Today has been one of those days when you feel like you’ve been in a boxing ring for 13 rounds, everything aches but in a state of confusion and possibly concussion, you find yourself wondering how you’re still on your feet.
The sun will still rise tomorrow, the birds will still sing. It may well be a cold winters day, the kind where you could write messages in your own breath but at least that still means that you are breathing.
What actually matters in life? Is it whether you have the latest devices, whether you have a nice car on the cracked wobbly flagstones you call your drive? Is it keeping up with the Joneses, whoever the Joneses are? Is it having that job that fills you with anxiety everyday, but keeps your credit score high? Is it being able to keep the bailiffs away and service that huge pile of debt you have from chasing that desire to feel like your life is successful?
Do I still have value without the job title? Will my friends still want to meet up if I can’t buy that pint or fuel my car?
You see, right now miserable would be a huge improvement for my state of mind. I have to wear all these different hats for different people. I have to be the stable one, the mature one, the adult. I have to be the one that’s always laughing, joking and smiling. I have to be the one that can cope, the high achiever, the senior one with the answers.
In reality I’m the stressed one, the one that wants to bury my head in the sand, the one that wakes up every afternoon having not slept for the negative thoughts raging through my brain the night before, disappointed that it’s another day and I’m still here. That’s the real person under the mask. That’s not a person you want to be around.
Today was supposed to be the day I bought the things I needed to put myself out of my self-induced misery. I had already bookmarked the page for the nitrogen canister, the non-rebreather mask, and the extra strong body bag. I’d already written my suicide note.
I had a list of all the financial organisations I needed to write to. I had a list of all the people that I worked closely with whom I wanted to leave a recommendation for on linkedin. I was going to write down all the things I usually did, a bit like an instruction list for someone house sitting.
I had the names of people I wanted to write to separately to say thank you and to try to absolve them of any feelings of guilt or “why didn’t I notice”, “why didn’t I do something”. I wanted to minimise the pain as best I could but I was ready to go and I was treating this like any other holiday I had planned, in exhaustive detail, just with less need for sunscreen.
I knew the date, I knew the time. I knew the where and the how but somehow the day has passed and no money has left my bank account for those items, no order has been placed. The path had been so clear to me, I knew what I had to do and I “knew” it was the only way out but what if there is another way? What if there could be a different purpose for me?
Would it matter if I quit my job? What else could I do? Being a software developer is what I did but being a writer is what I am. Sure, maybe not a good one. Maybe the kind of writer that doesn’t know the difference between a sentence and a paragraph? Maybe the kind of writer that uses the wrong homophone every time? Maybe the most repetitive single trick pony there has ever been? Flogging a dead horse of self indulgent colloquialisms and appeals to emotion masquerading behind unnecessary adverbials? Perhaps the very antithesis of plain English and the king of exaggeration?
At this point I could pretty much write anything as all three readers have either fallen asleep, retired or opted for euthanasia rather than read any longer. Did I mention the tangents to tangents that tingle and tangle and yes, the last two words are only in there for the purpose of alliteration.
Anyway, I will stop the procrastination and return to the original conundrum. What if instead of taking my life, I took my brain somewhere else. What if I found another job or even another career entirely? I hear people do that.
But my question is how? If you have no nest egg saved up to fall back on and a Kilimanjaro of debt, how do you take that jump out of the aeroplane, not knowing whether you even have a parachute in that rucksack on your back, never mind whether it will open?
With my weight I’m very limited to what I can actually do. I have a face for radio and a voice for mime. Would employers want me if I pretend that Computer Science degree doesn’t exist and deny all knowledge of the existence of JavaScript?
Would my wife even accept it? The consequences for her of having a chocolate kettle husband that is not contributing and the risk to our home and lifestyle that comes with that are not for me to just decide on. It’s not fair, that’s not the person she married. She married a man surrounded by his colleagues in a profession he worked hard to access on the back off her support as I burned the double-ended tallow.
That’s not a fair ultimatum to put on anybody but the reality is I’m not very well right now and if I don’t do “something”, I’m not going to get better and I have an appointment with a fridge and furnace. It’s the financial anxiety, the imposter syndrome, the feeling of abject failure that are pulling me towards a self inflicted annihilation with the force akin to gravity. Something has to give, something has to change. How do you have that conversation with someone and what if she’s had enough?
It’s like watching a slow motion car crash and not being able to do anything about it, you know there’s going to be a collision, it’s just to what extent is the damage. Psychologically, that inert gas and mask combo is a much easier choice, but why don’t I seem to be able to make it? Is it just a case of psyching myself up? Will I wake up tomorrow and express checkout on that cart? Will I find that missing link, explaining which regulator I actually need and how to attach it all together? Or do we have that conversation?
I’m a man. Just talking about my feelings isn’t going to help. I’ve been talking about my feelings for a while now and stewing in my own juices hasn’t stopped the pan from boiling over. What I need is hope, an action plan. I need to know what life would be like in practical terms if I dropped 10k, 20k, 30k. How could I service the debt and still be able to pay the bills without losing our home? Swapping 3% loans for 11% loans doesn’t seem like a sensible idea right now so the old option of increasing the term by consolidating isn’t really an option.
What can I actually do? Should I dabble at technical writing? Not really my forte but the dream of knocking out a few autobiographical self help books with no qualifications other than life experience and them actually being purchased by people with real money is fanciful right now.
I need to earn a crust and as much as the thought of signing onto my work laptop itself fills me with dread right now, my employers have been incredibly understanding and flexible through the three complete breakdowns I’ve had in the last couple of years. What if the next employer isn’t like that? What if my current low energy and malaise makes it impossible to get off the ground with something new? I need to speak to somebody but I don’t know whether that’s a recruiter, a therapist, a doctor or an exorcist. Maybe all four.
Right now there is just this tiny crack of hope that maybe something I do is of value to somebody, and that I can take some meaning from this whole excrement tempest that has been the last three years.
I feel like I need to do something positive, I need to be a beacon in the darkest sky for someone else. If I can give back somehow with a few words on a page that can maybe give hope to the hopeless then maybe I’ll have some meaning again, something that keeps that mask off my face, and the oxygen to re-ignite that flame that once burnt brightly.
Rant Over 