I try to avoid posting to many “waaah my weary problems” blogs
(ANTS ASIDE.), because when I read another person’s blog, I tend to do so as a
refuge from having to think about my shitty problems. Sometimes I feel as
though I complain a lot, and I want the internet to be a fun place where you
can look up photos of cats and 1980s Harrison Ford, not a pity party pit where you have to scroll through some
dummy’s lame non-issues to get to the goods. But, I’m about
to drop one of those posts on this audience anyway, so I’ll leave you this here to
save you some time before x-ing on out of this browser to go on with your day.
As I briefly mentioned
in an earlier post, I’ve been in a bit of a life slump lately. I’m feeling
1000% done with nearly everything in my life. This happens to me semi-frequently;
about every two years, I can’t stand everything. I think for me, novelty must
wear off in that amount of time, and I get stuck with real life shit going
down- whether it’s working at a prostitute/john crack den meet-up location
masked as a Starbucks like I was in 2010 when I bounced on Portland the first
time around, or currently struggling to
find work, living with a crazy person in shitty part of town, feeling like my
job has dead ended just before it was something I could survive on. I understand very clearly that life isn’t
floating through the years in pastel dresses taking instagram photos of food
carts, nor do I expect it to be. I understand that “happiness” as people seek
it is not real, and I don’t expect it to be. I understand it is not a constant
state of blissful euphoria, and frankly that sounds exhausting. I’m not an unhappy person, despite what people
may think. But I am starting to feel very unfulfilled, for lack of a better word.
I’ve very afraid of getting used to feeling generally mediocre about
everything. I need a change to happen.
When I lived in Eureka, I spent all of my energy getting
out, both times. Eureka is, to me, a gigantic, isolates suck pit, and I needed
to get out. This was never more apparent than when I had to return. Nothing had changed in the two years I’d been
away. It had only gotten worse. I have
known from a very young age that I would not be staying in Eureka. When I was
in elementary school, I imagined myself living in Santa Cruz, CA, then focusing
on New York City and Boston. I visited Portland for the first time when I was
in junior high, and it fit in perfectly with what I wanted to be. I fell in
love with the weird and (at the time, to me,) unique Hawthorne neighborhood. I
liked that it was a large city. Coming from a town of 27,000, the downtown area
was very impressive to me. I decided then, that Portland was where I needed to
be. And, after moving here at 19, it was where I felt like I fit in. I really loved
it. I was devastated when I had to move away in 2010 due to financial and cat
related issues, and spent the next 22 months in Eureka working a depressing job
and living with my mom, focused on getting back to Portland. When I was finally able to move back to
Oregon, it felt great to be out of the dreariness of northern California. It was great to be able to see my friends- the
first ‘true’ friends I feel I’ve made in my life- again. But it wasn’t the same. Portland didn’t hold
the same sway over me, and now, nearly two
years after returning to Oregon,
I’m over it.
I feel like Portland has changed a lot since I first came
here, but I think its probably me who has changed. I am no longer enchanted by it’s “weirdness”.
I now find it less “weird” and more “precious” and “annoying”. I’m think a
large part of it is that I work in the obnoxiously pretentious fixed—gear-bike-riding,
homebrewing, New Seasons shopping asshole capitol of the city. All these things
that are supposed to be the charm of the city make me want to pull my hair
out. Its like living in a Portlandia
skit, and it is taxing.
I know if I keep doing the same shit, nothing is going to
get better for me. So, I’ve decided to set a five year goal. By the time I am
thirty, my goal is to be no longer living here.
I don’t know where I will be, as I’ve never been out the west coast,
except a school trip to New York that I was sick for most of. I honestly don’t want to be on the west coast
at all. I will not live in California again, unless something catastrophic
happens. Seattle doesn’t really interest me either. I’ve thought heavily about
Philadelphia and Boston in the past, along with Minneapolis and Chicago. Over the next five years, I’m going to really
work on getting my life in order, enough to be able to have visited other
cities and find a place that I can be excited to live in.
Two of my sub goals in this five year plan are to get some
college under my belt and learn how to drive. I’ve applied for FAFSA and will
be enrolling in the community college for this fall term. I used to stress out
about paying for college, but the job market right now is so bleak, I’m tired
of waiting to find another second job that I hate. I need to take action now to
get out of retail. I really like my job at the bookstore, but I cannot work in
customer service for the rest of my life.
If I were to stay in Portland forever, I wouldn’t need to be
able to drive, since the public transportation is fairly decent here, but I
know that it is an anomaly when it comes to national public transportation. Not
having a car, or the ability to drive, is a pain in the ass. It’s put serious
limits on things I can do, and jobs I could get, and I think that it adds to my
feelings of being trapped in this city.
Who knows what will happen between now and 2019. I may
change my mind and fall back in love with Portland. I may finally find a full time position,
either with my current company or elsewhere, move out on my own or in with a non-difficult
person. But as of now, something needs to change, and I’m very motivated to
work at improving my situations, seeing more of the country beyond the west coast, and finding a
city that matches the pace I want to be at.
