The Frustrating Adventures of a Recovering Individual

So I have a confession I am throwing out to select few people on the internets.

I don’t really enjoy much of anything anymore.

Writing is something I enjoy doing and I do feel like this ultimately is a potential destiny…but at times it feels like a chore I must churn out so it doesn’t feel like I’ve wasted the past dozen years.

I used to enjoy watching movies all the time. Last two years I think I’ve been to movie theaters just about a dozen times, which is a far cry from my nearly weekly visits to catch a new film. I used to play video games very often, owning Nintendo consoles nearly my entire life. Nowadays, I don’t own any of the modern consoles, even if the Switch is incredible and the Playstation 4 also has a lot of awesome games. My love for gaming also dissipated, even if I keep close track on its success and its ebbs and flows.

All the hobbies and interests that used to define me in the early parts of last decade has fallen by the wayside as I to this day struggle with getting out of the slog that followed a relationship that turned into a daily struggle that crashed and burned on a random April. It didn’t even end in an argument or some blow up, the other person decided to just stop communicating altogether. Along the way she stripped all the enjoyment from a previous life that was going so well. 2011-2012 were some very good years I didn’t appreciate enough, but I had a good job, I had a nice apartment, and an awesome roommate. The location was perfect, and things just meshed nicely.

But then came this little stint that was nice the first few months and the rest of the journey was just an absolute hassle (and granted in the beginning it was my fault for messing things up, but I confessed these sins and I spent the rest of the time acknowledging and trying to improve). All my effort during this time was spent trying to recover something that appeared doomed after a good first few months. It cost me savings, cost me my hobbies, cost me most of my free time, and it extended far longer than it should have. Even if things ended three years ago, I still haven’t quite collected all the pieces simply because of how pointless it all felt and how much loss I had encountered along the way. Thousands of dollars vanished, my credit score dipped, I lost that nice apartment I could have kept had my finances been better, my trust in people dipped, and a lot of my larger plans fell by the wayside.

Worst of all there were some legitimately awesome friendships and women I had met in between those years and now they all feel like lost and missed opportunities because my emotional and mental state was in shambles and couldn’t quite piece together a person competent or good enough to be with some of these wonderful people. In an alternate storyline, I would have been strong enough to cut things off in 2014 and began my quest for emotional freedom as I moved to my next apartment and started the next chapter of my life. And maybe then I would have been a better version of myself when I met ________ or ___________ or especially _______________. I would have been a better version of myself and actively and actually tried to move further up in Disney as a backup plan while still fighting for a writing career. Years later, the lack of moving up dug me into a hole when the company decided to fire people over some French fries. Years later, a few of these friendships had just about been reduced to fleeting hellos and how have you beens. There have even been friendships I completely cut off because it was doing damage to maintain.

I still feel kinda ridiculous for struggling to fully recover from the end of a bullshit era that occurred back in 2017, but people take different lengths of time to recover from traumatic or emotionally-draining experiences because no two stories are the same. And yet I sometimes feel more ridiculous because opportunities were indeed passed up from two, three, even four years back. Even during incredible trips like Mexico and Brazil, there were mental scars holding me back. And all of these frustrations are enhanced with this coronavirus epidemic and the quarantine that followed.

Nowadays, I’m at an apartment by myself (and about to lose it), absolutely struggling to keep my head above water. And yes, everyone is struggling, but its especially rough considering that I’m still trying to be back to my former self---movie-watching, video games, more writing, more exploring, and more friends to be able to communicate with. But the finances, the struggling anguish, the frustration of an America that has accepted fucking over minorities even in a post-Obama world become giant obstacles, giant road blocks to full recovery. All these dark thoughts have enhanced under this pandemic, under this administration, as now my attempts for growth have closed in a bit, even if its temporary.

And none of this means there’s an upcoming surrender I assure you, but its more a revelation on how I’m not me and I haven’t fully been me in quite some time. 2011 Me would shudder in horror as to what I’ve become. And I know the necessary steps for recovery, and I have definitely made efforts to eliminate the grudges, the subtle anger, the frustrations of everything that had transpired since I had things mostly figured out, they’ve just been taking far far longer than I could have ever imagined. It has been a multi-year battle without a true end in the crosshairs, and delayed severely because the world has had to stop.

I have a website now, like a semi-professional one. I have a calendar that I never follow. I have restaurant ideas that are enhanced versions of hobbies that I enjoy like gaming and discovering more about Latin culture and the concept of traveling to far-off lands. I have ideas, I have executed plans, I have attempted to bond partnerships to try to find success in other fields, and its all a matter of seeing who is willing to invest in me, which is the ultimate anxiety. Imagine me, someone who lost three years investing in someone not willing to invest back, depending on others to further push towards different careers that isn’t depending on large corporations for financial survival. And now in the middle of a pandemic that has stripped communications and progress to the bare minimums. This hasn’t been easy, even if there isn’t really a time limit to reverting back to happier days as long as Death is willing to give me said time.

I have not surrendered, but I also have not recovered, and this post is a written acknowledgement of my struggles. But the battle moves on.