Transition

I've been feeling a twinge of hope these days. My goal is to work a 30 hour work week. Right now I'm pretty much working half that. Half the work, half the pay. It's pretty self-explanatory I think. What's been difficult is the amount of guilt I put on myself. The other day I was talking to my sister about it and I was starting to wonder if there was something fundamentally wrong. Like I was some sort of total moron for not being able to handle my finances. Finally she said, "Mark, you're no different than so many people I know, including myself. The only difference is I know what I make each week and it's consistent." And she's right. I need to work more. Right now I have 3 to 4 shifts a week at the restaurant and that's no longer enough. So I've been out looking and I am confident something will blossom.

DJ-wise I have been totally defeated. I don't have anything solid at the moment and it gives me too much time to think and doubt that I can make it. Still, I have a gig at the end of the month and then a few in April (though they're in Laval and I have no idea how I am going to get there!)

My life feels a little crazy at the moment. I have no idea how the pieces are all going to come together. I've been really serious too this past month. I don't know what it is about Winter and February/March but I am not a happy camper. Maybe it's time to seriously consider living somewhere warm for the rest of my life. Maybe Sydney or New Zealand. Lately my mind has been thinking about California and San Diego. I need a beach!

Anyway, that's where I am at right now. It's not pretty I know. But I hope my honesty is some form of inspiration. I really do feel I am at the cusp of something though I don't know what yet. And even though I have some loose structures in place and some goals in mind I have to remember that life truly is one big adventure. Might as well have some fun while I'm on this crazy roller coaster right?

drowning....

I'm awake but I'm not. My life has taken on some sort of surreal nightmare. I wake up and my whole body aches. It longs for something different. It longs to be elsewhere. I know that I am blessed. I know it. I am surrounded by my family. I live a good life in so many ways. Yet I can't shake this feeling that I have done something terribly wrong. I wake up and the little victim in me cries out, "why me? What have I done to deserve this?"

The Bank froze my account. I tried to take out forty dollars last night and it says that my account is restricted. For the last week a woman named Joyce at my bank has been trying to reach me. I have been avoiding her. I have been avoiding her, I have been avoiding my life. How far down the rabbit hole do I need to go before I see light at the end of the tunnel?

My dance career has failed. My theatre career has failed. The shifts I have as a busboy can't even pay my rent at times. The tips I make barely get me through the week.

I am frustrated, alone, isolated. Suffocating. And I am ashamed. I feel like I have nowhere to turn. A new life is in order. A new career perhaps. A new dream. But how? and with what money? I've created a world of debt. I get that I am responsible for that. Now how to I create a world of wealth? How do I turn this around?

My body aches. I have a cold. I can barely drag myself out of bed. The sun is out and spring is around the corner. People are getting happier. Yet I don't feel the sun on my face. I'm terrified of the world around me. I'm lost. Sometime ago things made a little more sense. But you can't take back time. And the future awaits.

Life is all about choice. And I can go on feeling alone, desperate and scared or I can believe in myself and believe in me. I cannot say I have the answers, man I wish I did. But until I do, I will continue to get out of bed and do what needs to be done. And I will breathe. I will breathe.

early morning...

it's so quiet this morning. The last few weeks I've struggled to find meaning in my life. I'm sorry if it sounds dramatic. I keep hoping that I'll wake up and something will be different but it's been a variation on groundhog day for quite some time now. I'm drained. I find myself in a familiar place; defeated, resigned, frustrated, alone. I can't shake it. No matter how strong I pretend to be. I should get a gold star just for getting out of bed these days.

Perhaps I am clinically depressed though I have convinced myself that I am a hypochondriac so I am constantly worried that I am sick. But what is my body telling me with all my aches and pains, the sniffles, the soar throat? What am I not listening to?

The ugly truth of it is I am bankrupt. Not only financially but spiritually, emotionally. I have unraveled to the point where I am unrecognizable to myself. My goals and dreams don't anchor me like they used to. I'm a ship with no compass, wandering aimlessly yet always ending at the same place.

Sometimes when I let the loneliness pervade me I search the dark corners of my mind and think, "Where did I go wrong? I'm a good person who's made some bad choices. Who hasn't? What should I have done differently?" And then I wake up and find myself back at the grocery store, back to reality.

I imagine myself, living a life free from the burden of anxiety and worry. I live by the ocean, I am have boyfriend who loves me and that I love back. I have complete financial freedom, I travel when I want and I am healthy and happy.

I want to be everywhere except for where I am right now. I want to be living someone else's fabulous life except my own. I am a man in search of beauty and inspiration. And when I encounter someone who is an expression of that I crave it for myself because I miss that feeling of knowing what it means to live with a Passion in your life. I look inside and I sense the emptiness. And I have no idea what to fill it with....yet.