I don’t know what this is

Have you ever felt like nobody wants you?

Not in the sense that people don’t like you

More in the sense that people like you but nobody desires you.

 

It’s funny because it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy:

You don’t feel like anyone wants to be with you

So you start examining the aspects of yourself that may not be “desirable”

But then you realize there are too many to deal with

And then all your self-confidence is gone and you become undesirable

Because nobody wants to be around someone who isn’t confident.

 

The only way to get past it is to learn to accept yourself

For everything that you are.

People always say, “Make peace with your insecurities,

Because they make you who you are.”

But what people don’t tell you is that you can love every aspect of yourself…

It doesn’t mean anybody else will.

Advertisement

Just Let Your Dreams be Dreams

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want lately. As far as my long-term goals go, I have a few things that I’d absolutely love to do and to some extent, I’m constantly working on those goals (to varying degrees), but I’m honestly not putting everything I have into them every day. I’d love to be, but life gets in the way and it’s sometimes just not an option. I’ve dreamed of making my living as a musician ever since I was 11 years old. The only thing that I don’t get bored of and don’t want to distance myself from after repeated exposure is music. I’m at my happiest when I’ve finished writing a song and I get to hear the finished piece or play it through for the first time, even if it’s just on my own.

Tomorrow I’m auditioning for a spot as a lead guitarist in a band that will be touring; almost exactly what I’ve always dreamed of doing. If I nail it and this band is legitimate and will be going out on tour, I’ll be making my dream come true. And honestly? I’m fucking terrified.

When I think about the life I have right now, I’m happy. I work a full-time job that I don’t legitimately hate where I’m paid a decent salary (I’m severely underpaid as far as the industry is concerned, but for my area, I do pretty well). I own a house because of that job and have minimal credit card debt (I had none until my refrigerator died recently). I have a great relationship with my family and friends and I have an amazing dog who is always down to hang out with me when I’m really down. If I take this opportunity,  I may have to leave that job. As this band is up & coming, I’d imagine I won’t make enough to own this house anymore. I may not even make enough to keep my dog. Part of me doesn’t want to leave any of that behind.

But there’s another part of me that’s totally discontent with things being the way they are. Something about the day-to-day grind and feeling like I’ve just become a workhorse that wakes up, drinks coffee, works all day, has a couple of beers to unwind, goes to sleep and does it again is legitimately sickening to me. I keep telling myself it’s all temporary until something better comes along, but there are days when I think this is it. I have friends that are content with that life and say they’d only chase their dreams if their dreams proved to be as prosperous (monetarily speaking) as their current situation.

I get that to a certain extent because change is scary and comfort is not, but if your dream is to be an author, you’re probably not going to write a best-seller and be set from there on out. You’re going to have to struggle if you want to chase your dreams.

The funny thing is, it’s all tentative. The band is more of a singer-songwriter whose backing band I’d be a part of and he doesn’t have any recorded material to date, but is currently recording an album. I could go to the audition and blow it and never get a call back. I could go out to audition and find that I just don’t jive well with the rest of the band. I could go out and find out that “recording his first album” means he’s sitting with Protools on a Macbook, no record label or way to really make income on it, in a bedroom at his parent’s house and “touring” means we might drive 4 hours to Salt Lake City to play a show and then come home. None of this is certain and I’m still stressing over it like I need to make the decision tomorrow. Either way, it’s gotten me to think about whether or not I’d be willing to give up what I have to chase what I want.

But I still don’t have the answer.

Sand is overrated.

For the first 22 years of my life, I didn’t really dream that often. I’d have dreams that I remembered every few nights. Normal dreams, nightmares, whatever. I didn’t have any of them that often (They say you dream every night, it’s just whether or not you remember it, but that’s not the point I’m making).

After my last relationship ended, I weirdly started having dreams a lot more regularly. I don’t think that the two events were necessarily related, but they did happen around the same time. I went from having vaguely memorable dreams a few times a month to having vivid dreams a couple times a week. For the most part, I’ve enjoyed it. I seem to feel more well-rested when I wake up remembering what I had dreamed about the night before. But obviously, if you dream, you’re going to have bad dreams too. Those are the ones I need to write about today.

Starting back in December, I started to have dreams about people. I would have dreams about being in a relationship with someone. Not anyone in particular, though there were a couple of people I was romantically interested in at the time. Without attempting to sound too melodramatic, I was pretty lonely back then and so it only made sense that I’d have dreams like this. But everything felt good in those dreams. You know that feeling you get when you meet someone new and you’re interested in them? You get butterflies. You wake up excited to talk to someone again. The whole time you’re with them, you’re just elated. I felt those feelings in those dreams and when I woke up alone with no real chance of being with these people, I was sad for the rest of the day.

Those dreams happen a lot less lately, though they still pop up from time to time. Lately, they’ve been replaced by dreams about the girl that I dated most recently. We knew each other for 3 weeks before I ended up breaking things off, so I’m exceptionally bothered by these dreams. Saturday night, I relived my entire first date with this girl in my dreams. The entire fucking thing. Details about that night that I didn’t even remember made their way back into my mind as we retraced our steps.

Funny enough, I didn’t remember what I dreamed about when I first woke up. Things felt off and then about midway through Sunday afternoon, I remembered what I thought was something that had happened the day before. Then I realized it was a memory from about a month ago and it was fresh because I’d just relived it.

It’s incredibly irritating. Whether I’m reliving dates or dreaming about being with someone, it throws me off for most, if not all, of the day. I’ve been trying to sleep less lately to minimize my chances of having dreams like this because it’s just not that awesome to deal with as often as I have been these last few months. My only hope is that they either go away or my reality gets good enough that these dreams don’t bother me anymore.

On the bright side, I had a zombie apocalypse dream two weekends ago and that was pretty fucking cool.