Day 1

Hi everyone, for this, we will say that my name is "J". By no means am I a professional writer, or even a good writer. But, I felt like utilizing an online tool to create a sort of day-to-day diary of things that I think about during the day. I'm hoping that it can help me keep my thoughts organized, and be an outlet for some of the confusion I'm having during this time of my life. Without further adieu...

8/22/2019, 10:27PM

My name is J. I am 24 years old and live in a moderate sized city in the Midwest. I graduated from my university with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration Majoring in Finance in December of 2018. I am also recently out of a relationship, which is a big part of the reason this writing adventure has even started. I love music, playing drums, dungeons and dragons, cars, computers, and painting miniature figures. I currently work as an accountant for a hospital in my town. (By now anyone who knows me will definitely know this is)

Much of the confusion in my life started the two weeks before my relationship ended, just as I noticed the supports that held up a once promising and wonderful relationship were wither away until their breaking point. Her and I had anticipated on getting married, and I had planned to propose to her outside of the arena I was having my graduation ceremony at the day I graduated. I spoke with her dad a week earlier to ask him for permission to marry her. I had purchased her engagement ring 3 months before, custom made as I found her pinterest page and saw a ring she had pinned to it. Instead, I spent the day of my college graduation moving all of my belongings out of our apartment, and back to my parent's house. That morning when she dropped me off in my cap and gown was the last day that I saw her.

My college career was a series of ups and downs, as I think most people who go to college experience. There were moments where I was happy and I was excelling in class, and moments where I felt lost and miserable, afraid I was never going to graduate. Unfortunately those low moments took a larger toll than the highs. I was not a great student. I struggled with class consistently, fighting waves of depression and anxiety, enough to keep me in bed in the morning and all day and making it easy to convince myself that I will study harder since I missed class. I'm the kind of person that needs to be actively engaged and interested in something for me to be able to focus on it. Sitting in a lecture hall writing notes was not exactly my idea of that, and it made it difficult for me. Much of the time I was in school I felt like a helpless failure who wasn't going to graduate, and that I was going to struggle my whole life. I graduated, and the latter still feels true sometimes, but not necessarily in a bad way.

Achieving basic goals really improved the satisfaction in my life. Moving from dorm to apartment-style on-campus housing. Moving from their to my first apartment with my roommate who is now one of my best friends. Moving into my first apartment with the girl I had been seeing since starting school, and eventually us getting our own apartment together. Each of these things gave me a short spurt of satisfaction with my life, but it still felt so empty, so hopeless and meaningless, until that last part. When I moved away from roommates, and it was just her and I, everything changed. I wasn't as worried about school (though I did find hardship in that soon after), I was happy where I lived and who I was living with, and was proud of the family and life I was beginning to build.

July 2018 was the climax of my academic struggles. The absolute tipping point of being able to do it, or not being able to do it. March 2018 I signed up for my final semester of class in the fall. I had already taken longer to finish school because of various major changes and challenges regarding my academics. I was frustrated and ready to be done, so excited to be done. Then, July 2018 came. The last of my summer classes included Financial Institutions, and Fixed Income Investments. Fixed Income was the breaking point. This class turned out to be the biggest challenge of my academic career, and one of the first times I really scared myself as I started to consider suicide. I was spending 12-14 hours per day studying for this class, and not even scraping by. At class two hours early, and working on homework and studying until 6 at night. If I didn't pass this class, I didn't get to graduate. Not only that, I would get removed from the college of business until my grades improved, so I couldn't progress towards completing my degree. I remember the final for that class I studied harder than I studied anything for. I get home, waiting for the email that would show me if I passed or failed. Around 5pm that email came. I failed the exam, and the panic began to ensue. I cried, so angry and upset that I couldn't do it. Blaming myself, saying that I'm too stupid to be successful. I went and laid in bed as tears soaked the pillowcase. This was the first time I had cried in years. Next thing I knew, I was searching on the internet to see if it was okay to kill yourself.

But not all was lost, I picked myself up eventually after the consoling arms of my would-be wife made the world feel okay again. I emailed my professor explained the gratitude of the situation, and my group members vouched for all the hard work I was doing, and he allowed me a retake. I spent the next couple hours of the night studying until I got tired, and then I went to bed, knowing that I had to work the next day. I woke up early, made my way to school, and started studying again before my retake. Just before the retake, my professor notified me that it would be okay if I used my textbook during the final. It turns out, it was more than just me retaking. I was in a room with maybe 5 other people. I went over the allotted amount of time to finish the exam, but he did not bother me about it. I went to work 2 hours late, and waited for my updated grade. It was slow behind the bar I ran, so I calculated the minimum score on the test I needed to pass the class. It was a 57%. And I waited. The time came where I received my email updating me of my new exam score and new grade. It said: "you received a 57% on your exam, congratulations, have a great rest of your summer. The amount of relief and weight that was lifted from my shoulders was surreal. It's something I will never forget.

The fall semester went well, it was probably the best semester I had in school. I got an A in my highest level finance course, I had purchased the ring I was going to give to my fiancee, and things were looking like they were going to finally be okay, and it was; I was happy, until the weeks before I graduated. and that brings us back to the beginning of this story, where I am packing up my belongings and moving out of the home I loved, away from who I thought was going to be my wife, and our new puppy named Arwen.

The job search began. Another struggle that I found myself having. I didn't even have a job interview for probably 5 weeks, and no real prospects. I guess this isn't that hard to believe considering my academics, but I thought someone would at least consider me, because I do enjoy finance and accounting, and I'm relatively good at it for someone who is just starting out.

4 months passed before I was finally hired on at my current job. It was a relief, but also a little bit disappointing. I love the company I work for, and I enjoy the work that I do most of the time. Unfortunately, how much I received in salary was quite a bit below what I was hoping for. It felt a little bit like all the hard work I put in to finally graduate was completed with a little bit of a lackluster compensation. But I guess that's probably my fault too. If my boss is reading this: please don't terminate me for this. I appreciate the opportunity I have with the company and intend on making my way though the hierarchy as fast as I can.

That last thing continues for the following paragraphs. From here, this will be more of what I post on a day-to-day basis. The earlier content was just some background.

Many of the days I spend at work considering people who look like they have it all, which when I really think about it is just money. Money, and the things money can buy. Jeff Bezos, Mark Cuban, fucking Justin Bieber of all people. These are the kind of people that do cool things every day that they are really good at, and are wildly successful. Mostly my thought is "why not me? Why can't I be one of those people? There has to be to life than middle class neighborhoods, and same repetitive steps taken every day, right?" A lot of the times I ask myself: "Do I really want to be an accountant for the rest of my life?"

I want to do cool things every day, I want to do something meaningful to myself and to others. That damn well could be accounting! Maybe I will become a decision maker for a fortune 500 company where I and helping make real decisions for the companies financial future! That sounds like a great career to me.

I've considered also taking acting lessons, not to be an on-screen actor, but a voice actor. I found passion in playing characters and being something extraordinary when I just feel ordinary and plain in life. But, where I live the opportunity for this kind of work is probably none, and I'm not sure I have the guts to pick up my life and move to LA, the cost of living is scary, and becoming a successful voice actor isn't something you can just do. Most people trying at it fail, and any of the successful people doing it started out doing voice acting for free on small projects. Unfortunately, that won't pay bills or my student loans.

I found passions in other things as well, but I think this is where I'm going to end it for tonight.

Thank you for reading.

-J