Feelings

I feel like such a failure, among other things.

Right now I don't care if these feelings are rational or logically sound conclusions. It's just how I'm feeling right now.

I recently obtained a Master's degree in a field that became less attractive to me the more I learned about it. Unfortunately, even I don't use it, I still have to pay for it. (It turns out that there's no return policy in the Ivy League.) Not that my 3 months searching for a job led to anything approaching employment, but I still would have turned it down, I think.

Which would have been monumentally stupid, as I am now in full desperation mode after 6 months. In about 2 months, those giant loans for grad school are going to start needing payments. Between my undergrad loans (which I've been paying on a bit throughout grad school and more since it ended in December) and my grad school loans, I owe well north of $100k. Because I am a fucking idiot.

Besides being a terrible financial decision-maker (I once bought a brand new Suzuki Aerio all by myself because I was a grown up), I make terrible career decisions as well. I left a full-time, career-path job that I wasn't crazy about because I wanted to find my passion. I left for a job that cranked my stress and depression up to 10, followed by a stint in the Peace Corps that I quit for the same reason.

I went back to school to get a BA in a field with essentially zero employability, went back to Peace Corps because I'm stubborn and got medically separated for the same reason as the first time, and then went to grad school because once again, I was looking for direction. Luckily I'm good at academics. "I went back to school" because I dropped out the first time. And the second and third times, too. More in my string of terrible decisions, which I am only brushing the surface of here.

Now I'm working two part-time jobs, one of which pays me less than I made in 2001, the other of which hardly needs me and also involves dead people. Awesome. They should be enough to keep my bills at bay while I live with my mother and search for a job. Which is right where you want to be at 32, right?

I could also get into my string of failed relationships that were 90% my fault, but I suppose that's enough for now. I just wish that I were...better. At life.