I have moved on...I quit my full-time job during the school year so I could go back and get certified to teach in the subject area I have degrees in. I've been working with special needs populations and while I like it, it's just not fulfilling.

But there's the financial reality of doing that...I never made much more than I needed to survive so I don't have that much in savings and I'm not eligible for ANY financial aid (otherwise I could probably get a grant ) so I have to borrow more money from family. I feel guilty and like such a failure. It's not like they don't have any money, but why are they wasting it all on me? I'm working as much as I feel I can this summer and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to save much.

It just seems like everything stays the same or gets worse...who knows if I'll be able to even get a job as a teacher after I get certified and who knows, maybe I won't like it like I think I will. I know that taking the education classes make me not want to do it even though it was the real-world interactions with teachers and students that made me want to. And maybe like with everything else in my life, I just don't have what it takes.

I just wish I had outlets for creativity...I just feel so dead inside not having a reason to create anything. I have no idea where to even start pursuing the things I'd like to do. What hurts is that a normal person would have accomplished some of this stuff by college, if not high school. I may very well be teaching students in the future that are living some of my dreams because this stuff is easy to do if you have friends and connect with people. Unfortunately, I don't really.

Which is another thing that makes me feel worse. I've been chronically lonely for years. I have to live alone and I was pretty much estranged from my family. At least on an emotional level. I rarely make what I would consider friends and I just don't really have the skills I guess to keep them. I have a long-term romantic partner, but he lives an hour away and I feel so disconnected from him. And because of jobs/school/financial reasons, we can't really move in together. Every year, it's always maybe next year. And everyone else around us (many much younger) are moving in together, getting married, having children, etc. I get asked if we just don't believe in marriage and all that. After two coworkers got engaged/married and one had a baby last year, I just can't for much longer.

I just want a family of some sort and a group of people I can really connect with. I'm tired of being alone even when I don't need or want to be.