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The Cycle of Summer

      I hate summer. It's hot. Everyone goes out of town and has fun vacationing adventures. Meanwhile, I can count the number of proper vacations I've ever had on one hand. I start comparing myself against the metrics of American life only to be bombarded by constant and unending shame at my own shortcomings.

      Now friends are graduating and starting to enter out into proper careers, truly stepping into their own as adults. Yet here I am, alone with nothing but my own failure and minuscule ambitions.

      Sure, there's lots I want to do, but I don't have the time and energy to do both. I try to strike a balance, but I've failed to find a healthy one my entire adult life. This struggle only exacerbates my insecurity about my life and my own miserable existence.

      There are some nights when my mind travels into its darkest thoughts. If things had been different, would I be somewhere else with a blossoming career? What would happen if I were no longer living?

      ...What would happen if I no longer existed on this earth? Sure I could continue to fantasize about far-off worlds with an idealized version of myself, but that would only cloud my own existence.

      June starts to pass by. I age further as my lonely thoughts begin to crescendo in a flurry of negative voices. I can barely keep them at bay.

      Work does little to alleviate my racing mind as I am left alone to work with nothing but my own thoughts and internal dialogue. The voices drone on as my self-esteem continues to fall. any sense of pride or joy is quickly quelled by the voices.

      Summer goes on. I still have no one to talk to. My cracked mind continues to fracture with every prolonged period of loneliness. Some days I'm afraid I'll dissociate into someone else. What little willpower I have screams in the silence to keep the echoed voices at bay.

      No new adventures unfold as I fall deeper into despair, few friends returning as the fall approaches. They ask how my summer was and what classes will be like in the coming semester.

      I can only smile weakly as I half-heartedly say it was a fine summer. I wince inside while my mouth declares a long repeated and well-known line. "I'm not in classes right now."

      "Oh," they'd reply.

      Despite the seemingly stagnant life I lead, the pressure keeps mounting to push forward with other American success metrics. Get your own car. Move out. Pay down your debt. Return to school. Find your career.

      I couldn't give an answer or timeline to ANY of them. I continue to pay my bills, but life from paycheck to paycheck makes acquiring key items difficult. School is nothing but a hazy goalpost somewhere along the horizon during a great sand storm.

      My soul chips away with each grain of sand, each day that passes. How much longer until there's nothing left of me to respond with? When will my answer share something positive about myself?

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      When will I finally say someting positve about myself.?