Teen Angst, a Decade Too Late?

Two posts right in a row--I'm really full of it today. I wonder if maybe I'm experiencing teen angst in my mid-twenties. Is that even possible? I mean, honestly: I'm going to be 26 in a few months. Am I seriously supposed to be feeling like a depressed teenager every day, worried about what people think about me and why people don't talk to me and how I could possibly even go on living this way? Is that normal? Am I not supposed to grow out of that when I'm, like, 16?

Thinking back, my teenage years weren't that bad. I mean, they weren't great by any definition of word, but I had a lot of friends, my parents loved me, I did well in school (for the most part), and I took part in a lot of fun afterschool activities. I may have been mopey from time-to-time back then, but, in hindsight, I had it pretty sweet. That feeling extended into community college, and for my first stint here. I mean, I never had very many friends here, but I was a fringe-member of a pretty tight-knit bunch here for my first three semesters and I did a lot of fun things and I wasn't all worried that they thought I was weird or awkward or creepy or anything like that.

Then I went home, took a little break from school, for two years. And, you know what? I wasn't miserable then, either. I hung out with my girlfriend most every day, I had a 9-to-5-five-day-a-week job that kept me busy and (somewhat) decently paid, and I didn't have too much to worry about because I was living with my parents. Life was simple, and simple was good.

Since I've been here again, though, man, it's just a mess. First off, my lack of friends this time around is startling. Again, I don't mean to imply that people don't like me--I have plenty of acquaintances through classes with whom I get along very well. But good friends, real friends, are very few and very far between; and I wish they weren't. I get so lonely sometimes, and I feel like I drive those few friends I do have away with neediness and, therefore, patheticness. The social aspect of my life is, to say the least, not impressive.

Second, I find myself arguing with my girlfriend on the phone quite often. She's stressed out because I'm not around, and that leads to her expecting me to call her and talk to her every spare moment I get, and some days I just don't feel like it. I don't do anything interesting; I hate talking about most of the things I do; and I don't really care to bore her with what I do have to talk about. So we fight because "I don't care about her" and "I don't miss her", and I balk at those statements, and the fight escalates, and it's one more stress I don't need in my life two, three, four nights a week. Romantically, things are often not on the up-and-up.

Third, I just plain have a lot of crap to do. Five graduate courses, three jobs (although I did finally stop working that weekend overnight shift at the gas station, thank God), not to mention all this self-pity in which I partake. All those things take up a ton of time. Juggling all those balls without dropping any of them is a horrible burden on my shoulders, and there are many days (today included, obviously) when I'd just rather lay in bed all day, stare at the ceiling, and drown myself in my thoughts. Not pleasant. Workload-wise, things are slipping out of my fingers and spiraling out of control.

So with all these factors converging simultaneously, you might be able to see why I feel the way I feel as much as I do. But is it teen woe-is-me angst? Or is it just an inability to suck it up, grab life by the horns, and ride it for all that it's worth: good and bad? I'm still working that one out, but, either way, I need to turn things around.

Dog's Eye View

"Everything Falls Apart" by Dog's Eye View is one of my favourite songs of all-time. It isn't really a great song by any stretch of the imagination, but it has two sets of lyrics which I have always loved, for different reasons. The first is the devil's not in the details/no, the devil is in my pants. I don't really have much to say about that line except that it is awesome, it always makes me laugh, and I try to quote it whenever possible. How could I not? The other, though, is much deeper and causes me to reflect.

I met God this afternoon, riding on an uptown train/I said, "don't you have better things to do?"/He said, "if I do my job, what would you complain about?/so I let it go to Hell, now I'll have something to do"/He said, "I'll let it go to Hell, does that sound familiar to you?"

Yes, God, that does sound familiar to me. Thank you for so succinctly spelling out why I let my life go to Hell on a pretty-much-daily basis. I'm a natural-born complainer. If I weren't complaining, I'd have nothing to do. And in order to have something to do, I take an active role in turning my life into a steaming pile of crap.

"Now, Dave," you might say. "Stop being so dramatic. It's not that bad."

Isn't it, though? Well, maybe it isn't. But you're not inside my head. You don't know how badly I beat myself up over every stupid little mistake I make, every unwelcome thought I have, and every reminder of wasted potential that passes before my eyes. This is why I complain, my friends: inner torment. I spend a lot of time hating myself. And I don't mean to imply that I think I'm worthless and that no one loves me. In fact, just the opposite. I think that I am a pretty awesome guy, and that a lot of people like me for different reasons. What torments me, then, is the hierarchy of thoughts and of priorities by which I craft my day-to-day routine, and because of which I spend hours on end berating myself and reminding myself that I'm a complete and utter failure at all aspects of life.

This applies to all types of ventures and across the broad spectrum of cognition. Intellectually, emotionally, ethically, motivationally, and any other -ally you can imagine: I despise myself for the way I have developed myself in every manner of personal worth there is. Crawl inside my head for a day; I dare you. If you aren't clawing your own eyes out within an hour and wondering how anyone can face the day with so much self-loathing, you're quite likely inhuman. It's almost nauseating.

I even hate myself for writing this post right now. These are the thoughts in my head at this very moment: 1) you have work you need to be doing, so stop wasting time doing this, 2) you are pathetic for posting this publically; what are you just begging for sympathy?, 3) when you make this post, people are going to think you're just begging for sympathy, 4) no one takes you seriously and no one is going to read this anyway, so why are you so worried about it?, 5) why exactly do you worry/care so much about what people are going to think about you?, etc., etc., etc.

Dave's head, top floor: nonstop self-doubt, -degradation, -consciousness, and -hatred. Enjoy your visit, and get out while you can.

Writing: It Gets the Rage Out

Recently, the linguistics professor with whom I work four nights a week asked me if I write every day. She knows I graduated from Cortland with a professional writing degree, so I suppose she just assumed that I write constantly to keep my creative juices flowing. I could have lied and told her I do, and then made something up about the kinds of things I write. I mean, that's how I made it through classes like Intro to Fiction and Creative Writing: telling the professors I was keeping up in my journals, and then filling them in feverishly the weekends before they were due. But I didn't; I told her I haven't written anything substantial (outside of essays for classes) in many months. In fact, I haven't focused heartily on creative writing, for any purpose other than to not fail out of college, in many, many years.

I used to enjoy writing very much. I mean, I wouldn't have come to this crappy college in this crappy city to get a crappy degree in writing unless I really enjoyed it, would I have? But it wasn't long into my time in the professional writing program that I realized I wasn't cut out for it. I'm not all poetic. I don't really care about creating symbolism or crafting multiple layers of meaning. When I write, I want to do one of two things, and usually both: 1) talk about myself, and 2) rant about everything that moves, and many things that don't.

So when this lady encouraged me to start writing again, I got to thinking. Yeah, maybe I wouldn't be such an angry guy, filled with such horrible (and often unfounded) animosity for the people around me. I mean, maybe I could even psychoanalyze myself and figure out exactly where all this utter abhorrence stems from, allowing me to do something about it and be a better person. I try to recall the days when I used to blog in this manner constantly, at least once a day, and I envision myself as being a happier guy back then. People would comment to my blog, giving me advice toward fixing my problems and/or telling me to stop being such a pouty baby and grow up. That contact with (and intervention from) other people, wow... it can actually be a good thing sometimes.

But you know what? If I'm going to keep this blog, it won't be long until I stop using it as a place to fully formulate my thoughts/feelings/problems/quirks in an attempt to do something about them. It won't be long until, instead, I'm just coming here to whine and complain, in two-sentence posts, about stupid little things that bear no consequence on my life as a whole, and eventually I'll stop even doing that. Then this blog will just join the numerous other blogs I've started, gotten tired with, and abandoned.

That said... keep reading! I'm gonna need your support to keep me back from the ledge!