's no small feat. I completed a degree while working a professional job. But still I feel hollow. I'm empty. The day of graduation wasn't about me. It was about Quinn's anger at my foul mood (I was sick). It was about my mom's nature. It was about Joe's friends at graduation. I received gifts and words of praise, but it's not enough. Where's the life changing moment that was supposed to happen? Where's the lightening bolt that makes everything feel right? Why do I just feel like there's nothing else to look forward to? I'm 33 years old. Do I really have to endure another 60 years of mediocrity and living as no one special with no special talents? At least in school there was a goal. Someone to give me a grade. Things were easy to understand. If I worked hard, I was rewarded. It had nothing to do with who I was, but rather what I did.

IT makes me wonder if I want to have a child, children, because I love the idea of having someone to care for or if it is because I need a purpose. The more I think about it, there's no sane reason to want a child that isn't pure selfishness. I mean, me having a kid won't depopulate the earth. I am not a holder of vast stores of knowledge or special skills that should be passed along. My brothers have sufficiently ensured our genes will travel the world and Quinn's half-siblings have done the same for him. We wouldn't be financially better with a kid, and there's no guarantee that a child would provide for us in our old age (another selfish reason to have them). Then I ask myself whether I'm having these doubts to prepare myself for the possibility that I can't ever have children. Is this my old standard, let's just make you seem like you don't want it so it doesn't hurt when you don't get it?

I have to stop reading books and watching television. There are so many extraordinary lives showcased, full of adventure and romance. And I have neither. Who could be happy like this? Am I mentally ill? Is this just depression finally settling in? HAve I ably outrun it until this point? I remember hours I used to spend alone, whereever I could could get solitude. I'd mull over the question of the importance of my existence. And, like now, I couldn't find an answer. So I would wrap myself in activity and responsibility so I wouldn't think about it. I could outrun the hurt in knowing I'm just like 6 billion other people on this planet. Just running around not effectively contributing to anything other than running the capitalist machine. I want a dream. I want a passion. I want to want something...anything. I don't even crave food anymore. I am a shell of a person...a Shade, to quote a character reference by Sherrilyn Kenyon.

How do you get anywhere from here? I am finding that I am amazed at the bravery of the human race. The ones who get up each day knowing it will end exactly like the last. Knowing that they are in a rut and they are tied to it by financial responsibility. Those in that category who don't succome to the depression I can feel overriding my every thought. My every inkling of intuition tells me there is something more for me if I could just focus enough to figure it out. Is this a mid-life crisis? Is this normal for adults who have pursued a degree to finish a goal set out in the 3rd grade? Am I still clinging to that definition of who I should be? Is that why the lack of children hurts so much?

I don't like the person I've become. I'm not happy with the compromises I have made because I am too lazy to figure out what I want. But it appears I am too lazy to make any changes. Where do we go from here? Where's the meaning? I truly believe there is a God, but if I didn't, I could understand how someone would make him up. There's got to be something more. Maybe that's where all this is leading. Maybe it's time for me to go back to the one constant home I had growing up - the church. God always welcomed me, no matter which house I visited him in. The familiarity of the hymns, of the verses, of the acceptance and love always gave me the consistency every child longs for. It seems so simple to get that back. Why don't I just do it?