so I forgot that we switch back to Standard Time today, therefore waking up an hour too early, which is, I suppose, not as bad as waking up an hour late. and now for some reason my stomach is tied up in knots.

I really think that I'm pretty much losing my mind.

yesterday I fell asleep right after work, which is a shame, because I actually got out around 3:30 pm (I could've gotten out earlier, but I was slacking off too much at work) and the sun was still shining pretty bright. of course, it was a saturday, and since I'm essentially anthrophobic, it was doubtful that I would use it to good purpose anyway.

anyway, I woke up feeling all depressed for some reason. it's not like I had a bad dream or anything. I mean, sure, I was kind of bummed that I had to work the entire weekend, but this is not anything entirely new. I suppose I should be happy that I even get days off. but that wasn't it.

sure, there's the whole existential angst thing, the whole "I'm doomed to die all alone" meme that I've been obsessing with as of late. but I don't think it was really any of that crap.

mostly, I think that I certifiably have an Axis I diagnosis. I have lately been not wanting to do much except go to work, eat, and sleep, and sometimes not even that. unopened mail has been piling up again, and my apartment is in worse disarray than usual. dirty dishes have also been piling up, and it has been a supreme effort to throw away the garbage.

but I managed to extricate myself from this hellhole known as my apartment and sauntered on down to the nearby Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, had myself a dulce de leche latte, then moseyed on over to the also nearby Borders.

once upon a time, I had dreamed of becoming a writer.

ah yes.

now don't get me wrong. I really like what I'm doing now. I like taking care of people, and I like teaching them about health matters and how to manage them.

but there's always that feeling—I suppose it is merely greed—that I wish that I could do both. I almost (but not quite) wish that I could do both things half-assed rather than do one thing well and the other thing not at all. but here we are.

the thought is that soon enough, all this madness will end. In three years, I will (in theory) not be working 80-100 hours a week anymore, I'll have time to actually have a life. I guess the thing that freaks me out a little is that by then I'll be 32, just one year younger than when Jesus Christ was crucified, and what I'd really like to do is have a life now, while I'm still nominally in my very late and waning 20's.

I don't know. days like this, I'm afraid that twenty or thirty years from now, I'll look back at my life, at all the suffering, all the loneliness, all the dark despair that I've put myself through, and I'll wonder, was it worth it? and that answer will be, no, but there's nothing you can do about it now. hell, why wait twenty or thirty years, sometimes I think that now.

and it isn't so much that I don't like where I am now. what I regret, and what I resent, is what I had to let go in order to get here.

although "letting go" is perhaps too optimistic a term to use in reference to that which I never had. but I digress.

at the least, my depressive mood lifted a little bit.

still, what worries me is that despite the fact that I will no longer have to endure sub-freezing temperatures, I have a feeling that this is still going to be one long, hard, cold, miserable winter.