I got to thinking about this last night as I was writing the other post about current vs. ideal me, but I wanted time to kick it around some. But I have come to the inescapable conclusion that seems to go along with not being able to see any goodness and light in myself: I have no current dreams, either.

The dreams of my youth were a family and a rewarding career. I either f'd those up myself or had help in doing so. Then, I went back to school when I was a "non-traditional" student (i.e.,not 18 to 22), and I did pretty well, and I got into grad school and I did reasonably well in spite of a few obstacles (like a paralyzing depressive episode), and I thought about going for the Ph.D. So I put in all the applications, paid all the fees, got people to write all the recommendations, wrote the tell-them-what-they-want-to-hear essays … and got rejected by every single place I applied.

(I have to break here for an aside. One day after the most recent rejection, I had an appointment with my pdoc. I told him about it and he said, all Pollyanna-ish, "well, you know, most people don't get in, don't take it personally and keep trying." All I could think was, "you've never failed at anything in your life, so how would you know?" He's been a star his whole life. Most people I would hold that against ;-), but he's a kind and compassionate man who has taken very good care of me, so I let him off the hook.)

So then the terminal degree dream died. I went out and got a job. They started me at the salary I was going to ask for anyway, and liked me so well that in 4 months they gave me a 10% raise. At last! Something going right. And then 9/11 hit, a bad thing for an international travel company, and people started cancelling subscriptions to our products, and about half the company got shown the door, including me. So there went the start-of-a-nice-career dream.

So I did a bunch of temp work for the better part of a year, and then I got a job with a newspaper, which is all I'd ever really wanted. I remember watching Nixon's resignation speech when I was 9, and I saw All the President's Men when I was 11 and then and there I knew I was going to be a journalist. 12 credits from a degree from one of the top 3 journalism schools in the country, I quit, not certain that it was what I wanted anymore. But as the years passed, I knew I had to get back to writing.

So I get this job, and I do really well, and while I enjoy the job, I hate the poisonous atmosphere I have to live with in order to do it. So I start applying elsewhere. And I get interviews, and they're all very impressed with my resume and experience, and then they tell me it still isn't good enough. So there goes the getting-out-of-this-dump dream.

I don't have any dreams left. I just live from day to day. I don't peer into the future and say, "Wow, I really want that, I hope it happens, I'm going to work for it." I just try to haul myself out of bed every morning and hope I can live through the day without doing any harm to myself. I don't have any goals to aim for. I don't think I am destined for a long life, never have thought so, and 5-year plans just seem ridiculous when I'm not sure I'll be here another 5 years. I always hate that question in job interviews, "Where do you see yourself in X number of years?" because I have no f'ing clue. It's all I can do to get through 24 hours at a stretch. I can't project into the future and say "Yeah, this is what I really want," because I can't think of anything I want to bother working for.

If this is what aging's all about, forget it.

Candy