Summertime Blues

Sometimes I wonder, what I'm a-gonna do

A year ago, I heard the words no one ever wants to hear: you have cancer. At the time, it felt like a death sentence. I couldn’t imagine anything worse. Fast forward to today: I’m eight months NED, four months out from quitting my job, and testing how close I might be to rock bottom. Spoiler: the echoes from the bottom are getting louder. If this blog is about vulnerability, buckle up, it’s going to get (possibly) uncomfortably honest.

When I quit my job, my intentions were, let’s call them optimistic. I was leaving behind bad bosses, crying in traffic, and a rigid schedule, ready to “figure myself out.” The plan? Be my own boss. Make my own hours. Maybe write, maybe make TikToks, maybe monetize social media. Easy, right? People make money that way all the time. It’s a lot easier to live in that fantasy world when your bank account is reasonably full and your calendar is wide open.

And here’s the truth: these things can be done. People do them every day. People who work hard. Who are motivated. Ambitious. Maybe a little lucky. Me? I wrote a blog for a month and abandoned it. Planned a trip to Maine and never made it there. Somehow gained more weight and put a perfect Shannon-sized dent in my new couch. Now the money’s running low, and I’m competing with half the country for every job, because, much like me, the country also seems dangerously close to hitting bottom.

I know I put myself here. I’m painfully self-aware. Yes, I’m depressed. Yes, I have anxiety. Yes, I still haven’t fully processed the events of the last year. And yes, I had the best of intentions. But I’m not special for any of it. I’m not special because I got cancer. Or hated my job. Or have mental health struggles. People have been through worse and dealt with it. Life is really fucking hard, but sometimes I’m the one designing my own uphill battles.

Here’s the thing about life: most of us are just trying. We won’t find easy success, many of us won’t find success at all. We do our best to make the right choices and push through the absolute bullshit life throws at us. We want to be loved, to be heard, to feel validated. We win a little, we lose a lot - jobs, people, our minds. I pace my apartment some days, crying to no one that I’m just trying. Sometimes I’m just trying to breathe and get through another day, promising myself I’ll figure it out tomorrow. The always elusive tomorrow. That’s all this was, not laziness or irresponsibility, just an attempt to be fucking happy. This should not be an impossible task.

So, I try again. And not my usual, halfhearted try. This time, I’ll really, really try:

• Try to find the unicorn job (or any job which pays money for labor).

• Try not to burden anyone with my foolish choices.

• Try to be content, if nothing else.

• Try to be healthier, lose weight, or at least learn to like this girl as she is.

• Try to be patient, with others, and with myself.

• Try to chase good things and stop measuring the distance to rock bottom...

  
  

A year later, I’ve learned that cancer isn’t the worst thing that can happen. Letting those echoes from the bottom convince you to stop climbing, that pretty well sucks, too.

I'll also try to blog more but I think I am pretty much screaming into a brick wall over here. Which is fine, just fine, but comment and share to prove me wrong. :-)