Failure to Launch

I'm feeling trapped.

I feel like I'm stuck in self-destructive cycle, doomed to keep on repeating the same mistakes that tear me to shreds, only to force myself to gather all the strength I've got left in me to pick myself back up, only to allow myself to get knocked back down again.

I don't know where I'm going.

I'm feeling as if I've done it all before, over and over again, and just like all those previous trials and tribulations, I've failed—failed so miserably so many times that it seems that that's the only solution I can arrive at without batting an eye, without even trying.

Maybe that's the problem.

Maybe I'm not even trying.

It feels as if I've been letting myself fall by the wayside so many times already that it's become the go-to answer, the default option I let myself go to when things get rough and situations call for me to step up and be a man.

I'm letting myself lose.

Why am I doing this to myself?

Why am I prioritizing the trivial when all along I know I what I need to do is to just buckle down and get my shit done?

Am I failing on purpose?

Maybe. I wouldn't put it past me, knowing my previous track record concerning this particular modus operandi.

But why?

For attention?

No, I don't need the attention. This isn't a cry for help, at least not the way I see it.

I don't want to draw attention to myself this way by spotlighting the fact that I can't focus, can't do what just needs to get done, can't do what it takes to just move on already.

I'm exhausted. I've been working so much, working my ass off.

Caring too much.

Why am I doing this?

Why am I pouring all my energy into my work when I already know I've proven myself?

Granted, I admit there is still some residual guilt left in me for having thrown it all away in the first place. I've not forgotten what I had to go through to get back to where I am now.

Humiliation aside, I'm glad I went through it. It's humbled me, knocked me down a couple pegs.

It gave me the opportunity to learn from previous mistakes, old failures, and make something better of myself.

And I have. I've proven I was worth the second chance, proved that I can change, that I've grown, that I can do so much better.

Knowing that, being able to acknowledge that, see the difference from who I was to who I'm becoming— that alone has been one of the most truly gratifying gifts I could ever give myself.

But what now?

I don't feel challenged anymore.

I'm not motivated to do anything else, not inspired to bring myself to action for… anything, it feels like.

I hate to say I'm dead inside. I know I'm not.

But something in me feels like it's broken.

Something in me is not clicking, something in me is not fueling the fire to get me off my ass and do something, anything.

I've fallen behind in my schoolwork, which is completely ridiculous and unacceptable, I know, considering the fact that I've only got one class to worry about this time around.

I can't fail it again, can't waste anymore of my time.

But that desire to not fail doesn't seem to be enough for me to motivate myself to do something about it.

I'm normally an action-oriented person.

Something ignites my interest, flames my passion, makes me want to get up and rule the goddamn world.

But I haven't felt that way in quite a while now, and I don't know why.

It feels as if I've fallen back in a slump.

The only consistent thing about me is my erratic mood swings.

I go from happy, inspired, brilliant, jubilant, to melancholic, apathetic, lethargic at the drop of a hat.

One moment I'm up, up, and up, and the next… I don't know what happens or how I get there, but the next thing I know is that I feel like I'm on a tailspin towards depression.

It is that time of the year…

I'm more susceptible to depression 'round this time.

I never do so well in the fall and winter months, when the only feeling I can recognize in me can be summed up as "bleak."

This is when the vices increase, intensify to a new level of addiction I'm normally capable of staving off any other time of the year.

This is when I feel the most empty, when I rediscover the void in my heart still exists and has continued to go on unfulfilled.

So what do I do?

I fill that void within me with more vices, in desperate hopes to plug up the hole that I can't fill, can't even name, can't even fathom how vast and bottomless it is.

More cigarettes, more alcohol, more pharmaceuticals.

More unfulfilled longing for love and intimacy, covered up by casual sex and artificial detachment.

This is the time of year I fuck myself up even more than I already am.

Because I am a fuck up.

No matter how intelligent I can make myself sound, no matter how competent I can portray myself to be, no matter how confident I can carry myself to look,  it still doesn't make up for the fact that I'd rather take the easier route and make a mess of myself than to even try to break out of the self-destructive cycle I've been in since God knows when.