don't we always die trying anyway?

Lately I have been really worried about what I'm going to do about money in the next few months. I have bills coming up that are going to wipe out the last bit of money in my checking account and rent is going to decimate my savings. I need a job. I probably need jobs. I've applied and applied and nothing comes back. I know I need to just go and get a job waitressing but I know that waitressing by itself probably isn't going to cover $750 a month in rent plus bills. It's probably going to take 2 jobs.

And I begin to wonder...what am I doing here? Why did I leave a good job, a job where I probably would have been able to go to school at LSU to get the same degree I'm getting here? Why did I move here for what is basically a bullshit degree? Why am I doing this to myself?

But.

It's easy to get pulled down in that, especially in this precarious position. And I have to remind myself: I'm here because this is one of the few times in my life that I will have a chance to do something on my own. I have friends and family, people who love me, rallied behind me, but in the end, it's just me. I needed to get out of Baton Rouge, even though I didn't realize it at the time. I needed to cut the safety net and do it alone. Because if I would have stayed, I would have lived with that feeling that I wasn't trying and that often leads to apathy. I'd stop wanting to try, occasionally wondering what might have happened. I had to give myself that chance to do something bigger, to go to Tulane and maybe get into a Ph.D here and live in New Orleans by myself and earn my own way and figure out what I want. Because until we step outside of those boxes, it's hard realistically say "I want this." Well, it's hard for me anyway. In just the month I've been here, I've felt more at home in my own skin than I maybe have ever felt. Sometimes it's awful and painful and sad, but sometimes, little moments, it's a kind of exaltation. Realizing I could be alone was freeing for me. Not that I want to be alone forever, but I think that doing it for awhile gives one a sense of clarity and a sense of self that is difficult to attain otherwise. For me, it's also been a lesson in fortitude, or maybe a reminder of it--that I can be strong when I want to be.

So when I get down, I just keep telling myself, "Push yourself. Give it your all. Make it work. Make. It."