The good thing about lying in bed staring at the ceiling late at night is that there's nothing to distract you. Your mind can just wander down whatever path it chooses. The bad thing about lying in bed staring at the ceiling late at night is pretty much the exact same thing. The grey void over my bed has gotten me thinking about the somewhat darker void of my future. Needless to say (and yet I'm saying it anyway, what a dumb expression), that panic attacks are not exactly the easiest way to drift off to dreamland. In less than 4 months, my life is going to be radically altered yet again.
I'll be graduating from on of thie countries top institutions with a degree in a very demanding and supposedly very in-demand field. This should comfort me, but I know too many people who hold Tech degrees and no job, and too many people who hold similarly valued degrees from similarly prestigious institutions of higher learning who are still on the job market a year after graduation. I'm not going to pull the "there's no jobs out there" card, because there's always a job available for me somewhere, but let's be honest, I didn't come to Georgia Tech to be a greeter at Wal-Mart. And I know I don't graduate for a while, but my initial foray into job-searching has left me somewhat discouraged and more than a little afraid about where my mediocre gpa and burning desire to work with audio is going to land me.
And then I have to face the reality of moving again. Regardless of whether I find work in Atlanta or have to relocate, I'll be moving out of my current apartment into a one bedroom place. I've always been something of a loner and since Waqar spends most of his time in his room with his door shut, it's basically like I have no roommate as it is. I need to organize my life into boxes yet again, and this time I have a lot more stuff. I really need to sell off a lot of it to make my life simpler. But moving is just stressful as hell, and I don't know who will be around at that point to help.
And speaking of moving, let's talk about the possibility of relocating. I've come to like Atlanta as a city having lived here for going on 5 years now. I know where not to drive at rush hour and I like the fact that the posted speed limit means nothing to anyone but out-of-towners. But let's face the real issue of relocation here. Well, 2 issues. Okay, maybe 3, in the reverse order of importance and therefore the opposite of the order they occured to me. Number 1 - I don't really want to move back in with my parents, and I can't afford to live anywhere else in the DC area, but the prospect of being jobless, and therefore homeless (have you tried to pass a credit check for a decent aparetment on a new lease while being unemployed?) may leave me with little recourse. Number 2 - I don't relish the idea of having to learn a new city from scratch. I like my 99 cent doublestacks and my weekly Kroger circulars, although I do wish that we had in-n-out burgers on the east coast, but that's another story.
Number 3 gets a whole new paragraph because really it's an issue unto itself. I'm in love with Emily and I can't imagine my future right now without her. I know we haven't been together all that long in the grand scheme of things, but it's been a long long time since I felt this happy. Relocation means putting a lot more than 9.81 miles (according to Mapquest) between us and that's not a very pleasant thought. All long distance relationships seem destined for failure and... No, we're not even going to finish that thought. Suffice it to say that my life will be far happier if Emily remains a part of it, which means me remaining in Atlanta. Should a job offer arrise elsewhere, I might have no real choice in the matter and have to take it and be miserable or stay and be broke. The emotional pain of moving away far outweighs any physical exertion I'd have to endure. I cannot explain in words all that she means to me, so I'm not going to try. All I know is that I don't want to end up in a situation where I have to choose between love and money, because I'm afraid the option I'd have to take is the one that would break my heart and crush my spirit.
And then there's the matter of Brand Name Records and Warped Tour. They've asked me to help them out and I'd like to do what I can for and with them. But I don't want to commit to them and then have to back out at the last minute if a job offer comes my way that starts in May or June. Similarly, I don't want to blow them off only to have no job when the summer rolls around and Emily leaves for Brussels and all my friends are gone and I find myself wishing I was sleeping on the floor of a smelly van full of dirty punks once again. My mom has made it clear that I am not to be going on tour again unless I get paid the equivalent of an engineering job for 2 months, but that won't be happening, and who's to say that I woudl be giving up an engineering job salary to go on tour anyway, that's dependent on someone giving me a job in the first place. So while I know I would enjoy Warped Tour, I'm very conflicted about it. I don't have half a million bucks to buy my way onto the tour like Drive Thru, so the whole thing is very touch and go as it is. It'd be fun and it (theoretically) would keep my mind off Emily (no amount of pubescent groupies who want to show Good Charlotte their non-existent boobs could stop me from thinking about her) being away in Belgium for 6 weeks, but I just feel like I can't make the commitment to it that I should if we're really going to go through with it. Maybe it's because I have nothing personally invested in Brand Name (besides friendship) like I did with a website that Kevin and John and I fashioned out of thin air.
So now we are going on 5 am and I feel tiny and frightened. And that's not a good way to go to bed. But my eyelids feel heavy at last and I can't tell if it's because I'm tired or because I want to cry. So I suppose I'm going to crawl back into bed and stare in the ever-darkening and rapidly expanding void that is my celing and my future. At least the sun will be up soon and it's supposed to be a beautiful day again. I wish I could just close my eyes and the thoughts would go away and I could slip into sleep, but the brain doesn't work that way, especially when it's been flooded with whatever chemicals are responsible for anxiety (I've clearly retained so much from my psych classes...) and fear. Don't bother trying to talk to me about any of this either, I'll wake up and forget I even posted this and all will be right with the world again. This is more of a release for me than anything else and just voicing all my stupid concerns silences them for a little while. My future is at the end of a long tunnel with no lights inside. Right now it just looks like a gaping maw waiting to swallow me whole, but the closer I get to the end of the tunnel, the more clarity I'll be able to see with.
I'll be graduating from on of thie countries top institutions with a degree in a very demanding and supposedly very in-demand field. This should comfort me, but I know too many people who hold Tech degrees and no job, and too many people who hold similarly valued degrees from similarly prestigious institutions of higher learning who are still on the job market a year after graduation. I'm not going to pull the "there's no jobs out there" card, because there's always a job available for me somewhere, but let's be honest, I didn't come to Georgia Tech to be a greeter at Wal-Mart. And I know I don't graduate for a while, but my initial foray into job-searching has left me somewhat discouraged and more than a little afraid about where my mediocre gpa and burning desire to work with audio is going to land me.
And then I have to face the reality of moving again. Regardless of whether I find work in Atlanta or have to relocate, I'll be moving out of my current apartment into a one bedroom place. I've always been something of a loner and since Waqar spends most of his time in his room with his door shut, it's basically like I have no roommate as it is. I need to organize my life into boxes yet again, and this time I have a lot more stuff. I really need to sell off a lot of it to make my life simpler. But moving is just stressful as hell, and I don't know who will be around at that point to help.
And speaking of moving, let's talk about the possibility of relocating. I've come to like Atlanta as a city having lived here for going on 5 years now. I know where not to drive at rush hour and I like the fact that the posted speed limit means nothing to anyone but out-of-towners. But let's face the real issue of relocation here. Well, 2 issues. Okay, maybe 3, in the reverse order of importance and therefore the opposite of the order they occured to me. Number 1 - I don't really want to move back in with my parents, and I can't afford to live anywhere else in the DC area, but the prospect of being jobless, and therefore homeless (have you tried to pass a credit check for a decent aparetment on a new lease while being unemployed?) may leave me with little recourse. Number 2 - I don't relish the idea of having to learn a new city from scratch. I like my 99 cent doublestacks and my weekly Kroger circulars, although I do wish that we had in-n-out burgers on the east coast, but that's another story.
Number 3 gets a whole new paragraph because really it's an issue unto itself. I'm in love with Emily and I can't imagine my future right now without her. I know we haven't been together all that long in the grand scheme of things, but it's been a long long time since I felt this happy. Relocation means putting a lot more than 9.81 miles (according to Mapquest) between us and that's not a very pleasant thought. All long distance relationships seem destined for failure and... No, we're not even going to finish that thought. Suffice it to say that my life will be far happier if Emily remains a part of it, which means me remaining in Atlanta. Should a job offer arrise elsewhere, I might have no real choice in the matter and have to take it and be miserable or stay and be broke. The emotional pain of moving away far outweighs any physical exertion I'd have to endure. I cannot explain in words all that she means to me, so I'm not going to try. All I know is that I don't want to end up in a situation where I have to choose between love and money, because I'm afraid the option I'd have to take is the one that would break my heart and crush my spirit.
And then there's the matter of Brand Name Records and Warped Tour. They've asked me to help them out and I'd like to do what I can for and with them. But I don't want to commit to them and then have to back out at the last minute if a job offer comes my way that starts in May or June. Similarly, I don't want to blow them off only to have no job when the summer rolls around and Emily leaves for Brussels and all my friends are gone and I find myself wishing I was sleeping on the floor of a smelly van full of dirty punks once again. My mom has made it clear that I am not to be going on tour again unless I get paid the equivalent of an engineering job for 2 months, but that won't be happening, and who's to say that I woudl be giving up an engineering job salary to go on tour anyway, that's dependent on someone giving me a job in the first place. So while I know I would enjoy Warped Tour, I'm very conflicted about it. I don't have half a million bucks to buy my way onto the tour like Drive Thru, so the whole thing is very touch and go as it is. It'd be fun and it (theoretically) would keep my mind off Emily (no amount of pubescent groupies who want to show Good Charlotte their non-existent boobs could stop me from thinking about her) being away in Belgium for 6 weeks, but I just feel like I can't make the commitment to it that I should if we're really going to go through with it. Maybe it's because I have nothing personally invested in Brand Name (besides friendship) like I did with a website that Kevin and John and I fashioned out of thin air.
So now we are going on 5 am and I feel tiny and frightened. And that's not a good way to go to bed. But my eyelids feel heavy at last and I can't tell if it's because I'm tired or because I want to cry. So I suppose I'm going to crawl back into bed and stare in the ever-darkening and rapidly expanding void that is my celing and my future. At least the sun will be up soon and it's supposed to be a beautiful day again. I wish I could just close my eyes and the thoughts would go away and I could slip into sleep, but the brain doesn't work that way, especially when it's been flooded with whatever chemicals are responsible for anxiety (I've clearly retained so much from my psych classes...) and fear. Don't bother trying to talk to me about any of this either, I'll wake up and forget I even posted this and all will be right with the world again. This is more of a release for me than anything else and just voicing all my stupid concerns silences them for a little while. My future is at the end of a long tunnel with no lights inside. Right now it just looks like a gaping maw waiting to swallow me whole, but the closer I get to the end of the tunnel, the more clarity I'll be able to see with.
