This entry is quite definately going to be on the ‘poor litle me’ side of things. You may want to go and read something else. I advise though, that if this is the case, the something else is not my poetry.
So, I’ve been the impractical, useless, suspected liar and general failure in my family for quite some time now. (It comes, I suspect, of being somewhat academic but not quite academic enough – thus I get the downsides of being perceived as academic – forget her head if it wasn’t screwed on! – with none of the advantages – oh but she’s so clever!) This has bothered me sometimes on occaision, for example getting worked up in my late teens about not being out to my parents. Generally though it hasn’t bothered me that much really. This is because I’ve generally been perfectly happily doing my own thing with my own plans and knowing, absolutely knowing, that it didn’t matter two hoots what anyone of them thought I should be doing or not.
By their standards I have always been a failure. No boyfriends to speak of pre-Jellicle and Gentleman Friend. No steady job during uni (life modelling doesn’t count as a steady job). No steady job in this country. I’m sure that all they really want for me is me to be happy, after all thats what all parents want for their kids. Usually this is the one criteria I pass with flying colours on. My life is supremely wonderful, I couldn’t want for a better. Usually.
This morning my driving instructor told me she no longer wanted to teach me. She feels, not unfairly, like she is just taking my money without actually teaching me anything. This seems to be true, everything that I’m not doing are the things that seem to come as a matter of practice. I can’t practice unfortunately because I am lacking a car or person who’s insurance company will put me on their insurance. If I take the test at the moment I’m going to fail (again) and this of course reflects badly on the lovely woman teaching me to drive. I don’t have much money left for driving lessons and tests, and of course I’ve been in this position before, everytime I’ve been about to take a driving test it seems I have this extra financial pressure which means if I don’t pass this time I have to save up and wait to take the test again. It seems like a complete catch-22, my driving lessons are the only practice I have at the moment, without them I won’t pass my test but my driving instructor won’t take any money from me for more lessons and she tells me I need more practice to pass my test.
Anyone got a car I can drive?
I’ve been talking for a while about this vague background of anxiety that is building up inside me. Every-so-often it seems to get just that little bit bigger, and then, just that little bit bigger. Without my driving test passed the teaching job in September stops being even a remote possibility (unless by some miracle one of the Lancaster schools starts advertising). Without a teaching job I’m still sucking money from my loved ones and even further away from working towards my dreams. The grail seems so far away, my writing so unreal, today is not a good day.
Sometimes I wondr quite how I’m going to get through this year, I don’t seem to be managing to do anything right and so I know I’m not going to have any witty come backs for when Dad starts on at the weddings about why I’m not married yet, or don’t have a job yet or, any of the other countless things that he will account as a failure on my part. I mean really, what have I done this year? I’m sat here trying and not getting anywhere.
Maybe i am swimming against the tide of myself, but I don’t know what myself is trying to do really. I don’t know why teaching would be such a bad back up plan or why my writing isn’t working out (although I never thought that would take off right away really). Now it seems like I’m losing all of my options, one by one, soon I’ll be surrounded by nothing. I’ll end up I think, one of those bitter old women in a nursing home, one of those who still blames everything on her parents and the first man to turn her down. Nothing to do but follow the crowd, I’m not even much good at being a Mish anymore if this week is anything to go by.
Sorry, told you it would get emo.
I don’t know if this will cheer you up at all…
At least you know what you want, what you dreams are. I’m trying to figure out what it is that I want, and at the same time, I’m not so sure I dare find out, because in the back of my head I have this feeling that if I say that I really, really want something, I’m not going to get it and I’m going to have an even bigger stamp saying *failure* on my forehead. I look back at the last decade and ask myself what I’ve done, and the only answer I can come up with is *nothing much*.
Keep going for it – as long as you know what you want, you’ve got something to aim for and something has been achieved.
I don’t know if it helps – but I know what it feels like.