In starting this project and trying to figure out what to write about, I decided to mine my old Facebook posts to see if there are any stories I want to share. I’ve been away from blogging for a really long time, and I thought maybe I had some old gems to revisit.
I started by going back as far as I could, which turned out to be 2008. I’m pretty sure I joined Facebook before then, but maybe I’m remembering MySpace. Anyway, I got about a year in until I got so much ick with my old self that I couldn’t continue.
And then I realized, there’s the story. How much I give myself the ick.
So, let’s dive into some of my old posts that made me roll my eyes and wish I was someone else, shall we? I simply do not have it in me to go through every year in one sitting because I am trying not to hate myself, so I’m going to take it one year at a time.
In 2008, I lived in a small condo in the Shadyside neighborhood of Pittsburgh, within walking distance of many, many coffee shops (and cupcake shops, too; cupcakes were having a moment). And I would take my laptop to coffee shops, drink coffee, and write blog posts that I am sure would embarrass me now.
Anyway, all of this to say that I posted a lot about coffee shops and peppermint mochas. I ate Pizza Parma every week, and I spent nearly every free evening at Jack’s in the South Side. Other notable things to mention about this particular year of my life include a corneal abrasion I got from wearing my contacts 20+ hours at a time and getting a second nursing job because, why not?
While that may all sound mundane, 2008 was a bit of a time for me. I was working in the PICU (that stands for pediatric intensive care unit), and the truth is that my anxiety could not handle it. I dealt with this by day drinking and ultimately starting Lexapro as I struggled to manage the emotional intensity of the job and figure out what the hell I wanted from my life.
In the fall of that year, I was considering grad school, but not for nursing. I was interested in a Master’s in Program Evaluation, which I thought would be a good way to combine my English and teaching degrees with my nursing experience. I remember being very excited when I was on campus and feeling energized as I was walking back to the parking garage after having an initial meeting about the program. As time passed, though, let’s just say I didn’t really receive any encouragement in my daily life (a degree in Program Evaluation was not something I was supposed to want), so I let it go.
From my posts, I believe this was also the year that I had severe insomnia. I posted about being tired, a lot, and about how I couldn’t sleep. At the time, I couldn’t figure out why. But I remember driving home from a party in the middle of the night crying because I’d woken up super early after drinking copious amounts of alcohol, wondering why even that didn’t work.
Remember how Facebook used to encourage you to update your status by prompting you to finish a sentence? Today, the text box for posts says, “What’s on your mind?” but it used to be the beginning of a sentence, and the implication was that it was supposed to be written in third person. Or at least that’s how I interpreted it.
Well, I took that suggestion seriously and wrote my statuses in a way that finished that sentence. Because I am a purist.
Anyway, on December 7th, I posted “…feels like she’s living someone else’s life, and that everything is a blur now.”
On the 8th, I posted “…would give anything to be able to relive this past year and spare herself from feeling any of the 1000 things she’s feeling right now.”
And on December 21, I posted… “wants what she can’t have. And never what’s waving itself in her face. Sad because grad school is a misser. Hate accepting reality.”
Ugh, yeah, reality is still hard.
I know what she does next. She doesn’t. Spoiler alert: she ends up doing all right (dare I say she’s even happy?), but it takes her a long time to get there.
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