Stagnant

Some people don't have dreams, or at least, have no recollection of their dreams when they wake up in the morning.  

I am not one of those people.  I have dreams every night, and when I wake up I can often remember them.  Once in a while it'll be a very vague memory or I'll have a hard time recalling it, but usually I have a grasp of what I dreamed about.  

And I'm a big nightmare person.  I don't have nightmares once in a while, I have them around three or four times a week.  For as long as I can remember, I've had two main recurring nightmares: One where there are crazy amounts of tidal waves and I have no where to go and one that takes place in the house I grew up in, with an old man and his swan hiding out in my basement.  I'd always try to help him by throwing them down food or something, and while he never tried to kill me or anything, toward the end of the dream I'd always get the sense that he would kill me if he could, and then I'd wake up, terrified.  (Riddle me that.) 

But I haven't had either of those nightmares in a while.  Instead, I have "nightmares" that are just an extension of my actual life.  My dreams aren't surreal, nothing out of the ordinary happens.  Things are exactly how they would be in my actual waking life.  Except I start to get a horrible anxious, terrified feeling right before I wake up.  

My real life and my nightmares are the same thing. 

This post is turning out to be depressing.  Distract yo'self with picture of pretty flowers.

I keep seeing all these motivational posts about becoming the kind of person who doesn't settle for contentedness, the kind of person who ditches safety and pursues their dreams.  And while that's admirable and hopefully is something I do one day, I wish I could just come close to being merely content.  

I'd definitely describe where I'm at as a stand-still, but it's not a good one.  It's hardly an acceptable place to be.  Some of it's my own fault.  Some of it is the fault of other people.  A lot of it seems to be really bad luck. 

I don't really know where I was going with this post.  But I turn 24 in a couple of weeks.  24 is still young and fun, but really, it's not kid category.  (Not that 23 is, either...)  I should be doing things. 

Because my health is just not even slightly okay right now, I can't even get a job.  I'm looking for something I can do from home, but no luck yet.  And speaking of health - I do not know where to even start with fixing it.  I need surgery that isn't performed in most cities here (in fact, very few doctors do it anywhere).  

I moved to North Carolina as a sort of last resort and my intent was to stay around a year, get a job, save $3-5,000, and move back to New York.  Bad health means no job means no money.  I think I've got about $100 saved from odd jobs for family.  And I don't think it qualifies as "saved" since I'll need to use it for next month's bills, anyway. 

So here I am, every single day, doing nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  And I can't see any shining light at the end of the tunnel.  I can't fathom getting out of this situation.  I wake up every day, get dressed, and do nothing.  On good days I'll read or write, and if I get a few pain-free hours I'll exercise.  But other than that, the only things ever on my schedule are going to my aunt's house 20 minutes away to walk her dogs and watching certain TV shows.  Those are the two things I "do."  Walk a dog and look forward to Once Upon a Time and Grey's Anatomy.  

My life - my weeks - are measured by a fucking television show.  

I have no friends here, which doesn't help.  And sometimes I think I don't even want friends here.  I just want to get medical help, get a job, and save enough money to go back to NY.  And I can't see how it's going to happen.  

I am so, so sick of this all.  My routine goes something like this: wake up, get dressed, sit in chair doing nothing - maybe watching Netflix -, go walk dogs, come home, sit in chair doing nothing, maybe watch Netflix, eat dinner, go to bed.  That's what my life looks like... if you can call it a life. 

At the very least I wish I was doing a little more substantial reading and writing, but depression hits hard when my life gets this slow, so it's difficult to get myself to do either of those things. 

At least something is growing.

I'm not someone who believes people are meant to continuously grow - I mean, I believe we grow in things like wisdom and knowledge, but I don't think you need a new promotion or a new car or more money every other year.  I think you can be perfectly happy without being rich and without being someone's boss.  I don't really adhere to the culture of more, more, more.  I'm not convinced I can become a millionaire if I try hard enough, and I don't feel a strong desire to do so anyway (not that I'd turn such an opportunity away...).  But I do think everyone needs personal growth.  I'm currently not developing any skill, not getting any smarter, not reaching or even working toward any of my goals, big or small, and it is making me miserable.  What's worse is the knowledge that I have no clue how to change any of this. 

I talked to a friend/mentor a few weeks (or was it months?  Let me see if I an recall which episode of Grey's was on that night...) ago and he said something along the lines of, "I remember when you used to have dreams."  It wasn't said in a critical way, it was said in an, "I care about you and I want you to find purpose again" sort of way.  

Problem is, I can hardly remember those dreams.  I need to look at old blog posts to remind myself of what my goals were.  And when I do start to think about them, they don't feel like goals or dreams that I ever had.  They feel far-off, or like dreams and goals of some other person.  They don't feel like things I'd ever realistically envision myself achieving.  

I think that's a mix of depression and of this sort of stagnant place I'm in.  I feel like I'm barely surviving, so any thought of thriving is laughable.  And I know all of this, which only makes me feel worse. 

*distract* *distract* *distract*

I wish I could end this post with some great announcement detailing my plans to change this, but I don't know where to start and I don't know that I'm even capable of changing anything.  So much of what's wrong has to do with things outside of my control - money, health, etc.  I don't know how people bounce back from whatever this is - I'd call it rock bottom, but every time I think I've hit rock bottom something happens to make things worse.   

All I know is that as of now, I'm doing nothing.  I'm pretty much useless and my life is getting wasted away.  

Things need to turn around at some point, right?  .......Right? 

__

Charlotte