Finally ...

I graduated from the University of North Texas the 18th of last month. The feeling that afternoon and that night was one of infinite hope. I was so proud of myself. And I still have those feelings, but that day and night is something I'll always hold in my memory.

The day after graduation, I was sick for almost two weeks with an upper respiratory infection that moved into my sinuses. I guess my body was just tired of all the nights where I either didn't make it to bed or got very little sleep, and the stress. It's weird how adrenaline kept me well up until the day after I graduated.

During those two weeks, I was just focused on getting better. I actually missed a lot of work, and to be honest, I'm probably pretty close to losing my job. Deep down, we know it's time to move on but honestly we still need the money, and while I'm not trying to lose my job, I know I will mess up eventually because I'm not perfect and the next time I mess up, I'm out of there.

But that's not important either. On the 1st, about an hour after the new year began, I started a huge list about all the things I wanted to start working on EVERY DAY (yes, I have a tendency to over inflate the amount of time I can devote to, well, everything).

If you're not aware the day before I graduated, I had a meeting with the publisher of the Gainesville Daily Register who let me know that they had set up a series of feature stories for me, that are to be published on the front page, along with letting me know that if I have any pictures I take that I think are good, they will buy them from me and also publish them on the front page.

This, along with my ambitious plan to organize my entire apartment, practice poetry and short story writing every day, work on my website every day, job hunt every day, work out every day, take 100 - 300 pictures a day (a suggestion of my professor), read for fun, job hunt every day, work on this series of stories for the paper, along with keeping my current job, and making time for a social life, has turned me into a nuerotic mess.

When I was at home with James before work, or when we both had a day off, I was filling myself with this sort of anxious energy where I couldn't relax unless I was working on something on this list. Unless I was working on something on this list I was driving myself crazy. I would not relax. All I would talk about would be that I feel guilty that I'm not being productive. Then the first time I told James about how hard it was to go back to work after I graduated, and how I feel when I'm not doing these other things, like I'm going to spend the rest of my life at Wal Mart.

I guess after I graduated, and got well, and maybe even the beginning of the new year made me suddenly aware of time again. After I turned 23, I went through a sort of crisis where I suddenly felt how quickly my days, weeks, and months were going by and I felt older and suddenly aware of my own mortality. After about a month, I sort of lost it again. I guess it's back again. Is this what being an adult is like? You have large periods of time where you're too busy too think about time and then you have a week or two where you feel like your whole life is over and you better start accomplishing things or in a couple of blinks you'll be 40, and have kids, and get married and that's just it.

Maybe it's just general confusion about what it is I'm SUPPOSED TO be doing right now. And maybe I'm a little bit afraid of marriage all of a sudden because it sounds like a sentence. The first syllable doesn't sound so bad. But when I get to the -AGE, it's a little bit like a sunken feeling in my stomach. Like the end of this sentence is the end of my goals. Even though I know largely it will be the same between us, I'm afraid of all of this. I'm afraid of not accomplishing my goals before I die, and it sounds crazy but I can't calm down.

After James and I got into a small argument today after I was once again, in my anxious mood and I was getting upset because I thought I was going to have to do all this crap to get a new license, when come to find out I lost in my car and I was getting mad because I wanted to do other things today, so James actually told me he wanted for us to have an okay day because I had been irritable and I hadn't been able to just be with him without thinking, or talking, about other things, but today I did. We had a wonderful day where I didn't work on one thing and I did, I completely forgot about it.

But now, I'm afraid I'm addicted to overdrive. I'm so used to keeping an insane pace that I don't know how to relax. That I don't know how to slow down, or stop thinking and worrying about everything all the time. I just need to learn how to relax again. Either I'm losing it or trying to do this job and trying to find a career just isn't working. I'm just struggling with self motivation after college. I know if I don't stay self motivated, I will just sink into a depression, though it may not be so bad since I do have this freelance thing. But then it's like I'm anxious about making sure I stay self motivated and if I take a day off then I wasted a day. Who thinks like this? I wasted a day, and now my life is ruined. This is crazy, and I do know one thing: I can't handle this much stress for much longer, so I'm going to have to make a decision soon.

I just feel lost, like I lost my identity when I graduated. And overwhelmed. Definitely overwhelmed.