This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time.

For months now, I’ve had this feeling of being empty. I know that people who know me will question why, but I just do. I have a decent job, I do well enough in school, but I always wonder if I’m just floating through life.

I wonder, am I always meant to be merely mediocre?

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with being average, but it’s also incredibly frustrating. Some nights I lie awake filled with such a hollow feeling that I wonder, what is it all for anyway? Why do I bother going to an M.A. program for a field that I’m unlikely to work in? Should I just quit while I’m tens of thousands of dollars in debt now and try to start over? I won’t, but the thought crosses my mind.

It almost makes me sick to think that every day is the same. Day in. Day out. I just have to wait until 4pm and I’m clocked out.

I cry about it too. Lord knows I cry more than I should, and really, it’s all for no damn reason. Just because I can.

It’s not even that I don’t have a good support system. My husband is probably my biggest fan. Hell, he spent a week completely revamping our living room and rearranging so that I would have my own personal space to read and write (and it no longer looks like an insane asylum). I even have the world’s happiest dog, just in case I’m feeling especially down.

I complain much more than I should. I look at others’ lives and I’m envious. I’m jealous that my husband goes to work and comes back and can sit and play video games without worry. If I play a video game or the piano or anything I’m constantly overflowed with this feeling of guilt-this feeling that I should be doing something much more important. I’m jealous that school comes easier to some people. I’m not good at fitting in. I pretend to, but I don’t really. I’ve been told I’m too ambitious, whatever the hell that means. It’s a shame that I’m considered ambitious and I don’t even feel it myself.  I could use that. I’m jealous of people who have time to write for fun while I have to stay up late or neglect school work to write for myself. I’ll admit, I’m far from student of the year, but I would like to have a life outside of school and work.

I’m jealous of people who have talent, and a real focus in life. I would say that I’m a fairly well-rounded individual, a Renaissance woman, if you will, for anyone who still uses that term. But, I’m not so good at something that I think, “Yes, I’ll pursue that.” Unless that something is knowledge of random shit. I feel as though I have absolutely no direction in life. People ask what I want to do when I finish my M.A. and I haven’t the slightest clue. I ramble off things about being a teacher, or working in a museum, or trying to write, but honestly? I don’t mean any of it. I don’t think I have any real idea of what I want to do for the rest of my life, let alone the next 3-5 years.

I feel sort of like I need to experience my own version of Fight Club, minus all the mental issues.

“You wake up at Seatac, SFO, LAX. You wake up at O’Hare, Dallas-Fort Worth, BWI. Pacific, mountain, central. Lose an hour, gain an hour. This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time. You wake up at Air Harbor International. If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?”

If anyone has ever read Revolutionary Road, I think that book best describes my biggest fear. Most people see it as being a boring story, but if you truly understand what Yates is showing you as a reader, it’s frightening. I have spent my life dreaming of a fantastic life of travel and splendid memories. I want to really feel things in the moment. Realistically I know that most of my dreams won’t come true, and I’ve come to terms with that. But I think if I had to go through my entire life simply “settling,” well, yea, then I can completely understand April in the book. As psychotic as it sounds, it all makes perfect sense.

If I never make it Florence, I’ll just die.