Compass & Quill

Things aren’t going well. I wish I could say that they were. I wish I could say that I am happy, healthy, thriving, hopeful for everything to come. The truth is that I have always felt like a failure, and nothing has changed. I want a way out of this feeling, but I don’t think there’s going to be one.

So now I play the mind games to hang on, to try to unravel these feelings, to try to find my way out of the labyrinth. I’m afraid that I’m fucking it all up. I quit my dependable job because I didn’t have enough freedom, but now I have no money and also am not free. I am so scared, and the fear is changing my personality. I can see that my fiance looks at me differently now. I think he’s hiding things about his business (successes? failures?) from me to save me pain, but I’m also hiding things from him, and that’s a dangerous path to start down.

My secret is small: I’ve started donating plasma. I was desperate for money, and it’s the only thing I could think to do. I’ve also been delivering food for DoorDash and UberEats, grocery shopping with Shipt, and doing part time AI training with Data Annotation. I start a part-time job as an executive assistant next week. I’ll be making $16/hour for 16 hours a week. I used to make $80k/year. What the fuck am I thinking? What am I doing? I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know what I’m accomplishing.

Let’s try to explain it to ourselves and see if it makes sense:

Before COVID, I worked 60-hour weeks at an event management job that was physically and mentally exhausting. I was good at my job, but I had to pretend to be someone that I wasn’t, and my schedule was so hectic that it meant I seldom got to do any extracurricular things. Then COVID hit, and I was out of work. My partner started a company, and I helped guide and support him in small ways. I did the bulk of the housework. I cared for the things he couldn’t remember. I let him use my shoulder to cry on after a hard day. I advised on marketing, HR, and office management issues. I delivered groceries and made candles and soap to make just enough money to scrape by on. After nearly a year, I was offered a very low-paying job with the state, and I took it, even though it wasn’t anything I had experience with or cared about, really. I worked for the state for another few years. Sometimes I was inspired. Most of the time I was disheartened to see how much money was going to waste and how little work was getting done. I kept coming up with ideas for how to help, then being shot down. My spirit was dying, bit by bit. I was burnt out, my ADHD was worse than ever, and my depression was getting worse, too. My boss was fired for rocking the boat, and I went back to school to be a copyeditor. I studied for a year and passed with flying colors. I quit my day job, knowing that between my savings and my part-time job, I’d be OK long enough to find a contract position. That was in June. In July, my part-time copyediting job fired me for making three mistakes out of 11,000 edits in one report. That’s FAR below the acceptable mistake rate. I know that it has nothing to do with my ability and everything to do with their unrealistic expectations, but it fucking crushed me. CRUSHED. It’s January, and I’ve yet to find another paying copyediting job. I don’t know that I will. Every time I try to work on my portfolio, all I can do is think of what a failure I am. I’ve done several volunteer gigs, and I was hired to help rebrand a local small business, so that’s a little bit of money. But I don’t want to do any of these things. I am scared. I am tired. I don’t have the mental stamina to endure feast or famine in this way. I don’t want to do this anymore. I desperately need guidance, and I can’t find any. I’ve asked in several Facebook groups. I’ve bought courses. I’ve reached out to coaches on LinkedIn. The advice is always the same: just do the thing. But I can’t. So here I am.

There’s also this weird issue with my fiance. He really wants to travel this summer. He wants to take a month off and go hiking and camping. I love that idea. However, to do that, I can’t take a full-time job until after our summer trip. Which means that I’ll be in this state of utter panic until at least August. I can see the logical response to that: “You don’t have to panic; maybe you can find a job that will give you the month off.” I did. I found a part-time, $16/hour position that’s going to pay me roughly $250/week before taxes. I’m freaking the fuck out. What the fuck am I doing? I feel trapped. I can’t get a full-time job because it won’t let me travel. But I also can’t get any freelance jobs because I’m a failure. But if I don’t travel, my relationship will be in jeopardy. But if I remain underemployed, I’m proving what a failure I am, and my relationship will still be in jeopardy. Not to mention that I am growing to resent my fiance for being in this position. I know it’s not his fault. It’s my fault for not being able to ever get my shit together. But I seriously don’t know what to do now.

Then there’s the other thing. My fiance gave me money to get me through the lean times while I was trying to find a job. I didn’t want to take the money, but I didn’t have any other options if I wanted to keep paying my bills. Then at one point, he needed money to pay his marketing person, so I let him use my emergency credit card. Now I could really use that money back, but I also feel terrible for asking him to repay money that he would have had if he hadn’t given me money to begin with. But I’m about to have -$7 in my bank account, so I don’t have a choice. I’ve been trying to not ask him. I really want to be able to not be such a drain on us. But I am, and that’s that.

So here’s what I’m going to do today:
1) I’m going to see if I have all of the paperwork to complete my taxes, and if I do, I’m going to do that. My hope is that I’m due a refund, instead of needing to pay additional taxes. Fingers crossed.
2) I have a huge stack of books that I could sell on Amazon. I’m going to list them all today.
3) I’m going to work at least two hours for Data Annotation. That’s $40.
4) I’m going to contact my client and see when she can meet this week.
5) I’m going to put my plants back outside. They’ve been clogging up the dining room table all week due to freezing temperatures.
6) I’m going to ask my fiance if he has time to talk to me tonight about the money, the travel, the jobs, everything.
7) I’m going to get up and take my meds as soon as I’ve finished this blog post.
8) I’m going to pray for guidance. I don’t know what else to do.