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 Dear Future Ash,
I’m writing to you today out of desperation.
No, that’s not right. Out of hope. Hope and desperation are so close, you know, so close. They are opposite sides of the same coin.
I am writing to you today in hope. In the most faithful, hungry hope. I am writing to you because I need to know that you’re okay. I need to know that you’re making it through. That this part that I’m in right now is over.
I know you can’t respond and that’s okay. You’re only a sparkle right now, a glimmer, a figment of desperate need, but that’s all you need to be.
For you, it’s somewhere in the second half of 2012. Not too far from now. It’s easier to see you that way. We’ve probably got a lot of the same clothes still and the beaten and loved 3GS you’re reading this on and the same girlfriend snoring behind nearby in bed. (Or maybe in your time she’s awake because you’re awake at a reasonable hour instead of three am and you’re having mutual internet time and it’s lovely.) I know you’re still making the same dumb fart jokes on the internet that I’m making now.
I hope you have a job, Future Ash. One that doesn’t make you miserable and that respects your ideas and efforts. I hope it makes you happy or at least doesn’t make you crazy. I hope you life is settled because right now… it’s not. It’s really not. I hope that everyone is settled. And wherever, however, that works out is good and safe.
I hope you’re comfortable. I hope you’re cooking more and taking your iron and eating more greens and remembering to take your pictures every day. I hope you’re sticking to the posts you want to make here and that you’re reading and writing more. I hope you’re still throwing yourself into pop culture things enthusiastically and with joy because I’ve just rediscovered how wonderful that can be and how much I’ve missed it. I hope you’re sticking out all this hard work I’ve been doing to Unfuck Our Habitat and that it’s making you feel like a grown-up still and giving you a sense of control.
Future Ash, I hope you’re happier than I am. I hope you’re less anxiety-stricken. I hope you’ve embraced change and banished the word FLUX from your experience. I can say I hope you’ve got it all figured out, but it’s the middle of January and even if I’m talking to the Future Ash of December 2012, that’s a hell of a lot to ask.
I hope you’re hugging people more. And spending time with them. And reaching out to them even when they’re not reaching out to you. I hope you’re asking for help when you need it. I hope you’re still not giving up. I hope you remember how bad it is right now and appreciate how good I hope it is for you then.
Future Ash, it’s not all doom and gloom here now. I don’t want you to think that or think your memories are tainted. There are wonderful things, even if they’re small and hard to remember — forgettable — from where you are now. There’s Sherlock and friends that want to hang out with you even though you’re having a hard time leaving the house. There’s a wonderful, supportive, incredible partner who respects and loves and treats you so much better than you deserve. (I hope you’re paying her back tenfold for these hard times, Future Ash. She deserves so, so much.) There are parents who you not only love, but LIKE, a sister who’s also one of your most important friends. There’s Disneyland. And pets. And a bed that comforts you in a visceral way that makes your heart feel less brittle and your bones feel a little bit more brave.
Future Ash, I’ve got a lot to live for right now, but the glue holding it together is hope. Hope that 27 is better. Hope that your life is different than mine. Hope that next Christmas won’t feel like the last. Hope that you are where you want to be.
So keep this letter for me, Future Ash, and when we meet we can talk it over. You can tell me which bits I got right and I can remind you why you should be grateful even when I got it all wrong.
Here’s hoping. See you soon.
– Ash
So I have allergies now?
Or at least I spend a large portion of my days sneezing VIOLENTLY. Which wouldn’t be that bad except because the combination of being a powerful, multi-sneezer and having semi-chronic UTIs makes me feel like I have to pee CONSTANTLY, so I probably go to the bathroom 1000 times a day? Which is really annoying even if my bathroom is only like fifteen feet from my desk. I don’t know what I did to piss my bladder off in 2005 (probably the college binge drinking?) but I AM SORRY NOW, PLEASE FORGIVE ME. (I have ALWAYS been an intense sneezer. Even when I was little and used to wander around the house sticking a piece of straw broken from a broom up my nose and intentionally sneezing — I DON’T KNOW OKAY, my parents should have probably stopped me instead of just laughing about it and using it as a hilarious anecdote at parties, but I imagine it’s kind of like having a chronically masturbating teenager in the house, you just hope for the best and tell them to contain it to the bedroom.)
But yeah, allergies are SO DUMB. Prior to my 20th birthday, I had almost no allergies. My skin REALLY HATES GRASS (so I had to wear tights a lot as a kid, so awful, even in 100 degree weather, TIGHTS) but other than that, nothing. Then the day before my 20th birthday I ingested a 32 ounce strawberry something-or-other from the Juice It Up next to my college dorm and broke out in hives from the top of my tits to my hair. ALL OVER MY FACE. So great. Such a great allergy for an adult whose favorite fruit is strawberries to develop.
But I still eat strawberries! Because it’s not a deathly allergy and I love them. Then I developed an allergy to flour weevils. Which shouldn’t be that big of a deal except they seem DRAWN TO ME. And now seasonal allergies. Sneezing! Watery eyes! Itchy throat! Congestion! I am a fucking walking allergy commercial over here. AND IT IS SO FUN AND SO GREAT, I AM SO GLAD THIS HAS HAPPENED TO ME.
So I’ve been taking drugs, except it’s one of the crappy kinds that you don’t have to go to the pharmacist to get (we only shop at night, generally, when the pharmacist is tucked safe in their bed at home!) so it only works if I stand on my left foot and stroke a rare rodent with my right hand and also if I punch myself in the face and just stay asleep while the sun is up. Except now my new allergy friends are coming at night too.
The human body is just the BEST.
So I have been complaining about developing allergies as an adult because SERIOUSLY, how dumb is that?! And my dad was all dad-like and said, “Well, that happens. A lot. Adult allergies are like adult acne.”
And man, I am vain, but I am PRETTY SURE I’d take adult acne over this sneezing and misery shit. I am already real zitty!
But I figure this will only get worse and I will probably develop a cornucopia of miserable allergies before my death. The list grows by the day! Strawberries and some lactose items and LOTS of cosmetic type things. I’m sure, like… chocolate and CHRISTMAS and lard and joy and the internet and smog and HAPPINESS can’t be far behind.
Also, though my goals were lofty, I baaaaaaasically failed at getting my shit together this week. Well, I found a couple things to apply to! But, turns out, my biggest allergy is responsibility!
(j/k future employers, I am actually the most responsible person I know! and not, like, compared to irresponsible people! all the people I know are real responsible too. and I still win!)
Today I am going to ~get real~ and talk about my feelings. I like personal blogs, this is a personal blog, I am a person, the website is my name, and I want to talk about some SHIT, okay?!
My girlfriend and I have been home from Kansas City for about a month. And it has been an excruciatingly hard month for both of us. She is readjusting to a killer commute and a rough office environment and I am unemployed and mooching off of her and generally feeling like a massive, tragic pile of crap.
I liked Kansas City. A lot. And I really, until the last three weeks, enjoyed my internship immensely. It’s more complicated than the following sentences, but: I was good at my job. I enjoyed it. And then that was taken away from me very suddenly and very… unfairly isn’t the right word. Unexpectedly. Shockingly. Unbearably. And it made our last weeks there just unbearable. Really and truly stressful in a way that moving those 1600 miles had not even come close to being. And it sucked. And getting the hell out of Kansas City felt SO GOOD. But I left happy. I mean that. And I can remember the good parts of my job. And I’d do it again if they asked it of me. And/or something similar. I don’t know if I could stay there for more than a year or maybe I could. No, I definitely could. I could stay there forever. Maybe? I don’t know. What do I honestly know from second to second?
But I was so glad to be home. I am so fucking glad to be home. I missed my family SO MUCH. And my animals. And Disneyland. And my incredible friends. And California. I adapted to KC and I liked it, but I can’t imagine it ever feeling like home. Or maybe I could?
But having my feet swept out from me before the end of the internship has left me inconsolable in a lot of ways. The internship fell together so easily, so simply, and everyone spent so much time assuring and reassuring me that it was meant to be (because I am, like all creatives, eternally my own worst critic) and that I deserved it. And I left feeling a lot like I really hadn’t deserved it and a lot like I’d failed, even if failing isn’t why I left. Even if no one ever used the word failure. Even if my co-workers threw me a wonderful going away party and gave me cards and food and gifts and sent me away feeling warm and fuzzy and appreciated. And even if coming home is what was best for both me and my girlfriend.
I have anxiety. I AM SURE THIS IS SHOCKING AS SHIT TO EVERYONE IN THE WORLD, NO REALLY. And I experience immense, heart-heavy periods of depression when I feel like things are out of my control, when I feel I’ve failed. And the last month has just been that. A train wreck of misery and sadness and bad hygiene and being broke and frustrated and embarrassed and disappointed. I have taken it out on my girlfriend and my family and I’ve tried to hide from every single human being on Earth.
I haven’t looked for jobs because my blood pressure spikes when I think about going back to work, when I think about interviewing, when I remember how fucking awful it was the LAST TIME I was looking for work. People were constantly telling me I was overeducated and inexperienced and now I have an additional degree (a terminal Master’s!) and very little additional experience! And when they weren’t saying that, they were questioning why I would want to work so far away from where I live (I LIVE IN A SUBURB, THESE ARE MY ONLY CHOICES) or looking at my fat body and thinking that meant anything about how good I would be at a job or who I was at a person or better yet, telling me how I wasn’t the right representation of their office. THIS WHOLE PROCESS JUST SOUNDS GREAT, SO GREAT. I CANNOT WAIT.
And my girlfriend has been wonderfully patient and kind and takes incredible care of me. But I have to get a job. I want to work! I want to contribute to my household and to the world at large! I want to be upstanding! I am able to work! I am a capable, intelligent, competent person! I can work! I should do it!
But I fight with looking every day and every night and I hate myself more every week and the anxiety gets WORSE AND WORSE and I have more nightmares where my internship manager tells me how much she regrets hiring me and where I lose a house I don’t even own in real life and where planes crash and I fight with my friends and things break and I can’t pull myself together to handle any of it.
And I know writing this out won’t solve it. I’ve been talking this stuff out with the girlfriend for weeks and it has done little to ease the aches and pains and agonies and tensions in my brain, but it’s down anyway now and it’s loose in the world.
This week I am going to try to take hold of myself and apply for jobs. I’m going to work at that proactive thing. I’m going to shake myself out of this bullshit. Because that’s something I know I can do. Because I’ve done it before.
So check in with me in a week and it’ll either be resume sendin’, application fillin’ superchamp Ash. Or I’ll be in bed passed out in the fetal position surrounded by garbage and dog hair with a pizza box from Mamma’s Brick Oven Pizza between my knees and a 22 of Wyder’s Pear Cider clutched in my fat fist as I cry into a wad of filthy paper towels while watching Drake & Josh. Only two options.
Or I’m going to knock over some sort of financial institution and head straight to Vegas. Three options.
Also, I groomed my eyebrows today (pluck pluck pluck) and didn’t overtweeze for the first time in maybe my whole life. NEW CAREER PATH?! j/k j/k I would rather touch someone else’s poop than the meaty end of their freshly plucked eyebrow hair.
OKAY SINCE I PROMISED TO TALK ABOUT IT: The gf and I came back to California! KCNOMO. Home where we belong.
I’m not going to explain in as much detail as I had planned on, but we have been back in L.A. for almost a month and OH MAN did I miss it so much more than I even thought I did. Basically: I left on my terms. I left with good experience and good feelings. I don’t regret going. And I got to do one of my dream jobs for three months. Not so bad!!
But whatever, that part is boring since I am still not going to talk about my actual work, so moving on:
THINGS I WILL MISS ABOUT KCMO:
1. bbq
2. small, accessible downtown
3. no traffic
4. fat people out in the world doing things!
5. old architecture
6. my job
7. having my own apartment
8. the income from my job
9. the weather
10. the awesome people at my job
11. steak ‘n’ shake
12. frozen custard
13. the cicada noise (only a little)
14. the amc main street and olathe studio 28 theaters (NO JOKE)
15. the fountains!
16. my landlady/kcmo momma
17. the hyvee
THINGS I WILL NOT MISS ABOUT KCMO:
1. getting my car vandalized
2. assholes who steal assigned parking spaces
3. cicada noise
4. DRIVERS
5. having to drive into a different state for a decent grocery store
6. phony niceness
7. SPORTS — gawd bless l.a. where no one gives a shit
8. weather
9. did I mention the fucking spectacularly terrible driving?
10. ridiculously low speed limits EVERYWHERE
There are more things I won’t miss, but I’m not going to kick the midwest while it’s down. I mean, it already lost me, it seems mean to also tear it to shit while I’m at it.
SO I AM HOME NOW. And job-hunting. Which is giving me so much anxiety and my gf is being SO AMAZING and patient and stuff. And everyone has been so excited about our return and supportive and yadda yadda, I am surrounded by really good people, gross.
Enjoy my face over the last two weeks. Such a good face. The best face.
Lately I have been experiencing an increased amount of anxiety.
I’m not talking like, clinical, medical, diagnosed anxiety which is somehow at a level higher than normal. I am talking about the actual feeling of anxiety that all people experience at one point or another. Granted, I’ve had panic attacks for most of my life and I should probably be diagnosed and medicated, but since I have not and am not, I am more comfortable talking about it as an emotional reaction. Even if my emotions are reacting to nothing.
So, again, for the past week I’ve been experiencing some heightened anxiety levels. I haven’t had a panic attack thus far, but my sleep patterns are more screwed up than they normally are (I keep a weird schedule during the summer, usually staying up until 3-5am and then sleeping ’til noon-ish). I have been napping during the day or evening or sleeping for two or three hours at a reasonable time (10 0r 11pm) and then getting up and staying up for many hours, then sleeping in midday. I either sleep fitfully or like the dead, no in between, and I can’t figure out how to eat in a way that doesn’t make me miserable. I’ve been crying (at stupid things! LIKE SAD CATS) and having some problems regulating my breathing and just generally not feeling well at all.
Something is clearly up.
The other day, I was lying in bed watching some… Homes of the Rich and Tasteless style show and they were showing this HUGE house in Malibu overlooking PCH and it was enormous and so… empty. And I started legitimately panicking at the thought of trying to fill up that space with my life. And how I don’t have very many friends and how a house that big would be so wasteful. And while talking to my girlfriend about it, I realized that there’s an emotional connection between being unable to physically fill a home and emotionally fill a home and blah blah blah it all makes sense, but still. I had to fend off a panic attack over some house on TV that I have no desire nor ability to ever live in. That’s the epitome of crazy, right there.
Tonight I was working my way through my Google Reader load and I had about three dozen tabs open beside it (I read through the whole set of posts, then clear through the tabs one by one, usually compiling blog/tumblr posts and emails for my girlfriend/dad/sister.) and I just started panicking intensely about all of these THINGS in front of me and I started shaking and I had to go splash my face with water and sit on the toilet to calm down.
I’ve talked about it briefly before, but I have a truly awful, unstable memory. I cannot retain more than three ideas at a time (not joking. at all.) and I have to take lots and lots of notes just to be able to function through bullshit daily tasks like internetting and blogging, let alone primary needs and work (my novel) and school. My memory plays an enormous role in my issues with anxiety. I am constantly freaking out about forgetting even simple, unimportant things and being unable to remember what I wanted to do, sometimes from one moment to the next, is… It’s embarrassing. And miserable. And depressing. And frustrating and exhausting and STRESSFUL.
I forget whether I’ve accomplished tasks. I forget what tasks I am supposed to do. My mom or dad or sister or girlfriend can ask me to do something for them, something as simple as grabbing a glass of water or checking something on the internet, and I will, in just a matter of moments (usually the ones I am using to complete a task before I can turn to theirs) forget ENTIRELY that they asked me to do something for them.
I cannot remember shit.
Compounding my memory issues and exascerbating my anxiety is multi-tasking. I am CONSTANTLY multi-tasking. I cannot remember the last time I only had one tab open in Firefox and even when it’s down to two or three, I am rapidly moving from site to site, tab to tab, trying to stay up to the minute on all of the ~social media~ feeds I follow. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, GReader, Flickr, boards, blogs. My email is always set to pop immediately upon receipt of a message. Texts are frequent, instant, constant. Phone calls, follows, mentions.
I love the internet and I love the availability and speed at which it brings even the most inane information straight to my eyeballs, but it’s making me insane. It’s making me anxious.
Since I made this bed for myself, I am trying to find more survivable ways to lie in it.
STEPS FOR MY INTERNET SURVIVAL:
1. Chill out. The information isn’t going to go away.
2. You are not at a place in your internet presence where you have deadlines. Appreciate that.
3. TAKE NOTES. You keep papers and pens around you at all times, use them. TextEdit and Word are always open, USE THEM.
4. Stop forsaking your book (YOUR REAL JOB) for the internet.
5. It is always okay to step away for awhile.
My anxiety is manageable. I learned a trick from my dad when I was just a kid that still works: NINTENDO. NES used to do magical things for him when his anxiety was unchecked and Wii does the same unbelievably simple job. MarioKart requires zero brain cells. And if I just keep remembering to CALM THE FUCK DOWN, I’ll probably make it out of my twenties alive.
ANYWAY. Now that I talked all serious-like about my anxiety, I can talk about what I really want to and that is:
The idea of buying real furniture, like the kind that doesn’t require significant assembly, but does require delivery by people in large trucks, freaks me the FUCK OUT.
The idea that, at some point in the relatively near future, people are going to expect me to go into a store and pick out some SERIOUS FURNITURE that I am going to have to live with for… years that is going to cost me a whole bunch of money and require a place in which to put it? That’s fucked up! Dining rooms?! How is that a thing? How do adults do this shit? I am only TWENTY-FIVE. Ikea and milk crates and paying for concert tickets instead of putting money into a savings account. THOSE ARE THINGS I UNDERSTAND. Adulthood and mortgages and OH GOD I AM GOING TO HAVE TO FIND A JOB.
 This is some serious bullshit. Not ready, world. YOU HEAR THAT. I AM NOT READY.
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