oh hey dannyk

when life gets me down, i think at least i’m not chuck

joshterry:

the past few days have been a blur. i flew home to south carolina, got to spend a lot of time with my family & even saw my cousin get married and sing “the humpty dance” at the reception while i ate meatballs and watermelon.

i’ve been struggling a lot lately with what i’m doing with my life. i think everyone goes through this kinda quarter life crisis of sorts when they reach their mid twenties. you wonder “have i accomplished what i wanted to professionally yet”, “why am i not in a meaningful relationship with my soul mate”, and “am i really being a good friend or taking care of my family after all they’ve done for me”?

for me, unlike a lot of my friends, i don’t own a house, i’m not getting married this year or probably for quite some years to come if ever, i live 700 miles away from all my family and closest friends and am missing out on the last few years of my grandparents lives while my parents are both having to deal with a lot of personal and financial problems and my little brother is having to learn how to grow up without any support from myself. countered with that, i wonder if i have reached the potential professionally that i thought i would have by this point, or if i’m holding myself back.

i think everyone doubts themselves. i think everyone wants to be better than who they are and compares themselves to those people they feel “have their life together” or “are achieving more than i ever will”, when in reality those people probably have more problems and personal issues than any of us ever could imagine.

tonight, i had a long talk with a friend that i don’t spend nearly enough time with. she had a really bad day at work and was also feeling lonely and questioning if being in chicago was the right thing for her. i hope through my conversation with her, i didn’t make her evening any worse. but i almost felt like i was having a conversation with myself about the same issues.

i’ve alway have been and always will be a perfectionist, selfish asshole who pushes himself harder than most people to get to achieve what i want, with that i’m also incredibly critical of myself. whether that comes from a need to be better than others, or a need to try to have an impact on people’s lives the way my father has had on so many people, or whether its just because i like to boss people around and get my way due to my desire to be the biggest asshole ever - i might never know.

to move forward professionally, i’ve sacrificed chances at having dating relationships, i’ve had an inability to settle in one place to call home, and i’ve probably become a shittier and more distant friend then even my best friends would joke that i am. 
when i was home this weekend i got to see the plot of land where my cousin zac & leigh anne are building their first home, i saw the son of a guy i used to play wiffleball with as a child become a member of my hometown church, i saw my cousin britt who i’m incredibly close with marry someone who treats her very well, and i saw my uncle edwin do a dance that resembled the robot meets how i think jfk fell when he was shot to a steve miller song. 

but i think the thing i’ve learned through all of this, is that you can’t beat yourself up for all of the things you “aren’t doing” and you have to just live your life surrounded by the wonderfully fucked up individuals around you, and every now and then let someone else know what’s going on in your life without holding it in.  i mean if i would have never gone to college or moved to chicago, i would have never seen a woman take a dump on a train or heard the story of a prostitute who begged chuck to piss on her face in order for her to gain his cocaine. i don’t want to live in a world where those stories don’t exist. i need those stories.