in transit

i have no idea where i’m at in my life right now. i feel like i’ve been sitting in a waiting room for something to happen for so long while everyone around me is getting their number called. Only I don’t know what number i have in my hand, so that complicates things. it’s like i’ve almost developed learned helplessness but it can’t be good if i just give up. everything i do now feels like obligation. i’m obligated to be an IV leader and member and do IV things, i’m obligated to act happy and social and sometimes i am, but the feeling’s always fleeting. i just came back from the quad and although i laughed so hard my throat dried out, sitting there i still felt empty. like a giant part of me is missing and it’s because i have a hole in me where i try to fill it with joy but it just leaks out after i stop filling it. and all the while i’m filling it i know it’s not going to stay. i keep speaking in metaphor. at curtis i just checked out and blamed it on being sick, and sat down on a bale of hay and waited. cause that’s all i can do now, to wait. greg and emily noticed and came back over to accompany me which i appreciated, but then i put on my front again and pretend to be alright, just sick and tired. i don’t really have to try to pretend to be happy, it just happens, so i wonder sometimes if i’m actually capable of naturally being happy, it’s just that this phantom of knowing it won’t last ruins that everything for me. so people don’t really notice that i’m depressed, because something in me keeps up the ruse of normality regardless of how i actually feel inside and away from other people. then we went to wendy’s in a car and i stared out the window and wondered silly suicidal thoughts like i sometimes trivially do, and it surprised me whenever someone would ask if i was alright. not sure what they were noticing, but they did…and it caught me off guard. i’m not sure what to make of their concern, or how to respond to it really when they do express concern. my first instinct is to just shrug it off and act like i have no idea what they’re talking about, but i wonder what would happen if i were to just tell them that, yes, i’m depressed and overall dissatisfied with my life and my friends, and that sometimes i wonder how the world would fare without me. And wonder what it would look like to make that a reality. But no one will ever know; not that i think they could do anything to help. It’d probably just alienate them from me and i’m sure it’s not as big a deal as i sometimes make it seem in my own mind. I’ll admit that I tend to self-pity, and there are far worse things to worry about. Like those lower on Maslow’s hiearchy of needs, blah blah, i still hold to my theory that dissatisfaction is proportionally equal in intensity though comes from different causes as you move up the pyramid. So there are those that are depressed because they have no food or shelter, and then there are those that are depressed because they’re like me and see no enjoyment in their lives (societally/spiritually, etc). So for the former the pain is more like a sharp, stinging pain, while mine is like the dull, throbbing pain that people experience. I’m becoming more numb as the days wear on, and just tolerating the responsibilities that i have to bear. Not ‘have to’ per se, but know I ought to. Like I said before, i feel like i’m temping for someone else’s life and trying not to screw it up until that person comes back. Actually it’s more like I’m temping at a job knowing that eventually i’m going to move on, but not knowing what catalyst or action i have to take to do so, meanwhile trying not to screw up my job now in case moving on takes longer than i’d expect. But i’m fed up with my life, and i don’t understand what about it makes me so unhappy.