That's 5 days from now.
I don't have plane tickets, I don't have living arrangements settled yet, I haven't even packed. I can't say I'm not excited (I am), but lately I've been a wreck. I'm getting the shakes just thinking about it.
On the scale from misery --> euphoria, I'm sort of stuck somewhere in the middle. Right now, in this current moment, I am a college graduate living with my parents. I am in my hometown near my friends, I'm in a wonderful relationship, life is relatively inexpensive, and I have just enough going on around me to keep me from going insane. I'm happy here; maybe not entirely fulfilled, but basically happy. And to stay here would be comfortable, easy. To leave is to take a gigantic risk--I have everything to gain, and everything to lose. It's a very real possibility that I will go to New York and try my hardest, but never land a real job (or any at all) and in the process, blow through all my money, lose my faith in myself and other people, and ruin my relationship. What would I do then? How do you start again after that kind of trauma?
I'd like to say that I'm confident about making this step, but I'm fucking terrified.
It doesn't help that everybody and their mother has been telling me that my relationship has no chance of survival. "You're going to be meeting lots of new and exciting people," they say. "You can't expect this sort of a thing to withstand that kind of distance," they say. "You're young! You'll enjoy the autonomy, you'll see," they say. I just want to scream at everyone to shut the hell up about it. You don't think I know how slim our chances are? You think you're telling me something I haven't already thought about? You think you're helping me by "preparing" me for the "inevitable?" I don't want to think about that shit. I can't think about that shit. Because if you go into this kind of a situation with a fatalistic attitude, then what's the point? You're just biding your time. If you don't believe at some level that you have a chance, however slim, then you're right--you don't. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. And when people remind me how unlikely it is that we'll stay together, they're feeding that seed of doubt. I don't care if I sound naive, I don't care if I look back on this 5 years from now and laugh at my own absurdity, I don't care if I look like a little kid plugging my ears and yelling over the sound of a truth I don't want to hear... I have something good here that I value, and I'm not going to give up on it unless there is no other alternative.
I didn't intend for this post to get angry. I'm just stressed out (deservedly, I think). I'm tired of being scared and sad. I'm tired of crying all the time because of everything from realizing how much I'm going to miss a certain thing to stupid song lyrics that seem all too relevant to my current situation.
Blergh.
In other news, remember how I was supposed to teach a couple of photography workshops with that local company? Well, that didn't happen. I did get to give a mini tutorial on some portraiture lighting set-ups at a club meeting, but both of the workshops I was supposed to teach fell through because we didn't get enough people signed up to take them. Not my fault, and not the company's fault either, but still definitely a bummer. The founder, who is the guy I've been in contact about all this, thinks it's because it's tax season and people are being more careful with their money, but I don't think it's that. The thing is that this company really caters to amateurs, and given the nature of the area we live in, the vast majority of amateur photographers here are interested in landscape photography, and both of the workshops I was going to teach (artificial lighting for portraiture and intro to photoshop) are more fashion oriented. Also, given that these people are amateurs and into landscape photography, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them don't own any lighting gear themselves, and although we did mention on the event page for the lighting workshop that it isn't necessary to bring your own equipment, I think people probably assumed that it wouldn't be as valuable to them if they didn't have their own stuff to bring and try out.
Eh, I kinda ran out of steam for this post. I guess this is all I had to say for the time being anyway. I'm gonna go and scavenge the cupboards for something to eat for dinner.
