Despite years of unhappiness and despair, I’ve never been able to do anything truly productive in order to change my life. At the forefront of this discontent lies the fact that I completely hate the city in which I live. It’s a stifling pit of closed-minded complacency. I am far from the only person who thinks this way. It’s frequently commented upon that this city suffers from a severe “brain drain”. Now I don’t really believe that there’s any magical place where I’ll fit right in and be welcomed either. I just think that a city with larger population of people, especially an influx of new people, will probably lend itself more to my needs.
That being said, I must confess that I’ve yet to take any sincere steps towards making this happen. For years I’ve wailed and moaned and generally bitched about my life and the terrible rut I seem to be in. I’ve always felt it was as though it was impossible, or at least very impractical, for me to try and leave. I’ve requested advice right and left on how to get the hell out of here. All this, and still I remain. At times I’ve found myself depressed beyond measure because I felt trapped. I would want to go, need to go, making myself sick over it until finally some subconscious defense mechanism would kick in and I’d convince myself that it wasn’t really so bad here and I’d sink back into complacency.
Only recently, whilst off on a mental journey, did the ever-so-obvious truth of the matter become apparent. I’m totally terrified. You see, although I’ve been on my own for almost 5 years at this point, I’ve always had family members in the background to help me out. Over time I’ve come to rely on them to the point that I can essentially run on autopilot, not having to worry about rather mundane responsibilities. I screwed up my credit pretty badly when I was younger and in full, clinical depression. My aunt has helped me in situations such as getting utilities connected and leasing apartments. In many respects I basically use my aunt as a buffer for the world. I work for her son. I pay almost all my bills through her. She’s essentially a safety net for me.
Now, I’m hardly ungrateful. She’s put herself through a great deal of stress for me and I know it’s only because she cares. I’m definitely thankful for her. Although it’s nothing grand, I definitely have a lot going for me here. I currently live in an apartment on another aunt’s property and pay a nominal rent. My job at my cousin’s store is extremely enjoyable and I could probably wind up being manager soon when he opens a second location. I really have very little to complain about, all things considered. It’s such a shame that I am completely miserable living this sort of life.
I’ve always thought that I just wanted to keep my head down and sail comfortable on through life. I’m sure I’ve said as much most of the times I’ve discussed the future with people. Now that’s exactly the life I’ve brought upon myself and I’ve come to find that I was completely wrong. This entire situation is killing my soul. The rut and the monotony of this job, this city, this life is completely unbearable. I must make a change, although I’m completely frightened by the prospect. Right now I’m thinking of moving to Phoenix in the next few months. It’s the closest “major” city at a mere 6 hour drive away so it’s not that drastic of a change. I realize that the economy is in the toilet at the moment and people are being laid off by the thousands, but hey, you only live once, right?
I know I posted a moderately similar rant a few months ago, thouching on similar feelings at the time. I’ll not link to it since it was essentially killed by my needless quoting and advice that, while thoughtful and generally top-notch, essentially missed the point since I wasn’t asking the right questions. I’m just posting this here now mainly because I finally realize what my problem has been all along.
I was originally going to post a reply to Davebear’s thread, but it had already been closed by the time I got to it. Nevertheless, I was still thinking about it mainly because a lot of the sentiments expressed therein were one’s I could certainly relate to.
Anyway, as I said, this is mostly MPSIMS at it’s finest, but should anyone care to comment or criticize, the input would be most welcome.
If I’m going to go up there I probably won’t have the luxury of moving then looking for work. I’ll need to get hired before I actually start moving. Fortunately, I’m close enough to make regular sorties up that way in order to look for work.