What the heck are you doing with your life?

How many times have you stopped everything you're doing and asked yourself, "what am I doing with my life?" How many times? Have you ever? Only when you know things have gotten shitty? What about when things are going great? What about when you feel like you can't actually change much? And what about asking when you already asked yourself a week ago and the answer was fulfilling then? What if it's not anymore? Can that happen? Can you be satisfied one week and the next be completely lost? What about annoyed at yourself? Is that beating yourself up? Is it okay to beat yourself up into shape? What shape do you want to be? Do you want to be good at something? Why not great? Why not the best? What if you want to be the best at many things? What about just two? Isn't two okay? Isn't that manageable? Can you tell me it is?

What the fuck are you doing with your life, Erin?

I can't answer it today. I can't tell you. Maybe I could have told you yesterday but today, I can't. The past week, all I've been able to do is study for my future. I've been looking up job opportunities in another city. I've been looking into the type of journalism I want to be writing. I've been looking into the business cards I want to make to make sure I represent what I want to be. I've been looking up ways to write narratives the way I hope to be writing. I've been looking up reasons why writing is a good career and why it isn't. I've been looking into ways to publish a book. I've been looking at my bank statements. I've been looking into the credit cards I haven't paid off. I've been looking at the assignments I need to be doing in school and tests I need to be studying for. I've been looking into the articles I want to write but haven't been writing them. I've been looking into ways to stay productive, stay healthy, stay in the game. Where am I now, though?

This whole week I've felt more and more disconnected from my goals. I thought I was in it, and somehow I strayed. I thought I knew how to manage my roles but I haven't. Suddenly everything is overwhelming for no reason. It just happened. I've focused so much attention on my goals that my path has gotten slowly more and more unrecognizable. How do I get from here, to my goals?

I spent all day yesterday not doing anything. I pretended I had nothing to do. I hung out with my mom and we ran some errands and I was extremely tired because I didn't take my ritalin. I figured it was okay not to because I wasn't planning on using my brain but it ended up making me extremely hungry and extremely tired and irritable. I slept for 12 hours last night. And today I woke up knowing that I needed to do things and re-enter the world and even though I only spent yesterday as my MIA day, I feel like I've been unknowingly doing that for some time now.

I know it's okay to be gone, right? And it's okay to have setbacks, right? I'm not losing hope. I'm not forgetting my goals. I'm just a little mumbled.

The hard part about taking pharmaceuticals is that you never quite know where the issues are stemming from as you don't really know if it's the old you or the new you. It's a journey that I wasn't ready to embark on until recently. It's helped me accomplish so much but at what cost?

When will I start training again? Initially I was planning to train full time as soon as the school semester ended with the motivation of competing at Europeans. But I've come to the awful realization that I'm not making the money I intended to and I'd be the biggest asshole for taking the money I did make and putting it towards an expensive trip when I still haven't paid off the Europeans trip from 10 months ago, much less anything else on my list of debts. Here is mature Erin talking: I need to pay off my debt and stop living in a fantasy world where I put off all my responsibilities for the impulsive lifestyle.

What are you doing with your life?

I'm taking some classes, I'm writing some articles, I'm covering some events, I'm blogging, I'm not training, I'm eating whatever I want, I'm taking ritalin and gabapentin, I'm making little money, I'm competing at Nogi Worlds, I'm working towards a degree. That's it, I think.

I'm going to write a book.