Are you radically different than your younger self? Are there key elements that have stayed the same? Most parts? Do you feel as if you’ve followed the “roadmap of life” or forged your own path? Have there been “chapters” or do things all sort of slide into one contiguous flow? Share what you’d like!
In my 20s I got really optimistic about aging. See I was unschooled and never really had any life outside my home life, which wasn’t great. Didn’t get a high school diploma and starting my first job felt impossible.
Soon I made a group of friends, I discovered art, and I felt like I was capable of learning and growing and having a fulfilling life. I actually looked forward to being 30 because I thought I’d have matured a lot and learned how to live.
30 now. My friends were toxic. I lost my passion for art. I can’t find any work outside of retail and I can’t get an education because I’m so busy making ends meet. I feel like I’ve regressed into the worst version of my shut-in child self. I work and I get what sleep I can and I have no relationships.
I really hope this is part of the process.
You’re going to be okay. It might fucking suck right now, but you’ll be okay. I am not sure if it is still around, but there is a thing tied to everyone’s social security that can give you a free-education under x-amount of dollars ($30k?) training underutilized individuals w/ higher education and the trades. You could be a CNA if you’ve got the openess to it, you can do CNC training, you can do radiology tech stuff, dog grooming. You could do workforce at a local college. Maybe get a cert in wastewater which pays well. Or idk, robotics. It’s factory work, but it also pays well. It’s kinda like CNC from what I hear. You can do some freecodecamp.org on the low or Odin Project if you’ve got the time. I think following a class would be a lot safer, because you are kind of forced to a rythm over self-study. I wish I had more, but I know this much! Oh phlebotomy as well, you can study that. An ex of mine was fucked and then studied medical billing. They followed jobs across the US (recruiters) and ended up super wealthy. So that’s pretty cool.
For some people it’s really clear what they want and where they’re going. And for others it shifts. It sounds like you knew what you wanted, and then realized it wasn’t working. You can give up on art, but you know…you can find others to make art with who are fuck-faces. I have found sharing the joy of creativity sparks more. I’m making an equisite corpse with someone right now, but if you wanna make one too - I’d totally be down. Whatever medium, I don’t care. Just let me know.
I’m around =)
Friendships can be just as hard as relationships. It’s kinda like how people get married without being prepared to commit and invest. Same with friendships.