Maybe Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Stereophonics
Maybe Tomorrow

If my life had a theme song, this could be it.

At least the title fits. My life could very accurately be described as one incredibly long series of procrastinations. I daydream about the big things I'll do "as soon as" this one thing happens, then I wait around for that thing to happen instead of working to make it happen. Meanwhile, I get older and watch opportunities slip away without really realizing it.

Then suddenly the realization hits, and I wonder what the Hell just happened to me.

That's usually followed by a period of depression, overwhelmed by a sense of loss and the feeling that everything is beyond my control. Which is then followed by a long period of blissfully going back to the old ways of doing things while keeping myself so busy or distracted by entertainments that I don't think about the various failures or the passing time.

Realization hit this morning, in the form of a dream from which I awoke at 4am. A very realistic dream, actually. Nothing fading or out, and nothing incongruous like winged giraffes. It was just me at a party for New Years Eve 2008. It had just turned to 2009 when I said "It's 2009 already, and I forgot to have a life." And there I was surrounded by friends I've lost contact with or consciously abandoned, and by successful people who merely tolerate me, and lots of strangers who barely recognize that I exist.

(That last reminds me of a scene from the old Whiny-Something... I mean, 30-Something, where Tim Busfield explained that the worst symptom of aging was to become invisible to teenagers. Okay, he said "teenage girls," but we have different priorities.)

So I came out of that dream very aware that
- I have a mostly enjoyable job that pays me too little to live on,
- that I have thousands of dollars in debt that I haven't paid toward since November,
- that I have two medical conditions going untreated because of money,
- that I'm living in the spare bedroom of friends but this won't last forever, and
- that I'm still doing nothing to manifest my various aspirations and dreams.

And the old question persists: will I change my ways and do something, or go back to entertaining and distracting myself so I can ignore my problems while conditions continue to decline?

The first order of business seems to be to get some control over my financial situation. I see two fundamental necessities here. One is to contact my debtor and make whatever arrangement I can with them to begin paying them off. The second is to secure more income, so that I can move into my own place and take care of various things that need attention.

It always seems to come down to money with me. I'm still rather proud of the fact that I've always been more concerned with things like truth and honourable behaviour than I have with money and ambition. Over the years, I often thought that the friends I had from college were all so greedy and materialistic, and I was sometimes rather ashamed of them. And it's been a bit galling to be repeatedly surpassed by people that I felt myself superior to. But I need to be more realistic. I don't value money, but in this society one needs money to have security and a measure of power over one's own life, and those are things I do value.

(Sorry to be so maudlin on a Tuesday, but I guess that dream really got to me. And, please, no comments about how I should just go back to bed when this happens. I actually like to think about these things. The unexamined life, and all that.... Thinking and analysis are good things, generally. With me, it's just the action that's failing.)