Don’t you want to get a job?
Don’t you want a career?
Don’t you want to own a house?
Every phone conversation I seem to have with my mother eventually slides over to money. To my future. To that pesky little thing called a JOB. It’s bad enough that I haven’t made a penny since March 1st and I’ve had rent, bills and a trip to New Orleans sucking at my savings account’s meager teat. (Did I really just say that?) Throw in the constant reminders and I’m a little bit of a mess.
I haven’t had a job since August. Not a full time, salaried position anyway. While I have enjoyed my time off immensely, I want to continue to enjoy my time and to continue to travel. If I run out of money, which I will do sooner than later, I can no longer stay in Boulder. I can’t move home either, as my mother is quick to point out. Not that I’d ever want to, it’s just that if my situation does not improve, if I don’t get a job that covers the bills here in Boulder, I will have to look for work elsewhere. Which I really don’t want to have to do.
Yes, I’ve had the itch recently to move. It has been slowly crawling along my skin, a dull itch that, after New Orleans, became a stronger desire. Plain and simple, I miss my friends. I miss those people who know me. For one week I was with one of my very good friends, a friend I’ve known for nine years, whom I can just be myself with and it’s easy. It hasn’t been easy here in Boulder. Making connections has been fun and while I have met some great people, it isn’t the same as having those old friends around. I have become more introverted since moving here and to be honest, while I started off over the moon happy about being here, I’ve slowly but steadily become more and more depressed.
This is not something that is easy for me to confess to, I barely even admit it to myself. But that’s the facts and I sit here in my dining room and I’m consistently lonely. A feeling I haven’t felt since I was in High School. A feeling I hate more than anything in the world. More than spiders, more than snakes and more than heights.
I sit home most days and don’t do much of anything. I scour jobs, tweet boring things that have no meaning, try to read and sometimes go for walks. This existence is pretty fucking miserable, since we’re being all honest. I don’t have the stimulation I need, one of the biggest problems with my last job and why I was so unhappy there. Constant under-stimulation is not safe for Ashley’s mental health and leads me to wish for change, for something different.
Part of this can be expertly summed up by a passage from Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert that I’m reading right now. It’s a passage about a fight her and her fiance were having and it struck a chord. Not the fight itself but this particular message:
Prior to this conversation, my instinct had been to keep us moving at a fast clip from one new place to another with the hope that fresh vistas would distract us {from our legal troubles}. This sort of strategy had always worked for me in the past anyhow. Like a fussy baby who can fall asleep only in a moving car, I have always been comforted by the tempo of travel.
Yes, and yes. This hits home SO HARD. I moved every three years when I was little and while that was not my doing, it allowed me to get myself out of situations if I didn’t like them. It kept my fun level up and kept me stimulated. The big moves, with the big moving vans and the constant packing and unpacking of brown cardboard boxes, were a nightmare but also a little fun. There was something new waiting at the end of that plane, train or car trip. There was a new house with a new room and new people to meet at my new school. I made no ties, no lasting friendships during those years, it wasn’t until Michigan State and New York City that I developed deep, meaningful relationships with people. That I let people in. (This is a topic for another post, my lack of ability to let people get too close to me)
When I was in Europe if I wasn’t having fun, I would board a bus and head to another location. If I were having fun, I’d keep my trip going for a little bit longer in that particular place. I was the happiest I’d been while overseas and I was also extremely extroverted. Yet, I have fallen so far from that extroverted, fun-having person that I don’t know how I did it. I just know that I miss it. I do not like being as introverted as I am becoming. I’ve always had the tendencies of an introverted person but I was always social, always engaging people and now I’m content to…not do any of that. And, at the same time, I crave people. I crave friendships, I crave relationships. I crave that interaction I’m not getting from my current lifestyle.
I know the answer is not to run away. I have been queen of running from problems when they surface. I have a tendency of hanging up the phone when in a fight (so mature of me!), I have a tendency to hide under the covers when the going gets rough. When I am upset, I turn to something I know well, like a good movie or a good book, instead of something that requires work, like a new relationship. Going back to New York and my friends, my comfort zone in this situation, isn’t going to solve my problems. Going to another city isn’t going to solve my problems. Traveling will only be a temporary high. I need to give Boulder a chance and work through this rough patch, even if this rough patch has been a month long. Heightened ever so slightly with a break up and the fact that I do not have any sort of routine, no job and no money to allow me to get out of the apartment.
While money does not buy happiness, it can buy retail therapy and certainly alleviates some stress. Having a job and a routine? May just solve my problems. Moving to a new city right now is not going to solve that problem. Moving through my situation right now though just might solve it.
How do you deal with life when the going gets rough?
*Ironically, in regards to the title at least, the picture above was taken from the previous boy’s house. Talk about pretty view and an unhappy ending.
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Take running off the table. Focusing your energy on making things happen instead of on how to avoid them.
Easier said than done though. I’ll be the first to admit.
I definitely relate to this. I need to be around people with whom I can have a conversation with without any filters. The new friends I’ve made in the last year or so – they’re great, but being sociable with them takes energy, at the end of the day, I feel tired. I don’t think I feel that way when I’m with my old friends. I miss them, but I think I’m just getting farther and farther away from them. And despite how excited I am to meet new people, I think (or am afraid that) I am going to feel really lonely.
I also moved a lot as a kid, still moving now. In a few months, I’ll be moving from Canada to Singapore, a place I’ve never been to and where I know all of 1.5 people. I think for people like us, who move every few years, it’s hard for us to establish strong bonds with the people we meet – enough for those bonds to hold on after we move – but the ones that do are the ones that are worth it.
I am sorry you have hit a rough patch. Only you know whats best for you, if thats a job in a new place, a new town with your old friends, etc. Figuring it out is never an easy task. But if you’re not happy and feel yourself slipping towards depression, getting yourself happy is what matters most. Sending you big hugs.
I don’t know what to say, I’m a runner as well.
But I’m also a planner. When I can’t (or really don’t want to run) I sit down and plan. I write and rewrite what things’ll be like in the next couple years if I do this or this or that.
It’s really just a distraction, but sometimes just what I need to focus on the now
(while focusing on the future) so I can make it through…
I definitely can understand your situation. I, too, recently moved to a new city, which is more than a thousand miles away from home, the place where I grew up and returned to after college. The first three months were rough for a multitude of reasons, with the hardest part being away from my family and friends, as well as having to make new friends. However, I also looked at as a new beginning — a chance to learn more about myself and try new things.
I have been here for five months now, and I’m starting to feel like it is becoming home (even though I still get itchy feet often and consider giving up my job and travel the world!). From my experience and as a self-proclaimed introverted socialite, it just takes time, patience and willingness to put yourself out there. “The greatest risk is not taking one.”
If deep meaningful relationships is what you seek, then moving is the LAST thing you want to do. That will only make things worse. I remember when I moved to NYC I thought I would be a “whole new person” and be able to make friends easily because I wouldn’t be confined by how other people perceived me. I could start fresh! Except I was still me, and I still had my same instincts, and so moving away and starting over what the hardest thing I ever did. It was worth it in the end, because now I do have good friends, and a good job, and live in the place I have always dreamed. But I also know that if I picked up and moved somewhere else just because things “weren’t working out” only meant that I would have have to star from scratch YET AGAIN.
Moving would only be advisable if you already have a job lined up somewhere else in a place that you can see yourself living. But just picking up and going “Well, I’ll try here now” is going to land you in the same position you’re in. It seems like you have the beginnings of deep relationships in Boulder – those things take TIME. So if you like Boulder and the people and think there are job opportunities for you, then I would stay. Developing roots takes time and some energy. You’ll get there.
the money bit is hard. when i was getting over my divorce, and the loneliness was overwhelming, i forced myself into the crowd. i went to a book signing, and sat at a streetside table at the wine bar afterwards, noshing and wining and people watching.
surely there are some free things to do there? take a book and a blanket to the park. go for a hike. just get out into the world, even by yourself, to have a change of scenery.
even if it’s just a walk around your block, get out of the apartment and move around. half of depression is inertia. fight it.
xoxoxo
I don’t really have any good advice for you, love…but I hope you figure things out soon. I know you must feel confused and feeling unfulfilled must suck, but I know you will get through it.
I just wanted to let you know that I’m still reading and keeping up with you.
I’m sorry things have been a bit rough lately- we’ve all been there at one point or another and I know it sucks. BUT! I saw on twitter today you GOT A JOB which is huge news! Congratulations!!! Hopefully this is the first step to figuring things out and making a happy routine for yourself. At the very least it will help with the money issue, right?! 
Hopefully the new job development will help this situation. I think a lot of it has to do with not having a routine, like you said.
And on those days when you’re feeling down and wanting to hide, as much as it sucks, try to do what VeryBadCat said – get out into the world, even if you don’t want to. I’ve found that for me, fresh air and forcing myself to get out will get me out of my own head and focused on other things.
Sometimes it’s these moments when I call my parents, ask them not to be my parents for just a minute, but instead to just listen to what I have to say and what I need advice on. They usually pull through for me. I know the feeling… while I’ve been in St. Louis for quite sometime, I get an itch to leave but I always supress it. I often struggle with facing fears & just doing or being, especially when it comes to relationships. I guess all I can offer is to focus on you and what you want to do, whether it be in Boulder or elsewhere and then just make it happen somehow. I’m sure it will take time, but once you please yourself, everything else (job, location, men) will fall into place. i’m a firm believer in that.
Side note: I love your tweets always. And there’s plenty of room in StL if that’s of interest to you for visiting or otherwise
Thinking of you!
Hey I just found your site tonight, and this post resonates with me. I’m sorta in a similar situation. I haven’t had a job for a while and I’m currently going through a bankruptcy, which is actually liberating. I can either try staying here and going back to a similar (un-fulfilling) job, or go off and try to find something that really lights me up so to speak. Trouble is I don’t really know what that is.
Boulder is a tough place to make friends it seems. People definitely can take or leave you at the drop of a hat. Maybe because it’s so transient. I’ve been here 5 years and haven’t made any real tight connections. (Check out the city-data forums if you want confirmation of this observation.) I guess the key is finding a sort of niche around people who aren’t too pretentious, so you can just be yourself.
I’ve always been kind of a loner, so being alone doesn’t bother me all the time, just occasionally. But I’m with you, it would be nice to make more connections. Maybe this social media thing really can bring people together.