10 Minutes

So I gave myself ten minutes to write before I am sending myself to bed. Well, 8 now. Midnight. I will go to bed by midnight. The problem is I lost the second ambein that Caroline gave me and I am scared that I am not going to be able to sleep. After a whole weekend of sleep, and after the second anniversary passed, I thought I would be over this. I thought I would be able to go to bed. But here I am, in the same undecorated apartment, no furniture, but lots of dust bunnies, so not feeling at home, and at the same job that I am absolutely petrified that I don't like. I keep vacillating between two poles, on the one hand I want to be happy, have a home, find fulfillment in what I do. But on the other hand, I am an "adult" now, with a HUGE mortgage and a job that lets me not worry about how much money I am spending. And I still manage to spend just to the limit of what I have. The thing is, I don't think that moving to a smaller city, getting a bigger, more homey place will make any difference. If I have a job that doesn't require as much time, what would I spend the extra time doing? Reading trash novels, watching cable that I won't be able to afford because I spent all of my less than half of what it is now salary on crap food that makes me fat while ignoring my gym membership that I paid too much for because I wanted to be a member of the tony gym instead of the basic stripped down one that would have been better for my budget and better as a dust catcher in my wallet. But sometimes I think that if I could just get out of the city, and have a place where I could be closer to nature, I could be at peace. I have a great time in Charlottesville, being in a car again, seeing nature, feeling like there is space. But most of me is convinced that it is just the grass is always greener syndrome. So I dismiss it, and call the dream of me in a house on a river a fantasy disconnected from the realities of my personality. I mean, I lived in a smaller town with its bad food and lack of options on the weekend. I sat around and hated my life as much then as I do now. I am jealous of people who know what makes them happy. I don't know what makes me happy. I know what makes me happy for short periods of time; being with my friends, doing new things, being alone; exercising -- but only when I am actually exercising or right after I finish, reading trashing books when I am stealing 30 minutes away from something else. But anytime I do any of those things for a long period of time, I start to resent them for keeping me away from the other things that I like to do. Sometimes, I even resent them from keeping me away from the order of office (or school) life. Apparently, balance is the name of the game, but I don't know how to do it. That multi-tasking thing again. I can only do one thing at a time. Okay, that was 13 minutes. 12:03. Going to bed and sleeping. I did a lot of crying tonight, maybe it will make me exhausted enough and relaxed enough to fall asleep. 12:04. Night.