The uncertainty in my life is incredibly upsetting to me and stresses me more than I let on. I have no steady job. My only source of income will give me — if I’m lucky — $100 a week. Debts add up. This whole quarter-life crisis thing is half joke, half I’m-damn-serious. Next month is my 25th birthday and I feel just as accomplished as I did when I was six. What do I have to show for myself? A few pieces of paper? Some scars here and there from stupid shit I did, stupid people I was with, general stupidity? Tan lines and tattoos and things that aren’t the mark of success but of laziness and impulse.
It was incredibly devastating to move back in with my parents. Yes, I had been scraping by from paycheck to paycheck from IT but at least I had a paycheck. Carl paid my rent. I felt like a failure. I couldn’t even support a roof over my own head, what the hell am I doing trying to make it in the Real World (tm)? I’d be better off on an MTV reality show where I compromise my morals for the world to see because at least they’d pay me.
It always comes down to money.
And it bothers me sometimes, no, frequently, that despite the fact that we’ve been dating for nearly two years now and words have been exchanged, Carl almost refuses to tell me he loves me. So half the time I don’t fucking know. I mean, I can feel it. And I think he does. But it’s like a dagger, like I’m not good enough, like I’ve never been good enough and I’m just being used like I was in the past, that I pour my all into it and I get back a pat on the back and a good job Elyse and that’s it. I don’t necessarily want a permanent fixture; I’m not looking for a ring on my finger (fucking hell I have so much more to do before being married), but a little affirmation every so often would be lovely. As usual, though, I sit and wait for recognition.
I throw myself out there 100% for everyone. My friends, my family, even people who treat me like shit. Most of the time I don’t get anything in return and I’m okay with that. But every once in a while the old, less confident seventh grade Elyse sneaks back into my consciousness and starts sabotaging. To have friends tell you to your face that nobody liked you. Putting your everything on the line to have it thrown back at you and crushed, quite literally, bringing the truest definition to the word I have ever seen or felt.
It’s been five years since Massachusetts and every so often you creep into my life and the pain comes back and I still think that I’d do anything for you that you asked me to but I won’t. Because I can’t stand to lose another friend the way I lost you. I will never get you back. I don’t want you back. Hell, I never had you to begin with. But you’ll never leave me, at least not in my head.
tl;dr Elyse is a lot more damaged than she lets on sometimes