I failed!
I failed spectacularly in getting that money. I failed because I don’t know how to control my heartbeat. I failed in
forwarding my general existential strife to emulate people like Elon Musk. I
failed my paralyzed body as it sat staring out to nowhere thinking about
everything I want to do and be. I failed after 2 previous failures that at
least had the decency to close the door handily immediately after screening and
not let me in the door and into scrubs.
I’ve been mulling over how to approach this the entire drive home. I think it may be best to approach it as quasi-self-contained paragraphs that all speak to some aspect of my anxiety. The tricky thing about anxiety is that it doesn’t necessarily have to be irrational. It could prove to be all sorts of hazardous to be able to shut down your mechanism for being worried about shit. Unfortunately for my brain at least, I’m never just worried about one thing. I can’t just relax or distract myself because you, or the phlebotomist, or the doctor tells me to.
I’m still stuck on the screaming contradiction of my existence. I was in the lobby reading article after article about places Nick Turse has travelled filled with death and destruction. It was a buffet of information about just how fucked Hitler 2 is going to leave us. It was one story after the next of corrupt people, institutions, regression, hatred, and stupidity. It’s happening every moment of every day. It’s worse than you think, and then you realize it’s worse than you’ll ever be able to fully conceive. And my biggest problem in life is getting my heart to beat a little bit slower?
When framed like that it sounds ridiculous. Now home, embarrassed, mildly annoyed, but mostly just returning to my resolved meandering angst, I’m calling another study center tomorrow. My rent is still paid up for a few months. I still own the land that’s worth at least double what I paid for it. As far as I know, given that I didn’t make it to the blood test results, I’m still healthy. My worst case scenario is 4 few hour drives in bad weather; a feat many I know achieve before midweek every week.
But what does my mind do? It maps the delay in my plans onto the entire world. I’m here worried about working myself up and out of studies? What about the myriad travesties that had to take place for me to discover this kind of lifestyle in the first place? This kind of shit is a dozen steps back then haphazard lurches forward when a little luck and timing kicks in. These places were meant to take advantage of the mother of 4 who has to bring her kids to her outpatient visits. These are supposed to be for bored retirees and quasi-homeless people. The first time one of the girls taking my blood called it my job, I practically choked rushing to proclaim the joke of our responsibilities in light of someone like my iron working dead.
It’s only a tinge of guilt when I think it, but it still rings true. I feel so alone. I’m generally at the end of peoples’ priority list. No one is going to be a part of this land until I put up even larger amounts of money. My ideas and experiments won’t be able to be entertained until a half dozen or more studies are saved up for. And I’ll have to keep telling myself over and over that it’s not your fault. I won’t believe it, but I’ll keep telling it to myself because I know how fucking trapped we all are. I know how broke and paycheck to paycheck goes. I know the stress and uncertainty. Despite all the hell, what I never hear is the truth.
You don’t blog. You don’t share anything but pictures or often enough weird memes. I’m painting with a broad brush because I’m speaking to the majority. I see you coping, not thinking. I see you passing the time and spreading likes and congratulations, not collaborating. Every day it’s a reminder that I’m alone. No one is going to save me. If we’re living out the end of the country hurdling as a fireball from hell towards economic ruin and intellectual suicide, there’s like 2 or 3 really laying it out there leaving aside a spattering of writers. If I can’t live sustainably, make a fairly large amount of money, acquire all form of seemingly random skills, I’m going to be severely fucked. On top of that, when I see my friends who are still trying for that “normal job” or habitually avoiding dealing with the true depth of their precarious lives, all I’m going to be able to do is watch.
My heart didn’t really slow down from the moment I woke up. The week preceding this morning, I kept saying “if” I get in. The “if” felt so loud. It’s like I was anticipating sitting here after failing the entire time. I then invent all sorts of scenarios that might’ve played out to feel better about it. Maybe my blood wouldn’t have had me pass anyway. Maybe it’s going to be a hella storm one day I’m supposed to drive down, so the universe intervened before my impending crash and death. Maybe I’m supposed to be back at that Podunk school teaching marching because some impression I’m to leave means more in the long term. Maybe there are 2 higher paying studies I can do at the same time I won’t know about until tomorrow.
Either way, the reason I’m always anxious and absolutely desperate to give myself options that aren’t dependent on something like my blood or heart is because…the world. The world where I don’t ever see your freak outs or parse through your reasoning and then our connection dulls. The world where we stopped drinking together. The world where even when I get everything I want, I’ll still be offering it to people in no position to take it. The world of fogged over eyes and wretched smiles as we see what life has done to us before we peak over our shoulders looking for a way out. No amount of money I make, buildings I build, or toys I acquire is going to fix that. I can’t make you believe in yourselves. I can’t pretend to know what risks you’re capable of taking.
Most disturbingly, part of me feels like I punish myself because not enough real things go wrong in my life. There’s not enough general anxiety for me walk in cool-headed and knock out studies like I’m not thinking about anything. If I wasn’t here writing this right now, what? I’d just be getting even more money to spend on things that aren’t health insurance or a better car? I’d most likely end up paying too much for a handful of things that get me no further in any real or monetary sense until the next study anyway.
It feels like a dream. I watched myself from afar fail the heart rate monitor. I wasn’t there cheering it on and working hard to pump the blood. It beat hard and fast without my vote. I had to do nothing but show up with my brain that attaches itself to an even more abstract future dream when it can’t even make sense of or control the present one. I can’t connect into a larger world than myself. The ones provided are lies or downright trying to kill me. Think I’m giving it up to a god? Think I sway with your subtle suggestions and encouragement? Think I just want to be distracted or drunk all the time? If all went to shit I’m sure I’ll always be able to find a couch, but in reality, nothing about the world I want and we need is happening without me. I don’t know if you understand it’s not happening without you either.
Is your heart racing?
I’ve been mulling over how to approach this the entire drive home. I think it may be best to approach it as quasi-self-contained paragraphs that all speak to some aspect of my anxiety. The tricky thing about anxiety is that it doesn’t necessarily have to be irrational. It could prove to be all sorts of hazardous to be able to shut down your mechanism for being worried about shit. Unfortunately for my brain at least, I’m never just worried about one thing. I can’t just relax or distract myself because you, or the phlebotomist, or the doctor tells me to.
I’m still stuck on the screaming contradiction of my existence. I was in the lobby reading article after article about places Nick Turse has travelled filled with death and destruction. It was a buffet of information about just how fucked Hitler 2 is going to leave us. It was one story after the next of corrupt people, institutions, regression, hatred, and stupidity. It’s happening every moment of every day. It’s worse than you think, and then you realize it’s worse than you’ll ever be able to fully conceive. And my biggest problem in life is getting my heart to beat a little bit slower?
When framed like that it sounds ridiculous. Now home, embarrassed, mildly annoyed, but mostly just returning to my resolved meandering angst, I’m calling another study center tomorrow. My rent is still paid up for a few months. I still own the land that’s worth at least double what I paid for it. As far as I know, given that I didn’t make it to the blood test results, I’m still healthy. My worst case scenario is 4 few hour drives in bad weather; a feat many I know achieve before midweek every week.
But what does my mind do? It maps the delay in my plans onto the entire world. I’m here worried about working myself up and out of studies? What about the myriad travesties that had to take place for me to discover this kind of lifestyle in the first place? This kind of shit is a dozen steps back then haphazard lurches forward when a little luck and timing kicks in. These places were meant to take advantage of the mother of 4 who has to bring her kids to her outpatient visits. These are supposed to be for bored retirees and quasi-homeless people. The first time one of the girls taking my blood called it my job, I practically choked rushing to proclaim the joke of our responsibilities in light of someone like my iron working dead.
It’s only a tinge of guilt when I think it, but it still rings true. I feel so alone. I’m generally at the end of peoples’ priority list. No one is going to be a part of this land until I put up even larger amounts of money. My ideas and experiments won’t be able to be entertained until a half dozen or more studies are saved up for. And I’ll have to keep telling myself over and over that it’s not your fault. I won’t believe it, but I’ll keep telling it to myself because I know how fucking trapped we all are. I know how broke and paycheck to paycheck goes. I know the stress and uncertainty. Despite all the hell, what I never hear is the truth.
You don’t blog. You don’t share anything but pictures or often enough weird memes. I’m painting with a broad brush because I’m speaking to the majority. I see you coping, not thinking. I see you passing the time and spreading likes and congratulations, not collaborating. Every day it’s a reminder that I’m alone. No one is going to save me. If we’re living out the end of the country hurdling as a fireball from hell towards economic ruin and intellectual suicide, there’s like 2 or 3 really laying it out there leaving aside a spattering of writers. If I can’t live sustainably, make a fairly large amount of money, acquire all form of seemingly random skills, I’m going to be severely fucked. On top of that, when I see my friends who are still trying for that “normal job” or habitually avoiding dealing with the true depth of their precarious lives, all I’m going to be able to do is watch.
My heart didn’t really slow down from the moment I woke up. The week preceding this morning, I kept saying “if” I get in. The “if” felt so loud. It’s like I was anticipating sitting here after failing the entire time. I then invent all sorts of scenarios that might’ve played out to feel better about it. Maybe my blood wouldn’t have had me pass anyway. Maybe it’s going to be a hella storm one day I’m supposed to drive down, so the universe intervened before my impending crash and death. Maybe I’m supposed to be back at that Podunk school teaching marching because some impression I’m to leave means more in the long term. Maybe there are 2 higher paying studies I can do at the same time I won’t know about until tomorrow.
Either way, the reason I’m always anxious and absolutely desperate to give myself options that aren’t dependent on something like my blood or heart is because…the world. The world where I don’t ever see your freak outs or parse through your reasoning and then our connection dulls. The world where we stopped drinking together. The world where even when I get everything I want, I’ll still be offering it to people in no position to take it. The world of fogged over eyes and wretched smiles as we see what life has done to us before we peak over our shoulders looking for a way out. No amount of money I make, buildings I build, or toys I acquire is going to fix that. I can’t make you believe in yourselves. I can’t pretend to know what risks you’re capable of taking.
Most disturbingly, part of me feels like I punish myself because not enough real things go wrong in my life. There’s not enough general anxiety for me walk in cool-headed and knock out studies like I’m not thinking about anything. If I wasn’t here writing this right now, what? I’d just be getting even more money to spend on things that aren’t health insurance or a better car? I’d most likely end up paying too much for a handful of things that get me no further in any real or monetary sense until the next study anyway.
It feels like a dream. I watched myself from afar fail the heart rate monitor. I wasn’t there cheering it on and working hard to pump the blood. It beat hard and fast without my vote. I had to do nothing but show up with my brain that attaches itself to an even more abstract future dream when it can’t even make sense of or control the present one. I can’t connect into a larger world than myself. The ones provided are lies or downright trying to kill me. Think I’m giving it up to a god? Think I sway with your subtle suggestions and encouragement? Think I just want to be distracted or drunk all the time? If all went to shit I’m sure I’ll always be able to find a couch, but in reality, nothing about the world I want and we need is happening without me. I don’t know if you understand it’s not happening without you either.
Is your heart racing?
