It’s been a year since I had my medical crisis/trauma, and it’s for me to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. I gave myself six months to adjust to life after the hospital, which has just drifted into a year.
It was difficult when my parents were here because they wanted to push me on my life choices. Within a month of me being home, my mother was pressuring me to figure out the rest of my life. She was weirdly persistent about it even after I made it painfully clear to her that I was waiting three to six months before making any decisions.
After they went back home, I realized it was because my father was obsessed with it, but didn’t bring it up to me. Instead, he talked about it with her and she pushed it on me. That’s my parents in a nutshell. My father gets a bee in his bonnet about something, then he’s so unpleasant about it, he makes my mom have to manage his mood/emotions/behavior.
Then, she nags me about it because she can’t stand him yelling at her about it. So she was pushing me so hard about it because he was pushing her. I should have realized it, but to be fair to me, I was still out of my gourd.
I told her that I was not going to talk about it for six months. Funnily (not), she heard my earlier three to six months comment and stuck with the short end of the stick. She kept mentioning three months, even when I said SIX months. Honestly, I just ignored her. I refused to talk about it, reminding her about my statement. She didn’t like it, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.
Now, however, I need to think about it. It’s been a year. My joke with my friends (which is not a joke) is that they get a year to talk about the major thing happening in their life, and then they had to scale it back. They’ve never pushed it because my friends are balanced and do not natter on about one thing for too long.
I found myself to be the same way. Yes, I talked about it quite a bit. Yes, there was a lot I had to unpack when it came to that situation, and, yes, it’s an important part of my life that will never go away, but…what was I saying?
This is one of the issues that I’ve had since the hospital, by the way. I’ve always been a person who will chase a tangent to its bitter end. I can jump from one topic to another with ease. It’s gotten worse since I got out of the hospital, though. Before, I could at least remember the root thought, but, now, it’s gone in a puff of smoke.
Yes, I’m going to blame it on the brain damage. I’m going to milk that cow for as long as I possibly can.
My family thinks I should be a therapist. I know I would be a good one–there is no doubt about that. I’m empathetic, a good listener, and I am excellent at digging out the unconscious thread. I know how to let the other person unfold naturally rather than prod and push them into revealing things. In fact, my problem is that I can’t get them to shut up.
There is a certain type of person I have difficulty with–the complete narcissist. I hope it’s easy to see why this type would be trouble for me. I just have nothing for them. I can’t contain my contempt, and I would not be able to deal with them. But, there is another type of person that flummoxes me. It’s the person who cannot pick up anything I’m laying down. I can usually find someone’s soft spot with ease. It’s one of my talents. But I was as this party once where I was trying to talk to someone I did not know. I sent out a couple salvos, and they let the salvos fall like lead balloons. I tried for another five minutes or so, but they answered with one word each time and did not ask any questions back. I reluctantly gave up and moved on to someone else. I felt irrationally angry with them that they wouldn’t try to be more amenable, but then just concluded that it was not in their skill set.
I could easily do the job, but it drains me. I know I would be paid for it, which helps. And why not? It would make other people’s lives better. What was so wrong about that? There’s nothing wrong about it, but….it’s not what I want to do. But it’s also something I could do fairly easily.
And I think, I’m not sure, but I would like to have a real job that was actually meaningful. I don’t have to because I can get by fine without it, but I think it would add something to my life. Again, I’m not completely sure as I’ve never really had one.
I want to write and make a living at that, but that ship has sailed. My default is to do something with video content creation, but that is not my milieu. I would not know how to get into it or if I’d even be good at it. I don’t want to do any of the known routes. I want to be able to talk about whatever, maybe have some spicy takes, and call it a day. I know that I have to come up with something that would actually be salable, but I’m not sure what that is. There is so much content available with so little paths forward for actually making money. The fact that I don’t have to live off it makes it better, but still.
I need to have a hard think about it in the next few months and see what I can come up with. It’s time.