One of the Worst Days of My Life

As the title appropriately suggests, I did not have a good day. First, there was no coffee. I've dealt with that, but at about 3 PM, my mind went kapootz. I started then, officially, I-Hate-Myself-to-Death Day™.

Now, don't go looking for that suicide hotline phone number just yet. Y'all know that I'm normally a chipper person who's optimistic as the next inmate on deathrow next person, and I'm just having a bad day. Don't you start a body hunt yet. I ain't dead yet, y'hear? (Note: I plan to live at least until I pass the one whole century mark!)

I hate myself today. I hate my life, it sucks ass. It sucks more than a Hoover. It reeks. Yanno, I've been stuck in a rut for the last three years. Six, if you count the unproductive years (which is sort of my fault). I recently heard that a high school classmate of mine is at Johns Hopkins medical school. Good for her. But I'm so screwed up that I can't be happy for her. I have to be mean and miserable and spiteful. And I've got the big time jealousy thing going on also.

I had a vision for my life. I had a dream. I wanted to live my life a certain way, with a certain panache. I had plans. I'm not saying that since my life went on the "road not taken" that my life is screwed. It's not that. It's just that the road less traveled by was not as green as the other. In fact, it was a moldy, bumpy road that reeked. And I'm lost desparately.

I used to be a bright girl. People thought that I'd make it big someday. Most of my classmates, if they should remember me, would imagine that I went on to my dream school of choice, went on to medical school as I had planned, and probably about to graduate as an MD from a hot shot med school. That was my dream. Where did it go? I wanted to go to college -- that's not to say that I'm not going to college now, but it's a different place.

I wanted to go to a university -- a big one full of people of different cultures and tastes; I'd learn so much, from the classes, but also from my peers. I'd make mistakes -- I'd go on a beer-drinking contest and realize that I can't outdrink a 6 foot tall football-playing frat boy, and it would be ok, as long as I don't repeat it. I would complain about the music my next door neighbors played in the dorm. I'd be a stellar student and I'd not only be smart, but also intelligent and wiser.

I can't do that now. I'm not 18 or 19. I will never ever have that college experience. That went down the drain. It was something I wanted more than anything -- to go to Berkeley, and spend four incredible years and make awesome college buddies I'll keep in touch with for a long time. But that's just one of the things that went wrong.

Most of my classmates from that time have graduated from college -- at least the ones I had been close to. They are off doing marvelous things -- one is with some politician, working as his spokesperson (of some kind), and a few are in med school. They are doing research, getting papers published. They are in news papers. They're in graduate school. They're doing what they love. You know. I have been avoiding my classmates at all costs, which can be an ordeal, since I still live in my hometown. Because everytime I meet someone from my high school, they always ask: why? Why are you working in a cell phone store? Why haven't you gone to a college? Why haven't you graduated yet? Why do you look so miserable? I know they don't intend to rub it in or intrude in my privacy; but I understand how surprising it must be that miss smarty pants (snobby, smarty pants) is doing the most unlikely thing. Heck, it surprises me!

I know it's snobby. But I was meant for better, bigger things. I wasn't meant to wait three years just to get into nursing school (that's even still pending, so who knows how long!). I wasn't supposed to work a menial job, 52 hours a week. It is so completely different from the life I've wanted.

I don't mean to continue with the complain (well, I suppose it is my blog and I could rant if I want to), but there is more. I know the advice. Don't look back, just look forward, because there's got to be a better future for someone as hardworking as you. There, there, things will get better sweetheart. You know, the worst part of it all, is that I've been keeping a stiff upper lip and an optimistic outlook, just on hope. I had hope of somehow getting out of this rut. I had hope of making it, and still reaching my dreams. I had hope. But now, that hope is wearing thin.

The utterly, utterly, utterly powerless feeling that I have now -- that I have no control over the occurrences in my life -- leaves me feeling so pained, so vulnerable, so despicably hateful.

One thing new that has disturbed me (never thought of it before) was how deteriorated I have become. I used to be bright. People told me I was a talented musician, writer, and student -- I learned so quickly and retained so much. I was nothing short of brilliant, if I say so myself. But now I'm dull. I'm mirky. I'm faded. I'm a dim light bulb that's on its way out. I'm dumb. And when I am feeling this low, I usually throw in a few others too: I'm fat and ugly.

I used to speak Spanish pretty well, and now it's just not there anymore. My ability to read hiragana and katakana are also not quite there. When I play the violin, my cat bites my ankles and scratches my feet.

My mental capacity decreased. I can't memorize lines from Shakespeare. What ever happened to memorizing monologues? I can recall, "Friends, Romans, Countrymen! Lend me your ears. I have come to bury Caesar, not to..." and I can't even remember that perfectly.

I'm having an awful day. Yesterday was pretty bad, but I got the Jazz CD's and they just boosted my mood. Today, I got this:

And I'm still down in the dumps. I was really close to crumbling up the certificate and tossing it into the trash, when my mom stopped me. I'm hoping that tomorrow will be better. I'm hoping that tomorrow, I'll remember to take coffee in a thermos to work. I'm hoping that tomorrow, my customers won't dare get on my nerves. Cuz I may explode. Jeez.

On a side note, I need a recorder badly. A digital one would be ideal -- I may have to let the iPod and the scanner wait -- I realized that my unhappiness sounded so cohesive and well thought out in the car on the way home, when I was on the brink of tears, and now that I'm blogging, 5 hours later, it sounds all mumbo jumbo like. I'm getting a recorder before the other crap. Yep.