Birth Pains of the Anaretic Degree

The past few weeks I felt immensely contracted, the sense of gravity caving in on all sides and deep hopelessness and feeling trapped.

As if all the grief and regret of my life came to surface all at once, wishing I had done things differently. Perhaps I shouldn’t have followed my passions and instead created more financial stability for myself. Something with a matching IRA and health insurance.

What if I hadn’t broken up with that person I loved so much because I was afraid? Perhaps I would be married and in a loving partnership. And not so in it alone and putting so much pressure on my friendships. Now I’m too old to find love and unattractive.

Wishing I hadn’t left Colorado and stayed in a film festival job I loved instead of moving across the country to San Francisco to get a Master’s degree in Philosophy — something even I still don’t know what people do with. The student loan debt was a terrible decision and moving to the most expensive city in the nation. What was I thinking…

The self-judgment and sadness rolled in like waves, each one compounding upon the last. Until it reached such a deep well of depression and suffocation that there was nothing left — just emptiness ready to be filled again. Perhaps with hope or faith, or just to rest here in the stillness.