So I found this thing called 30 Days Of Truth, so I think I shall do that.

Today's thing: one thing you hate about yourself. Oh, where do I start? This one's gonna be like falling off a log.

Probably the thing I hate most is what a clueless fucking git I am all of the time. Growing up, I had quite the "dumb blonde" reputation. I did stupid shit all the time because I didn't know how to do it or didn't know better. My parents are just people who should never have to teach anyone anything-- and let's face it, Mom didn't exactly want an independent child in the first place-- so I didn't really start to figure out much of anything until I went to college and not only did I have to, I had the freedom to do so. Plus nobody was around to bitch me out for it, that helped too. It's really funny now when I am around my lone friend remaining from high school and she says something about my dumb blonde days, and I will be all, "Oh, huh, I forgot about that."

But lately my dumb isn't quite so much "I can't drive" or "I can't figure out how to get anywhere on Amtrak." These days it's more "Fuck if I can figure out what to do with my life." I realized early on that I wasn't going to be able to get up to much until my dad died, so in 2007 I started trying to Figure Shit Out and figure out What I Want To Do With My Career and such.

So far, after 3 years, this is what I have learned:
(a) I really don't have the passion or motivation to get fiction published. I don't have much drive towards it. (I honestly think there is something missing from my work. Well, everyone sounds like me so I'm not overly thrilled with that, but besides that, I don't find my stories to be exciting.) I write it when I have an idea or am in the mood or it's November, but I don't care that much about submitting it around, getting all the rejections, self-promoting, blah blah blah. I care more about nonfiction, but my life has been far duller than usual for the last few years so I haven't done much of that either. Either way, I suspect that blogging takes care of my need to publish somehow. Or maybe I just don't care enough to keep pushing on a book for years. But I thought I'd do this my whole life... and I don't want it badly enough.
(b) I've griped about starting my own craft business on here every May or so, suffice it to say that the business end kills my fun and I don't wanna.
(c) Don't date people you aren't interested in from the getgo, hoping that you'll change your mind. You haven't done that once in your entire life, and leading people on just because people tell you to give them a change is only being a jerk.
(d) My career counselor at work is just as stumped as to what to do with me as I am. "Uh, get another writing job." Let's just say that recently I found a perfect-ish job for me... except it was part time. That is how much writers are wanted these days. I would certainly enjoy another one, but I don't hold out much hope for the business of writing for the next few years anyway.
(e) I really can't move on with any part of my life without a license (and probably a car, eventually).

You might notice that the list boils down to "what I don't want" and there's not a whole lot of "what I DO want" on it when it comes to career. There are a couple of things I do want (not very career-ish), but I'm too embarrassed to say, and it would take years (plus driving, plus moving) to get them going anyway. I want to pick a direction and go in it. My shrink is all, "Just pick one thing and do it, Jennifer," but it's hard to pick one when you're not picking between things you really want so much as things you don't care about doing any more. It's a stumper.

And thus, I whine all over the damn Internet in hopes that I dunno, maybe someone else will come up with an idea that I haven't yet? I suspect at this point only divine intervention's gonna get me off the plodding path I am currently on. I hear the best way to predict your future actions is to look at your past... so how do I do anything drastically different when I never really have before? And I still don't know of what to do now? What's going to change this?

In my experience, lightning bolt act of God events, but that's about it. (And the latter is kind of scary.) Either that or I somehow acquire a business partner, I dunno. Right now I am kind of running low on this sort of thing.

I'd like to choose differently these days, but I do not know how to do it worth a damn. And I am vomitously sick of myself these days for not knowing. And everyone else is vomitously sick of me and my whining about it. I'm aware of this and want to stop it, but this week I had a moment where I realized just how much I was doing it and was unaware of how bad I was getting.

I'm freaking 32, time is ticking, no excuses any more, IT'S TIME TO GET MOVING ALREADY. And... yet I don't? And can't? Or won't?

I really loathe this about myself. I want to be different and I don't know how.

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