IF I CAN BE SERIOUS FOR A MINUTE... "These Sleeping Dogs Won't Lie"

One of the new things I'd like to try to pull off as I get the Kingdom up and running on a semi-regular schedule is the return of "If I can be serious for a minute…" which is basically a short column on some sort of legit topic, where I actually try to write, instead of just spew words onto the screen in an oftentimes futile attempt to be entertaining. So here goes.

 

I haven't been sleeping well lately.  This is an odd turn of events for me, because even when I have nightmares, I generally sleep well.   Lately, though, my bad dreams have become something more akin to individual hourlong anxiety attacks spread out over the course of a night's sleep.  Bad dream—wake up. Fall asleep. Bad dream—wake up an hour later:  a cycle that takes my six hours of slumber and flat-out ruins them.  Saturday night, in fact, my entire 10 hours were disrupted by anxiety-laden melodramas of law and broken-heartedness. To be blunt: it sucks.

 

I know I'm putting far too much pressure on myself to be good at my job from the get-go, but it's not helping things. I'm overly worried about taking too long on projects, or turning in efforts that aren't good enough, or just simply letting everyone down.  I can't help but think that I sort of suckered my way through Law School, and that I lucked into a position at a great firm where I really must prove myself.  All I want to do is make them think they made a great decision in hiring me, yet as every day passes, where I feel a little dumber, or a little more lost, or start to think that "not even my writing's going well right now," I worry more and more.  

 

Contrary to what some people might tell you ::cough, Carolyn, cough:: I'm not much of a worrier.  Though it's true that I overanalyze ever single snippet of my life in ways that defy most normal people's comprehension, I don't think that I worry that much.  I don't sit around thinking about "what's going to happen" or "how's my life going to shake out," or "am I going to fail?"   Instead, I mostly just let the days go by, looking at bigger pictures and trying not to sweat the small stuff.  However, now that I've got this "career," I can't help but think that I need to come right out of the gate, Zack Duke-style, with poise and success unheralded for a 25-year old right out of law school who's as green as a hippie convention.   And if I don't? Well, I'm pretty certain that when I don't pass The Bar (the spectre that still looms over everything I do) I'm headed to quick, embarrassing, dismissal.  

 

So every time I don't have an assignment finished by the time I leave for the evening, I find that I don't sleep well.   The problem is, assignments can't be finished in a day. And though I realize this, and though my workload is managable, I found myself working until 7pm the other night, for no other reason than this all-encompassing anxiety that I'm already failing at this.

 

And considering I've recently failed at the other most important endeavour of my life, it's an awful lot to swallow.   But that's a revelation I don't quite feel like sharing, though I'm sure most of you loyal listeners can hazard a guess.

 

The plain, simple truth is that though I seem to have everything I could possibly want right now, with an interesting and fulfilling adult life opening up before my eyes, I'm very lonely, and increasingly unhappy.   Not with work or with friends. Just with life.  There's got to be more than this, right?

 

Perhaps I should've joined the Peace Corps…

 

-apk

 

Song of the Day: the VERY welcomed return of the All-American Rejects with "Dirty Little Secret."  I've wanted to write something about this very same train of thought for quite a while. When I saw the video last night, heard the song for the first time, and realized it was by a band who's totally harmless spirited poplyrical first album I really dug, it only felt fitting.

 

Link of the Day: post-up and supply one of your favourites, it'll keep you from saying inane things like, "buck up apk, you'll be okay…"