I miss staying up late.

Right now, I work at a call center, making outbound calls trying to sell people safety manuals.

There are upsides, like paid time off, the ability to earn personal days every so often, holidays off, and whatnot. This job pays my rent,  bills,  and for my food.

There are downsides. I don’t give a single solitary shit about the manuals I sell. I say basically the same damn paragraph over and over for 8 hours (excluding breaks) I have to be at work, actually working,  at 7am.

Though this job provides probably the most stability I’ve ever been able to provide myself, I’m in general very unhappy with my life.

Once again I feel trapped in a job I’m essentially powerless to leave, as I live in a pretty limited area in terms of job prospects, in a town of little over 6000 people.

I didn’t come here to bum myself out about that,  as I’ve been in a relatively decent mood overall today.  I’m just frustrated.

This entire week I’ve been waking up at 4 am. Either due to a rude ass upstairs apartment neighbor, or the head cold I’m just now getting the better of. Before this,  it was 5 am every day, though my alarm is always set for 5:45.

I’m not a morning person. I’m a night owl. Being awake late at night is what I used to thrive on. It’s when I get to talk to my different time zone friends on social media. It’s when the world is quiet and blaring music on headphones is exciting. When creativity is feverish.

Now my life has become a dull maintenance routine. The little free time I do have is usually wasted on thought of how much I hate my job,  or constantly pacifying myself with video games or stand up comedy on youtube because I can’t stand to be in my empty apartment alone with my thoughts.

I almost never go out, while feeling guilty, because I used to hop on my bike and ride for several miles for no reason at all,  or to take pictures, which is another thing I almost never do anymore. I only draw because we can do that at work,  but I don’t remember the last time I stayed up till the wee hours of the morning because I was so excited about this great drawing I’m working on.

I used to love to read but find my attention span fragmented by the nature of my job. I can barely read for 10-15 minutes without getting bored, even reading books I used to love.

And don’t get me started on my anxiety over being 29. I might as well be 89 with a foot in the grave for how much I worry about my age.

Before you suggest it, I am in therepy.

I had a good day today, but overall I’m in a rut. I’m constantly paranoid I’m going to once again suffer major misfortune and have to wonder how I’m going to pay rent and bills.

I can’t even be happy that I’m finally supporting myself because the sting of how awful my situation was in 2014 is still festers in the back of my mind.

Every time in my life when I’ve chanced optimism, it seems to backfire. So when things go right,  I don’t trust them. I keep waiting for everything to go wrong again, because in my experience, it always seems to go wrong.

And people don’t always get it. They don’t understand how I got 8+hours of sleep and yet my anxiety can be so bad it feels like I’ve maybe slept a couple hours. Nobody likes their job but they don’t understand how I could call out sick from work 4 times in a single month because I feel too sick with anxiety to leave my apartment.

Like I said, today was a good day and I didn’t come here to bum myself out about it, but I just miss being excited about my interests. It all started with intentions all day to stay up late, then the clock hits 10 and it’s suddenly as if I haven’t slept at all in days. I feel like an old lady, and it compounds my fear of aging.

I miss being enthusiastic about my interests.

I miss staying up late.