To Be or Not to Be (Discussed at Exorbitant Length)

I'll be in New York from December 15th to 24th; the airline tickets ($594.79 US in total) are booked, and the hostel rooms ($155.00 US) reserved. Though I am certain that, despite the stresses of travel, the journey will be enjoyable once it's underway, my feelings presently are in a state of turmoil that is not happy. Even though it is only a little trip to determine whether I would like to live in New York or whether I've formed a wrong idea of it, it feels like the throw of the dice that will decide my entire future. I have tried to think soberly what to do if I decide not to move there after all, or don't find work there, but on the whole I think I'd be very depressed if that were the case. It is the one thing I have really looked forward to, aside from my friend's visit and our travels this summer, in years. So it is exciting but also terrifying.

What bothers me, too, is the worry that my parents and relatives (will) disapprove. Of course I say that I need to live in a way that contents me, but the other side is that I've always been afraid of disapproval and it drains my self-confidence. My plans are mostly quixotic, but often enough I am only formulating them and building them out in my mind to cheer me up and give me some hope for the future instead of the customary dread; besides, if they are practicable and worthwhile, only very difficult to carry out, I think it's unkind to discourage me from pursuing them.

Anyway, I want to be completely honest now, and I am writing what follows partly so that I don't have to think it within myself the whole time, and partly because it's probably interesting as a psychological case study. For a long time I haven't understood why I still exist, or existed in the first place. Up until Grade 11 I felt that life was going somewhere, and now it only feels like an endless and empty coda. It is childish of me to still harp on the subject, but in a way I feel as if my school years after Grade 7 stole my future. I don't know what I am good at or what I want to do, and whatever talents I have are totally underdeveloped; then, not only did my bad grades undermine my belief in myself and conversely make me stop caring about grades because the criteria by which they were given were too absurd and arbitrary, but they also deprived me of any chance of entering any of the "best" universities, which I wanted to enter not for the sake of the degree or subsequent job but because I thought that they would teach me the most. I still don't know whether I am stupid or intelligent, a good writer or a bad one (my spelling and grammar are good, and my vocabulary is extensive, but that isn't everything), and a good musician or a bad one. Of course much blame can be put on me, too, but the system was utterly unsuited. Then there are, in addition, the years of being at the bottom of the social hierarchy among my classmates, so that I'm still hermity and absolutely afraid of people my own age five years later.

It also seems as if, whenever there has been an opportunity for something to move forward, it hasn't happened, except for UBC (after the gap year), which then petered out after the second year when it was clear that I hadn't the motivation to continue, and the move to Germany. I have done hours of job-searching, and applied to some five jobs for which I thought I was really suited, and nothing has happened. I research travelling to places, buying an apartment, etc., on the internet, and it isn't carried out. On the surface of it, it looks as if I were doing nothing, but it would have looked as if I were doing a lot if anyone had decided to employ me. On the other hand, it is quite evident that, firstly, it was wrong to expect that in the future things just happen to one, because they don't; and, secondly, one does have to do astronomical quantities of job-searching and send out huge numbers of applications if one does actually want to get work (except through connections, which I don't want to use and only could if I really made an effort, as I don't think that being on speaking terms with the influential Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so, or having the same third cousin as one's boss, is a valid job qualification, etc.). My dabbling won't cut it, and I wish it had been clearer to me from the outset that, under the circumstances, it may truly not be my fault if the job-search is unproductive.

Then I have the sense that I am completely unimportant to anyone. If I were to move to New York, I would leave a gap in the family, because I've been around for twenty-three years and have on the whole been a pleasant element. But the last time I was an actually agreeable influence on the lives of more than ten people was probably when I was still publishing the family newsletter, which managed to amuse a goodly circle of relatives and friends. Besides, I am not truly close to anyone. I've never been able to share my problems well with other people, either because I can't analyze the problems succinctly, or they are boring and too abstract, or I doubt that anyone would understand, or I don't want to burden anyone. Though I can talk to my parents about most things, and can confide the harmless portions of my experience to my siblings, I don't even do that often.

At any rate, the worst problem is the previously mentioned fear of not doing anything in life except being befallen by one unhappy event or despairing mood after another, wherefore I wish that I could cut the whole miserable thing short. In July I did get terribly close to suicide, and I planned things out as far as is possible with an impulse like that. But I have come to the conclusion that it is not an option. Though, at the age of sixteen, I was certain that no one would be very sad when I died because I wasn't at all loveable, I figure now that tears would be shed, if only out of pity for life cut prematurely short, etc., and that I'd cast a gloom over everyone who likes me and possibly provoke a lot of emotional turmoil. I don't want to inflict that. Secondly, though people will have to feel bad when I die sooner or later, I figure that it's nicer to go out in God's own good time, with dignity, and that God's own good time and dignity do not involve a gory and violent scene of slit wrists. Thirdly, I like comfort and find self-injurious impulses instinctively repellent. Lastly, while I'm given the opportunity to live I might as well do something worthwhile with it. So, as I've said, suicide is not an option. Only from time to time I think of it when I feel powerless again, and more often I do think I'd like to be in heaven (its boringness as depicted in popular culture no longer being much of an objection).

In the end, once I've taken as my premise that dying is not an option, it's clear that I might as well face things bravely and make the best of them. (Which might not be precisely what I was doing in this post; but I don't want to complain, only explain how things are.) I also know that lots of people are suicidal; it's a part of life and one can get past it. Also, such feelings, though they are awful at the time, aren't the worst I've known; it is far easier being unhappy but feeling that there is a way out, than being unhappy but feeling that there is no way out. So, with the exception of my second year at UBC, I haven't been this contented since Grade 7; it's only that inaction and hopelessness encourage this sort of thought more than active stress does.

Long story short, I can deal with all sorts of things, and have done it for a long time, and will continue to do so, on my own. If I do something stupid, honestly I don't feel that anyone else is responsible, or should feel so. What I'd only like is to be trusted and respected as an adult, and treated as a reasonable and independent being, and not to be judged all the time. And if I can at least try to follow my whims and dreams in peace, I'll be eternally grateful.