Guilty Conscience

When I was 12, I took a bus ride with a friend to the mall without telling my mom. As far as she knew, I was just hanging out at his house for the day. We had just moved from Brampton to Cambridge, a much, much smaller city, where I guess it was fairly common practice for younger kids to do these types of things on their own. I knew she would be mad, so a few days later I caved and told her what had happened.

Fastforward to now, 10 years later. That guilty conscience that we joked about - that guilty conscience that made me come clean for years any time I'd do something wrong, has turned into existentialism. That once harmless feeling of needing to clear my head has turned into an inability to relieve myself of anything on my mind. There's a constant need to strive for perfect mental health, for a perfect peace of mind through balancing my life to such a degree that I spend the perfect amount of time with everyone, that I have the perfect relationship, the perfect job, and just genuine comfort.

It's unrealistic. It's impossible.

It strikes at random. I could be sitting in a coffee shop, when suddenly I see someone who reminds me of my grandparents, or my mom, and I instantly think about how I don't spend enough time with them. Maybe I'll drive by a dog, and I'll get sad thinking about my own dog. Sometimes I'll be driving and a certain song will come on and I'll think about that girl. Maybe I'll see a Facebook post from someone really successful in my field, and be reminded of just how close to the starting line I'm at.

What I'm saying is, there are reminders everywhere. Reminders of my imperfection and my struggle to live with a clean conscience. My conscience doesn't even revolve around right & wrong anymore, it just revolves around perfection. 

It's become mathematical. My day is now an equation. Wake up at x time. Shower and eat by x time. Sit outside in the sun for 30ish minutes. Take pictures for an hour, and edit them for two, etc. My day is just broken down into time slots, and I struggle every day to try and perfect how long I should dedicate to something. Sometimes I feel like I'm way off base with my priorities. For example, I seem to either go for multiple runs & bike rides in a week, or I don't at all.

2016 has just been this weird concoction of amazing things and terrible things and there seems to be no in-between. There's death and there's heartbreak, but there's traveling and concerts. There's increased existentialism and deeper depression, but there's new friendships & photography. 

I just feel very burdened right now. I get handed one thing and stripped of another. Everything I do from my freelancing to my love life feels like some high school attempt to throw shit together. Sketchy clients who end up not paying, clients who bail, businesses who I get as clients, but then never send me anything. A job which i'm on the brink of quitting because my anxiety has decided it makes me anxious. An inability to keep something going with a girl for more than a couple weeks.

Everything just feels like it's on repeat, year after year. I'm just repeating my life, but the problems and consequences are getting bigger, as well as the rewards.

I just want to get there. I want to get to that metaphorical happy place which may not even exist, because I'll find something to struggle over. But I just want to be near it, i want to see that light without having it turned off a week later. It's all just so tiring.