I discovered bedbugs in my box spring about four days ago. I won't go into the nightmare that ensued, because I've been complaining about it for days. And in all actuality, the baseboard-cleaning and furniture dissection and disposal of beds has turned into something... uh, somewhat therapeutic.
Throwing away things has always been kind of cathartic to me. It's really hard for me to do, but when things happen that necessitate the mass removal of crap that I don't actually need, I jump at the opportunity and never look back. My bed had a pull-out drawer where I just piled up old school stuff, like returned papers and homework and things. I thought I'd want to keep it for one day when I forget everything I learned from LSU. But instead of picking through it and wasting hours of precious bug-ridding time, I just got a garbage bag and shoved everything in it. I can't explain how good this made me feel.
It's like a chance to start over.
I lit a fire under my ass after that. I've had a degree for over a year now, and decided that along with my less-cluttered life, I'd quit my job too. So I put in a month's notice on Thursday. I've already got some leads on jobs, and have for awhile now--just haven't had the courage to follow through on anything. For the longest time, I said it had nothing to do with courage, and it was everything to do with practicality and finances. But what I was really saying, was that I didn't have the drive it took to make things work. I make more than enough money to pay my bills every month--I just don't exactly live frugally. I guess by comparison, I'm in the most frugal category, but I'm not comparing anymore. I'm just looking at the numbers, and how I could better spend my money while possibly taking a pay cut. I'm not concerned with the way others spend their money.
Courage has everything to do with it. I've been living without it for years now, and it is destroying everything I love about myself. So I'm done with that--I'm tossing it in the garbage bag without picking through every little detail and wasting more time. The illusion that I have to be absolutely secure every hour of my life has prevented me from taking any sort of step forward. I'm done being scared; and I truly do not know what's going to happen after this, but I don't give a shit anymore.
Hello, life! Opportunities! Changes! Low budgets! Absolute uncertainty and leaps of faith on par with Kierkegaard! See, I do remember things I learned at LSU without keeping all that crap. And I even failed Existentialism. Like, really failed, with a giant red F.
In other news, I've written and published my first few articles for the Tiger Weekly. They're free and around Baton Rouge. My first lead story goes to press for Wednesday of this week--check it out, it took a lot more work than it looks like. And I'm getting paid for it, although minimally, it's still a payoff.
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