Existential crisis

I have been writing in fits and starts as my life has been swallowed up by an existential crisis. Probably all part and parcel of the usual getting-everything-I-want-but-of-course-I-don't-deserve-it tension. I'm staying open and reminding myself of just how good I have it. My reward, it seems, is to fall deeper and deeper into depression. The depression is grief. For all the times I was told I couldn't have what I want. For all the times the universe told me I wasn't good enough. For all the times I was left behind. And remember, these are feelings from childhood, so they have childish intensity, like how a child feels when she's told she can't go to a birthday party that she really wants to go to, that she believes her well-being is dependent on. But instead of being allowed to throw the fit raging inside her when she's denied, she's admonished to "be good." Good meaning quiet and cooperative. For God's sake don't do anything to inconvenience the parent in this household. And so she is, good that is. And, so, where do the fitful feelings go? They don't disappear. They hide somewhere inside the child. If she doesn't one day release them and dissipate their power, they drive her life in their efforts to finally be recognized. In addition to releasing all those old "fits," I, now as an adult, grieve when I recognize that child.

And while all that is going on, I get up and go to school anyway. I get up and smile at people, cooperate in our activities. Go to the gym anyway. When all I really want is to lie in a supine coma in front of the tv.

All of this makes writing hard. Sorry.