The cynical optimist

Does anybody have a map?
Anybody maybe happen to know how the hell to do this?
I don’t know if you can tell
But this is me just pretending to know
So where’s the map?
I need a clue
‘Cause the scary truth is
I’m flying blind
And I’m making this up as I go

“Anybody Have A Map” from Dear Evan Hansen

I have never heard a song as the one quoted above so accurately describe how I’m currently feeling. I’m lost and flying blind, but the same sort of adventure and excitement I felt going into it as last year ended has since turned into fear and panic. 

So, I came to the blog to write through it and hope to offer up some advice to myself and anybody who might be going through it too but it’s also because of this blog that I found out that it’s not just this year. Last January I wrote a post called Leap of Faith in which I described my fears of the future and for 2020 (and oh, weren’t those a little misplaced with the year we ended up having…) and I realized that it echoes everything I would have written here…and then I did some research and found out that it’s something that some people go through.

And this something is called the January Blues and it’s something that now that I know is a thing, I can work on it not completely shutting me down for nearly a month…for anybody who doesn’t know what the January Blues are they are a time of feeling down at the start of the new year, whether it’s because you miss the constant motion of the holidays and now there is nothing to celebrate or you feel like you didn’t accomplish everything you wanted to in the previous year, or maybe you are looking forward into the unknowable void of the future and are struggling with not knowing what comes next?

For me I spend a lot of time obsessed on how the last year went and what I’m doing with the year to come. How can I be better this year than last? How did last year really go? and then as I think of the future and what’s in store for me I realize I don’t have a clue and then I spiral into wondering if I wasted time, I turn 30 this year….and I still don’t know what I want to do with my life, I don’t even have answers to the most basic questions of who I am and then it’s just sheer panic, fear and then sadness.

When I was younger I had a plan for my life, I’d figure myself out, find a career, get established in that career and then get married and raise a family free of financial worry and strife.

And let’s just say surprising to nobody, life didn’t stick to the plan, years have passed and I’m still at a retail job that I sort of hate and am stuck and because I’m tired of being stuck I’m trying to shake things up a little and move forward out of retail and onto a path to a job I will enjoy.

BUT I can’t do that because I don’t know what that is and it feels like a constant cycle of frustration, doubt and loathing.

I dislike working here

Then get a job you like!

I don’t know what kind of job I like

How do you not know what you like? are you some kind of idiot?

No, no I just…I don’t know, I just know I don’t like it here.

And then I think on it for awhile and whatever struggles I was having  end up fading away and I start thinking.

Fine, we will stay here until you figure it out it’s not THAT bad here.

Okay, good…I, I’ll try to figure it out.

Good. You do that..

and then the months pass and new or old struggles resurface and the cycle begins anew.

And I know that the intensity of the feeling will fade, it won’t feel as all consuming as it has felt all month because that’s what the January Blues do they eventually fade away, but for me that underlying fear of not knowing where I am going or even in which direction to turn will stay just under the surface and only rear it’s head when I think of what tomorrow might hold.

But a quote just floated to my brain

“The only way out is through.”

-Robert Frost

and maybe that’s my answer? maybe the map I’m looking for is one that I have to create. The only way out from the fog and off the edge of the abyss is to keep moving, to keep living, keep walking, keep hoping and eventually I’ll find where I am supposed to be.

So this year that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to start moving, start creating the map and we’ll see how that goes. I’m sure I’ll find some pitfalls and some other cliffs, but as long as I keep going I will find my way through, and if anybody wants to follow along and join me on the journey of discovery, I welcome the company, let’s keep on walking, keep on discovering, let’s keep on getting through together.