Tag: stagnancy

Existing: Rhythms of Days

Posted on By jennego

Each day leads to the another day, seamlessly flowing into another as time somehow marches by.

That used to disturb me.  It used to bother me that I was getting older (I’m now 25) but not really achieving anything. I still live at home. I’m still not independent. Forget a career, I never had a job ever and well….I don’t know. I still don’t know how I’m going to afford my expensive hobbies (why expensive hobbies?! Grrr!). But for the time being, I guess it is not meant to be….

Those things haven’t changed. They haven’t changed at all. But I’m somehow less disturbed by it. I’ve found steps towards change way too overwhelming.

How could someone be so utterly unready for just about anything? I don’t know but somehow I managed to do just that.

The desperation for progress has been replaced by apathy? I don’t know.

I’ve been here before. In a way. But it’s different this time. It’s like the opposite of last time in (in 2008 which was a completely different situation but also a time of transition in some ways) so many, many ways except the end result in the same: living in a state of mere apathetic existence. It took me a few years to finally get out of that last time but I had no support at the time. Fortunately, my life was fairly structured at the time and I had no need to grow.

I’m finding it difficult to do anything else, anything beyond the confines of what I deem comfortable. I know I SHOULD do something but I don’t actually want to do anything. I don’t really know why exactly. But it is.  I barely leave home.

As if all the issues bubbling under, on and above the surface came back to haunt me big time. It feels like I could create barriers to run into by just breathing. Seriously.

Just my presence seems to throw any seemingly straightforward plan into complete disarray! Usually when I fail to do something…I don’t know. It often ends with me freaking out to some extent or whatever.

My days pass: pacing, sleeping, existing.

Somewhere in-between. It’s a familiar place for me. I’ve always struggled to find anywhere for me, trapped between worlds. Neither low-functioning to have a lot of services or programs yet unable to cope with the “real world” (either I don’t have the social skills or I’m not independent enough/find it too overwhelming or all of the above).

I am not sure when I’ll exist the funk (or if, but oh god I hope I do…this kinda sucks 🙁 ).

Things are slowly getting better. Things are slowly solidifying. I’m starting to find things to grasp onto, that I’ll hopefully keep holding onto even as the storm passes. Horses have been good. I somehow manage keep my shit together when on or around a horse even though I can’t seem to do it in just about anything else. I’ve even manage to ride little issues out like a real rider on a real horse  instead of freaking out myself – despite the fact that I’m kind of losing it in all other aspects of my simultaneously wonderfully and horribly stagnant life.

But horses are expensive. And hard to get to.  So I can’t ride that much :-(. But for now it’s enough to keep me sane, keep me grounded. I am increasingly starting to think that if it wasn’t for horses, I would have completely lost it by now.  Even though I am struggling with various issues (some of them a little larger than I thought…) now, I still have some motivation to move froward. Without horses, I’m not sure if I would have that.

Too many things end with me freaking out. No wonder I’m drawn to the masters of freaking out: horses. :-P. To be fair, it’s pretty hard to freak and run away when the horse under you is doing it for you, pretty much! (Although I seem to be able to keep my shit together with horses this time around which wasn’t the case in 2008. Like I said, opposite.  In 2008, wasn’t freaking out about the rest of my non-horsy life – I just didn’t care despite that I did decide that the canter was suddenly scary for no reason…and I didn’t care much.).

I’ve also gotten stuck in a cycle of procrastinating too…

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just stuck in general…..

For now I still few like a lost child. Except I’m a grown-up that can’t seem to do any grown-up things at the moment….

Falling over the giant step

Posted on By jennego

I did it.
Last week I just tried taking one of the seemingly huge metaphorical steps. And sort of crashed through it.

But my coping skills are relatively low and I struggled to keep myself sane during that time. I spent the last last half of the previous week fretting about a possibility (the phone possibility), the first half of that week freaking out and the last half of that week in some sort of weird zone.

After that , it was like my brain melted and I couldn’t deal with anymore anxiety. At all. Plans for Saturday fell apart when I flatly refused to go beyond my comfort zone because I couldn’t deal with it anymore even if it was taking the bus for a bunch of extra unknown stops.

I didn’t think I was ready. For many, it was no secret that I was not ready. And surprise, I wasn’t ready!

Frames Film Project also ended. However, through the 10 week program, it wasn’t until the 9th week (editing weekend) that I started to feel part of the group. I’ve heard that they did a 8 month intake once and everyone found it too long but I think I would have done better in that. I will be returning in some way though….

Okay, I’m still not quite there when it comes to group work. So many years alone has made it incredibly difficult to connect.

I’m on the ground, lying by the staircase I just completely fell over. Again. I don’t know what to do anymore. Interviews are too overwhelming. Phones are overwhelming. Groups are overwhelming until I know anyone (which may not be for a while). But most of all, I cannot seem to move a single step.

Not Impossible (Schoolgirl Days)

Posted on By jennego

When I think to things that once seemed impossible but became impossible was integrating into regular classes in grade 9.

I have been in social development programs all through elementary school. I had some integrated classes in elementary school (usually a once or few times per week thing) but I don’t recall any of them were wildly successful. The worst one was when I was supposed to be a mentor for a younger class. That didn’t go that well and I’m not sure why they thought it would.

For high school, I was in Pacific Storm Social Development at Sir Charles Tupper Secondary. When I was in grade 8, we had two integrated elective blocks – one was a rotation of fine arts (drawing, graphics, drama) and the other was a rotation of other things (Applied Skills…I just remember it had woodworking and home ec). It was not that easy for me but I eventually got the hang of it. Some courses were modified quite heavily for me to accommodate me (I’m looking at you, Drama).

I was 13 years old. I didn’t know it at the time but my social world was going to become more and more insular. By the time I was 13,  I didn’t think I’ll ever go into regualar classes. I doubted I would go to university.

At last half of grade 9, I was nearly fully integrated. In grade 10, I had one block with Pacific Storm even though the program was grade 8-9 (though it said grades 8-10 for YEARS). In grade 11, I had one skills block that I seemed to use for napping….but wound up running back to a Pacific Storm staff member in times of “crisis”. In grade 12, I wound up going back to Pacific Storm to “peer tutor” (kids didn’t like me much, go figure) although I can’t say I did a very good job (I don’t know why people keep thinking I’ll be a good tutor!)…in reality, it was more like “catching up with folks”. I was offered a skills block in grade 12 but opted for spare. Although in grades 11-12 I was technically with the resource centre for support, I never strayed that far away from Pacific Storm (but they didn’t do a good job of kicking me out either 😛 ).

Long after I graduated (thankfully), Pacific Storm has since moved to Britannia. I am very glad that happened much after or I would have been so screwed with my “not part of the program, part of the program” status in grade 10-12.

As for the hoopla with special needs in regular classrooms? I don’t know. I think I would have enjoyed the academic challenge (except for math) if I was integrated earlier. But I also think that the social development programs kept me relatively safe from bullies and let me form friendships. I am not sure if I would have formed a friendship if I wasn’t in that setting. ALL of the friends I ever had (and may ever have at this rate lol) were peers from my social development classes. Actually, come to think if it, I might have very well have gotten kicked out of a regular classroom for such poor social interaction skills, especially when it got way worse around grade 2 or 3. I don’t know what happened. People have asked me that before. At any rate, it was like my world fell in.

When I was around 12-13 , I did not imagine that I go to regular classes or will attend university. That seemed nearly impossible. I knew nothing more other than social development programs.

But I did. I now have a BA in English. But I was reasonably good at academics and my accommodations allowed me to stay in my comfort zone for the most part.

Now, I am struggling to see myself getting a job and living independently. But this is harder.

This is so much harder. And it does seem impossible a lot of the time.

I can’t handle phones. Or introductions. Or interviews. Or anything else it seems.

I don’t have the independence or social skills  that one expects from someone my age. Sometimes it seems like I don’t want to do it when I do but I’m just really overwhelmed.

I long for the days of school hallways…so structured, so comforting….

The Paradox of Progress

Posted on By jennego

I want progress, but I am also terrified of it! I want things to change, but I don’t want to change.

I discovered that this past week, resulting in somewhat of a mid-week crisis. I don’t know. It’s all just very confusing and conflicting still.

In general I am not a huge fan of change. Yet, I’m tired of continuously going nowhere. Things are finally starting to happen for me – as I wanted. But I did not expect how overwhelming it could be – when I’ve barely started. But even talk of Telephone Dragons and Teamwork Dragons are enough to rattle me…..yet alone someone going “we’re going to extend your comfort zone”. Uh oh. That usually means it’ll be broken first. I like my comfort zone intact, thank you very much.

Ok, so I did more or less stay in my safe zone for a long while. Did I really do anything? Not really. That was the problem with the last employment program attempt – we were kind of just doing….nothing really. I don’t know. If they did something, they sure didn’t tell me.

I don’t have a good history of programs since I left university. I was really not so happy the first time that the person for the provincial employment program gave up on me due to inadequate social skills. There were so many things wrong with that situation that it’s a wonder we lasted a little over a month. I would change support agencies soon after anyway.

Looking back, at someone’s original plan a little over a year ago –  there was no way that was happening without having some sort of massive meltdown. Dumping me in the deep end doesn’t work. I just seem to get more unwilling, more fearful of it – espeically when it doesn’t even go right!

I know it’s not the same now. I’m with people that now understand me and mostly know me (well, one just started so…). I have more support. It’s one thing to push – but there needs to be a way to deal with the aftermath (also known as when I basically flip out more or less…).

But I still want things to progress and not progress at the same time. I would like the progress without the side-effects, without the growing pains, without the unease and without the anxiety.

If I can’t have my job on a platter, can I have progress on a platter?

Apparently that’s not going to happen.

But I still wish to fly. But I don’t want to fall. I want progress but….I don’t know. I don’t know anything at all.

Breaking Away

Posted on By jennego

Well, not literal wars, thankfully. More like imagined ones to me.

The last two weeks have been crazy. It all started on July 25 with a splat with my employment service. Initially, it started with a dispute about paying for a criminal record check BEFORE anything was or is secured (I have still yet to hear back about that one by the way and I’m STILL peeved about that!!) and just just spiraled out of control from there. Things were already sort of going not so well and it just got worse. In the end, I had little faith in them and things clashed. I know that believe differently but it felt like I was grilled and then ejected out. I haven’t been back since. Now I’m trying to figure things out.

In some ways I’ve been here before and I think I’ve chosen right.  Last year I switched agencies and workers. That worked quite well.

I’ve been out of school for almost 1 whole year and I’m still not employed in any way, I’m haven’t done any work experince or internships, I am still living at home, I’m still barely able to ride (I’m lucky if I get my weekly lesson) and generally, I feel like I haven’t achieved anything. Which is not totally true but it feels like it.

True, I’ve only been with them for 9 months, so not even a year. But I don’t feel like it’s working and I need a job. One can make an entire human being in 9 months but not any sort of job for me?

It’s time for a change I think.  My logic is questioning it but my gut feels that it’s necessary. I don’t think I’m going to go much further doing what I’ve already been doing.

I guess it’s time to breakaway.

I’ll spread my wings and I’ll learn how to fly
I’ll do what it takes til’ I touch the sky
And I’ll make a wish
Take a chance
Make a change
And breakaway

I think I need to breakaway from that employment program

I don’t know where this road will go and I don’t know if it will be any better than before. But at least then, I’ll know that I tried.

Buildings with a hundred floors
Swinging around revolving doors
Maybe I don’t know where they’ll take me but
Gotta keep moving on, moving on
Fly away, breakaway

No matter what, I need to keep moving on even when I don’t know what’s at the end. I need to not lose sight of my dreams but it’s hard when it feels like all your walking into walls. But I generally know what I want in general, I just have no idea how to achieve those things. I can’t predict what’s at the end of the road. Nor can anyone. But ultimately, one must submit to pure, informed but unsubstantiated belief that everything is going to be okay. Even though there’s no way of knowing.

But that’s okay. It has to be. There isn’t any other way. Is there?

It may not be okay.  In that case, it may be time to re-evaluate at that point. It shouldn’t be a path that one is unable to change paths or walk back from.  But it is also may be okay. It might be even more okay.

I don’t have anything to lose. It’s time to fly.

Today, we finished the paperwork. Now all I have to do is play the waiting game for a few weeks.

Quoted excerpts from the  song “Breakaway“. Made famous by singer Kelly Clarkson. Written by Avril Lavigne, Bridget Benenate, Matthew Gerrard. Also in Princess Diaries 2. 

(I’m sure not from a small town – I want to go the other way, actually from big city to the country….but everything else is pretty spot on 😉

Another Year, Another Summer

Posted on By jennego

And so, summer is here.

It used to be a time of celebration.  No school. Fun field trips (I never took holidays…and evidently I may never will on a regular basis). As a teenager, hanging around the barn a little more often (I was never quite the barn rat – well, maybe I was for a few weeks before I got “laid off” lol). I was always more of a winter person though. I’m not sure why exactly but I never liked the heat all that much.

But now summer seems to mark the ending of another academic year. The academic year that never was.

What’s worse than a has-been? A never-been.

I’ve never been this. I’ve never been that. Each day is another exercise is nothingness. I feel like I’m in a never ending limbo. Suspended in a sea of mediocrity. Floating listlessly.

I wish for the sunny youth of summer. The innocence as bright as the sun’s strong rays. When the truth and the critic didn’t feel one and the same.

But now, summer just seems to mark another year, another year of nothing. So much so that anything else almost seems overwhelming, stuck  into the endless cycle of nothingness. Yet meanwhile, they children run, play and scream in joy. I stay inside, watching the time go by wordlessly.

Maybe I’ve always been like that. As a kid, I was always the dork that spent the summer reading in the reading room or swinging on the swing for hours. One summer I even taught myself how to “see” the images in the Magic Eye books – more or less (I found some worked better than others…though I’m not sure if I can still see them).

Maybe you’re not growing if what you’re doing doesn’t scare you. But fear is a powerful thing. It’s way easier to simply stay in the shadows rather then attempt to chase the golden light with all sort of barriers in the way.

And every summer it says the same, as if the summer was somehow another year new. Another school year. Another new year of learning. Of growing? But what does it mean when you feel that you barely learnt anything? What does it mean when you’re not sure if you grew that much, still stuck in your ways?

What does it mean when everything feels impossible and you’re not sure how you’re going to move forward? Maybe it’s just normal growing pains – the growing pains of transitions, of really growing up but it all feels like I’m flying towards the sun at full speed.

A Window to My Life

Posted on By jennego

This is what my life looks right now. This is the window to my future.

Everything ahead is a mass of blurred grey and other colours and the rain is all I see. The rain that never ceases.  The rain the blurs vision. The rain that just makes you wet, cold and grumpy.

I can’t see the future. The future that I imagined, the future that I dreamed for myself – is just that. A thought. A dream. No matter how big or small, realistic or unrealistic.  Meanwhile, nothing is moving. Or everything is moving. In both ways. Good and bad. All at the same time, perhaps erring more to the side of bad. As if it was slowing drifting there, somehow.

Things seemed poised for collapse. All see is rain. Washing away all that I wanted, all that I’ve loved. I don’t know if it can wash passion away. Perhaps I wished it can at some level, in a  way. That way, it’ll hurt way less to lose anything, everything when it all comes crashing down in a mudslide.

But things are easier to lose than to gain. It’s easier to criticize than praise. Dreams come so slow and can be transient, gone so fast that you’re not quite sure what replaced them. Optimism can quickly feel like false hope before it quickly descends to pessimism. It’s easier to destroy than to create. There’s more ways to die than to be born.

And still the window offers me nothing, but the distant hints of colour out there. I know there’s something perhaps, but there is no detail. No detail of whether it will be good or bad. Everything is a blur. Water drops obscures my view although I’m not quite sure if they are drops of rain, tears or both.

Maybe it’s alright to be worried that I’m going nowhere. Maybe it’s alright to be scared. Maybe it’s alright to have a looming sense of doom. Maybe it’s alright to feel desperate.

But I’m tired of it. I’m tired of all of this.

I’m desperate for change. Hungry to chase my dreams.  Hope that something good will happen to me and soon.

But I’m not too sure about that. The grey blur of pessimism lingers.

I want to know what’s beyond the window. I want to see that the skies are blue and maybe one day the dreams I may dare to dream, could somehow come true.

On the Cusp of Collapse and Coming Together

Posted on By jennego

Everything is of the verge of falling apart. And everything is on the verge of coming together.

But I feel the collapse imminent. It’s like what WILL happen if nothing happens. What will happen if I don’t stop it.  Somehow.

Yet, there’s hope of greater changes. I guess. Maybe one day soon, I’ll have a job (or two). Maybe one day soon, I can move out. Maybe one day soon, I can be more involved with horses and riding.

But I don’t know. There’s somehow that maybe the first two things may happen. But I don’t know when and I don’t know how.

I have been a bit more successful with the volunteer thing lately. I’m going to volunteer as a photographer this weekend. I did some things with a computer refurb/recycling organization. And most excitedly, I have volunteered with horses – for a few months in a therapuetic riding program and possibly in the future with a pony rescue. Granted most of these things are either not long termed and have not yet happened yet or both.

But I still feel like everything is about to fall apart. That there’s no horizon and the world is flipped on its head. I’ve been out of university for over 8 months and I haven’t done much. Meanwhile, it’s been an insane 7 years since I’ve graduated high school. How does that even happen? It feels like it was just a few years ago I was a schoolgirl wandering through the high school corridors. Time doesn’t explain it. It seems so fast.

And still I haven’t done much. I have completed a degree and that’s about it. Definitely not much to write home about for a 24 year old.  I feel like I’m getting older, that the time and the window for success is like somehow running out. I’m not quite sure where or how I got to the conclusion.

I guess I’m a results-orientated person. I might have been ambitious, had I had more success in…I don’t know, life?  Forcing things don’t always work. I know. That’s what riding has taught me….you can be so determined to “fix” something that everything winds up totally unravelling. But it’s what else do you do? Wait until they come to you? That approach doesn’t really work either, it seems.

Everything seems to be on the verge of falling apart, hanging by its last threads. A big part of it is uncertainty. It’s like I know everything is going to fall apart but I don’t know if anything or everything will come together. The hope is promising but I feel the imminent collapse is looming.

I haven’t even thought much of July yet, other than I hope that I get my crap together…for some reason July seems unplanned, devoid of anything and I just can’t really seem to think much beyond the first week or two of July at all.

I hope that things will work out. But I just don’t know.

I miss school. I miss horses (I haven’t ridden or seen horses in about 2 weeks). I’m tired of arguing at home about stupid things. I miss the structure that my life once had.

I had more in my mind, but somehow this was all I managed to write. Amazing.

Is this the right Path? Or am I wasting my time?

Posted on By jennego

Sometimes you need to stop and figure out what you are doing, where are you are going and how to get there and then realize you may need to change paths.

It feels like I’m wasting my time, wasting my life for now TWO whole semesters. That’s 8 months. I have done nothing in those 8 months. Well, pretty darn close to nothing when you consider all the volunteer things I may have tried but have not really come through.

I had the feeling that this path may be premature to start with, which is why I originally planned on going back to school right away. But there were other issues with that and I couldn’t get it together. Other forces were pushing for the job thing.  So I tried the job route. There was some promise, but ultimately it feels like it hasn’t been working out. Maybe I’ll admit that I can be part of the blame too – somehow, I’m sure, in my unwillingness to change. I don’t know what to do about that. I think my net is wide enough (writing AND all digital media + publishing) but maybe it isn’t.

Besides, based on today it seems like nearly everyone is either mad with me, annoyed with me or scared of me. Yes, seriously on the last one. I’m barely 5′ on  a good day with shoes on and the hairdresser (as I found out today) and my family doctor is scared of me (for immunizations) because they can’t handle the reactions (if I were a horse I’ll be one of those “explosive reactive” types).

I’m still waiting for replies on two potentially significant volunteer positions. But I don’t know if that’ll ever happen. Maybe I weirded them out too much already. Maybe I’m not worthy enough. I don’t know.

I’m not sure if this road is worth pursuing  right now or at least worth pursuing solely on it’s own. I’ve also thought about pursuing a barn job or work exchange arrangement more seriously to secure riding and horses in my life, but to be honest I’m not sure if I’m good enough and I’m not sure if anyone will be willing to start me off slow or not.

So today, I’m considering going back to school again. I am not willing to waste another year doing nothing. When I’m in school, I can still be searching for work and even work part-time and many programs have internships.  Aside from the fact that the program I want is of course currently full (registration is almost a year in advance so I knew that) and the other, similar (and cheaper) program at another school has been axed. So I don’t even know what I would do anyway.

I feel like I’m at the end of this road. There’s nothing here. Time to go back to another road… Unless that changes soon.  Yep, I’ve hit a valley….

ETA: Apparently this was or the title was “hilariously inappropriate” as a screenshot for blog portion of my portfolio

Blossoming

Posted on By jennego

Spring is slowly creeping along in the neighbourhood. The trees seem to follow their own schedule – some are still nearly bare, some in blossom, some in early leaf and still a few in near full leaf.  But still, they will all be in full leaf by around mid-May. No matter when, they are blossoming or will blossom by the end of the spring (unless it is dead but that is another allegory altogether).

But me? I don’t know about me. I do have some things to do up the pipeline – mostly in photography. But other than that, I don’t know. I would like to get a job by the end of the summer but I’m not sure how that’s going on. I would like to stay involved with horses somehow and preferably still riding – some sort of part time work exchange thing would be ideal. But seeing that I can’t really seem to get volunteering going in that regard, especially with the transportation issue – I’m not sure how that’s going to work.

The blossoms will fall away, drifting gracefully to the ground and leaving leaves in their place.

And me – I don’t know. I feel that the summer will come. That fall will come. And nothing else would really change. I’m not even sure how I’m going to afford to ride once and if I ever move. But I do want to move. I feel stagnated here.

Even though I’m not entirely sure where to move.

I’m not sure how everything is going happen. How anything is going to happen.

How everything would blossom or if it’s all just bud that will just wilt and fall to the ground.