Time to do things.

I’m writing this post from my parents’ kitchen. There is warm coffee and an abundance of food, our old golden retriever lying at my feet, a 70-inch television with every station on earth (Homeland live!), a washer and dryer for me to do my laundry without dragging it down 33 floors, and all the food and wine I could want. The money had run out, and living in New York was no longer a responsible idea, and I had told myself over and over, this is fine. It’s almost the holidays – you’d be going home anyway!

So why am I so. freaking. depressed?

It’s because I feel like I’m giving up, and I don’t like giving up. On anything. I am a dangerous combination of a stubborn perfectionist who doesn’t like asking for help and over-analyzes every single mistake she’s ever made. And this morning I look at myself and my life and I think:

• I’m about to turn 31.
• I’m already divorced.
• I’m now unemployed, going on two months without working.
• I’m broke, due to that whole two months without working thing.
• And now I’ve moved back home with my parents. In the suburbs. Without a car.

I feel like such a failure, and despite everything that’s happened over the past few years, I’ve never, ever felt like a failure. In fact, I’ve felt the opposite. I was so proud of the way I handled school when everything was going on around me. (Granted, that may come down to how much of a nerd I am, rather than being stubborn, but I wasn’t going to let a little personal trouble cause me to get bad grades.) I found a job quickly after finishing school, and then I found another, and I moved to New York, knowing about three people in the entire city. I was so proud of myself for never moving home then, never saying “this is just too tough, and I give up.”

I don’t mean this to be a post where I brag about how awesome I was a few years ago. And I also don’t mean it to be one where I throw myself a pity party. But as I sit here this morning, I guess I just don’t really know where to go now. I feel like just as one part of my life was pulling itself together, another part felt apart, and I wish I could just get everything going at the same time. I don’t like feeling unproductive with my days. I hate the “where do you see yourself in five years?” interview question; I don’t know where I’m going to be in five months! I feel stuck and trapped and worry that I’m going to slip into a vortex of bad daytime television, eating too many Christmas cookies, and complete and total laziness.

So I’m going to make a little pledge to you all here, and I hope you hold me to it. I’m going to do things. And not just applying to jobs and taking meetings and such. Actual things. I’m going to work out more. I’m going to write more. And I’m going to teach myself to play the guitar that was waiting for me in my bedroom when I got home last night – the one I’ve been wanting to learn to play for about six years now. And if I’m writing about being bored or sad in the next few months, you’re all going to comment or email me or tweet at me and tell me to STFU and do something instead. Deal?