No, I'm Not Sorry.

I'm fed up with constantly feeling apologetic. Most of my day is spent agonizing over how I'm failing in one way or another and how I should be apologizing to the world at large for not living up to everyone's expectations every single moment.   "I'm sorry I don't spend more one on one time with my daughter; I'm sorry I want to get out of bed at two in the morning to play the piano instead of forcing myself to sleep because I need to be up at six thirty to start the day; I'm sorry I don't have a full time job that eats up most of my daylight hours and I'm sorry I do have two jobs since Small has to spend most of her afternoons with a babysitter instead of me; I'm sorry I can't go to church at ten different places and believe the same things other people believe because if I'm not with them I'm against them; I'm sorry that some days I'm not up to cooking healthy homemade meals and we just eat leftovers; I'm sorry that I find your treatment of people despicable and don't like being around you; I'm sorry that I'm not able to drop everything I'm doing at the moment to volunteer with your group...."

I'm so clouded with "I'm sorry" that I can physically feel myself getting dumber- there's no room to think in the constant fog shrouding my brain. I can't pinpoint a specific moment when I felt that I had to be all things to all people and if I slipped in any way I was just a massive good-for-nothing. I worked at a job I was absolutely miserable in for an additional seven months AFTER I had decided that I had to quit and couldn't handle it anymore, not because I needed the money or I was looking for something else, but because I didn't want to be "sorry" that I was leaving the position and "couldn't handle the work".  Where did working at something that kills you inside become de rigeur? Why is it if you quit everyone around you thinks you're a lazy bum? I put a great deal of effort into being the best I could possibly be in that particular job, felt nothing except that I wasn't doing enough (and would never be ABLE to do enough), and just felt massively guilty that I couldn't deliver.

This is likely just build up in my head- most of the people I know tell me I'm not lazy and I have plenty to offer just by being me, but there's this huge sense of foreboding hanging over me all the while that if I don't snap to it and get back to the 9-5 ASAP horrible things will happen and I'll be branded for life as just another skater who "got by" while sitting on their backside and mooching off others.  (Keep in mind that I'm still employed- I'm down to one part time job instead of two, and I've been off the second job for a week and a half and have already had an interview for another position.)  I pay all my bills, we're not on assistance, we have a savings account, and I still feel ashamed for not being "successful"- particularly so since what I really want to do is take a wild risk and find a job doing something I ENJOY.    I feel a vague sense of shame that my priorities lie more in doing things at home cheaply on my own, instead of working for someone else in order to pay higher prices at the store for the convenience of NOT doing it at home (i.e., I can pay $5 for a bottle of laundry soap at the store, which translates to the better part of an hour at the current minimum wage, or I could MAKE the soap at home in 5 minutes for pennies on the dollar).

I admire and envy people who buck the norm and do crazy things like buying a van and taking their music on the road- and yes, people have done this with children and haven't ended up in jail or with the kids in therapy for the rest of their lives.  Right now I'm too scared to even THINK about pursuing a dream- not just because of lack of confidence, but what would PEOPLE think? And what if I failed? The cloud rolls in and I duck my head back down and go back to the office or check in on Facebook and see what everyone else is doing and totally avoid that line of thinking until the next time I'm at the end of my rope mentally and want to run away screaming.

I'm tired. Tired of apologizing, and tired of excuses, tired of shuffling blame, and really, really tired of being sorry.