I am not myself. Or I am and I don't like it. Or maybe I am just lost.

But it really really blows.

I know I always dreamed of a job I could truly commit myself to - a thing I genuinely believed could change lives and make the world a better place and I could sit on my throne of aloof, producerly power and bask in the unwitting appreciation and anonymous, inherent goodness of the world. I could be separate, unscathed, safe and yet intricately linked and responsible for the inspirational and affirming moments that make life worth living. I was anonymously valued and instrumental to great things.

I always hoped more than anything I would have a partner. Someone who needed me desperately, loved me completely and was charmed by my faults and foibles. That took joy in carpe diems and loved small surprises. That shared my spontaneous passions and useless, strict criteria. That humoured my silliness and selfdoubt in equal measure. That cared for me and helped me be a better self as much as i showed them their unrecognised greatness.

Now, I have these things.

I am overjoyed. And overwhelmed. And disappointed.

And I really don't mean to sound pretentious, because it was a total accident, and in someways a total failure (do you remember the agony of liam back in the day?or all the idiots and pseudo-loves and kindred spiris that came before? the years of wallowing and fears about ever having work I enjoyed? the lack of faith in anything better ever coming along?)

But I now have a job and a partner than fits these descriptions. The things I spent my whole life wanting, reassuring myself if only I could get them, things would turn out fine.

The problem is, it isn't enough. Or I was wrong.

Or perhaps more aptly, I didn't take into account a career and a relationship do not make a life.

Somewhere in the inbetween while I was trying to transition into the kind of person that gets up at 8 every day and calls my mother on sunday and arranges a box at the theatre as a special weekend trip I forgot to be human. to be me. to be whole.

like i thought acting out this life could be my life. but it is so souless. so shallow.

i am coming to realise nothing can complete me. or save me. or occupy my time until i can look back satisfied on a lifetime of productivity and value.

it just doesn't fucking work like that.

and now i don't know what to do.

it's like that first realisation that no matter how good i was at school - how great i was at taking tests and being on time and feeding back the answers i knew they wanted to hear - someday it wouldn't work like that i was wholly unprepared for any other type of activity and it was just tough luck no one taught me how to do anything other than be a good student. or maybe it was my fault i never figured it out - but either way, one day I was great at my job- and the next day my studentship was pink-slipped and I was rendered obsolete. Groomed for a purpose no one actually needed.

And if I was weaker, or stronger, or someone else, or even my younger self, I'd scrap everything. I'd get a do-over and tell myself it'll all be okay, because I can make the change i want to be, and i can build the life I want to live and i can find it, whatever it is, and be free.

But I don't want to jump ship. I don't need to run away to find myself.

I like it here. I love him. And I am unwilling to sacrifice that. Perhaps this is growth, it feels like something bigger than selfish wanderings, but it also feels like a burden, a tie and weight tying me down and holding me back.

I don't know how to edit what i have into what I want - up until now, I've always just traded in and started over. It's so much easier when you have nothing to lose.

For the first time, the last thing I want is a clean slate - but I don't have any other methods of modification.

And admitting change is no small thing, and extremely volitile.

Will we still be us, if I want us to be different? Can I keep this job and be who I want to be? If I can't, can I still live in this town, just drifting? Do i still want to? Where will I go? If I go back to America, will he give up everything to come with me? Can I ask that? do I want to? Is that fair? Will he resent it? Will my dedication to my job destroy my commitment to everything else? Can I do a job that asks so much of my heart and soul knowing I don't want to give in completely anymore? Is there a future when I am the best in the country at what I do, and i don't want to do it anymore? Can I really say something so pompous? Does it even matter?

Will it ever be ok?

And I just don't know.

Sometimes I think so, but I am unsure if it's just persuasion and self-denial disguised as comfort and survival tactics, or worse - I am so wrapped up in it temporarily, I've forgotten quite how bad it is, and merry keep tugging away. And someday, far from now, I'll see the horizon, my repulsion will dawn again and in the meantime I will have lost or destroyed everything in the blindness between.

Sometimes I am hopeless.