So, occasionally I'll get really excited and feel like I'm going to take over the world and be on top and accomplish all my dreams and just generally win.  This usually lasts for a week or so at a time, during which I'm happy and motivated and, in my case, furiously writing because that's what I want to do with my life.  Then the unrealistic nature of these dreams starts to sink in and depression starts to creep up on me, like fog.  I'll drag myself out to the living room of our apartment and plunk down in a chair (that I'm fairly certain is developing a butt imprint from me), and stare hopelessly out onto the balcony.  I don't actually go out onto the balcony because that would require strength and motivation that has been completely sapped by my remembered disappointment at not actually being ABLE to be a famous writer.  So I just look out and try to imagine what the temperature is like and think about how if I'd accomplished my dreams I'd probably be outside frolicking and I wouldn't have to imagine the temperature at all.

My main problem is originality.  I'm an original person and I do lots of creative things that other people don't do.  Or, I do creative things that other people do, but I do them differently.  For instance, I have only ever made cards.  I think I have paid for maybe 3 cards in my entire 22 years.  Family, friends, everyone only ever receives a handmade card, and I work really hard to make each one unique and tailored to the individual who will be receiving it.  And I write relatively interesting things, according to the poor saps I've cornered and bombarded with requests a million times who have finally broken down and read my stories (the question then becomes, 'Can I actually believe them, or are they just trying to get me to shut up?).  And my friend Mike and I have about a bazillion ideas every single time we manage to sit down and have a conversation.  But I'm constantly plagued by feelings of deep inadequacy, like no one would ever be interested in anything that I did because there is probably someone who has already done it or has done it so much better than I did that anyone who saw mine would laugh and ask, "Is this a joke?"  Then I would crawl into my butt-dented chair and think that maybe it was a joke and I just hadn't figured it out yet.

Today is one of those days.  One of the ones where I sit in my chair all day and my roommates go in and out, probably wondering to themselves why I seem not to have moved out of my chair AT ALL and whether they ought to be concerned.  For whatever reason, I always only seem to move when no one is around to witness it.  I'll get up and go to the kitchen, or be overcome by the knowledge that the bathroom is not even a fraction as clean as I'd like it to be and rush off to scrub it, or I'll think of something in my room that I want...but I only do these things when NO ONE IS AROUND.  It isn't intentional, it just happens.  But when I think about it, I get sort of paranoid because I don't like being judged.  Yesterday, I heard someone trying to get in our front door and I literally launched myself out of my chair and went to stand by the kitchen sink to, you know, look busy.  It's kind of sad.

This is why I'm glad I have a job now.  It's going to cut into the amount of time I can actually spend stewing in my chair.

HOORAY.