s l o w d o w n

i've always been too ambitious for my own good. it's worked out pretty well for me in the past -

i wouldn't have pointed any of this out if there weren't a really good reason for it. it's not something i think about that often. however, there are days like today that really make me wonder. i woke up this morning under the assumption that i was going to skip my english class and just go to school at 10:15 or so. except then i really woke up, and realized that i'm not in college anymore, so i'm not free to skip class. and definitely not the first couple hours of work, either. i bumbled into work, and from the moment that i sat down to the moment i got up to leave nearly 10 hours later, i was bombarded with work. only i didn't leave it there. i packed it up, grabbed the laptop, and brought it home. i've been working for the last 5 hours or so here just to keep myself caught up.

why do i do this?

there is no logical explanation. i have nobody to compete with, unless the other technical specialists where i work count. but what do i have to gain from working more than them? i can't think of much. and this isn't ADD, this is my career. it's what i'll do for years and years, if not my entire life even.

there's that old joke about telling someone stupid to go into a round room and telling them to pee in the corner. i feel like that's a pretty adequate analogy for my life right now. i'm just going in circles now, but i'm already there. in some ways, i feel like i'm on top of a mountain and still trying to climb to the moon. in other ways i feel like a 28-year old man trapped inside a 23-year old's body. and simultaneously, i am wandering in circles, looking for a corner to pee in.

i really hope i sort this out soon. this simply cannot be what my life is going to be like. except that a part of me knows that if i'm not careful, this is exactly what the rest of my life will be like. during college i worked on at least 1 if not 2 or 3 shows at a time, while going to school full time and working 20-30 hours per week. that didn't leave much of a room for having a life, but i even squeezed a little of that in there, too.

i need to slow down, because i'm already there. i could really use a hand. the combination of attention defecit disorder, a mean competitive streak about three miles long, and my entire future to try and wrangle - it's truly a recipe for a lot of things. the ADD keeps me bouncing around from one thing to the next. my resumé is ample proof of that. it's all over the map. then there's the competitive part. this is what makes me somehow believe that i have to be the best at whatever it is that i'm temporarily obsessed with. those two things alone are bad news. it drives me to work very hard at something for a period of time and then completely drop it. the weird part, though, is that that third element isn't really there. my future isn't up for grabs anymore. i know exactly what it looks like. the only variable left is "where exactly will i end up living?" and you know, sooner or later, that one will sort itself out, too, leaving me a fully settled and official adult.