Did you ever get to the point where you have the sudden, crushing realization that your life is not at all what you thought it was going to be? Yeah, well, I'm dabbling in that now.

I know, I don't really deserve to refer to it as sudden or crushing.

It's not sudden - it's been building for the past several months, as my internship applications were unceremoniously used as newly-shredded hamster bedding for the children of internship training directors, and then in the interviews I was so blessed as to be allowed to attend I was positively suffocated with an influx of patronizing-ness and barely concealed frustration that I would dare to actually try to answer the questions on their little interview forms. I'd spent a fair amount of time, both before and after that, coming to the realization that while I'm not burdened with perfect children or a perfect house or a perfect life, they're all MINE and I love them and want to spend more time around them, that is, why oh why did I spend such an obscene amount of the government's money on an education I didn't even really want, especially now that the government will want that money back which means I need a job??

And, too, it's not crashing. My life isn't what I thought it was going to be, as a child (my mother still has a thing I filled out in "kindergarten" declaring my plans to be a librarian and have a pink bedroom and eat more candy), as a teenager (GAWD, let's not go there, shall we? Suffice it to say that I'm not quite sure how my idea of what was fun and worthwhile then ever was able to mentally coexist with my lifelong aversion to the idea of being in prison via someone else's motivation.), as a grad student (Am I a profiler? Nope! Am I even a psychologist?!? NOPE!), or even as a 28-year-and-8-month-old as compared to my current 28-year-and-9-month-old status (do I have an internship? ..... N-O-P-E! But, for a refreshing change of reply, do I have chronic migraines, bronchitis and sinusitis? Yes, indeed!). No, my life is none of that stuff. But what it is, is still pretty good. My children are beautiful and healthy and affectionate, and my husband is far more supportive and patient than any of us could have possibly predicted, watching him play beer pong and seek out yet another sorority girl conquest way back when. I own a home, a car, and a stupid cat. I have employable skills. My parents and sisters provide me with enough love to justify family and enough ridicule to remember that I'm not quite as cool as strangers might thing I am. I have friends, some with children way more advanced and polite and poised and non-nose-picking than mine are and others who have been so gracious as to have children with problems bigger than mine have, leaving me with a nice little pile of perspective after a playdate.

Hardly the stuff of crashing (or was it crushing? something overdramatic, can't be bothered to scroll back up) realizations, in the larger scheme of things. And yet, somehow, right this second, it is both sudden and crashing to me. I have so many things that I want, but I can't seem to get myself organized enough to decide when and how to actually work toward those things.

Like, I want good books to read and less time on the computer playing mindless games while I wait for the current wave of depression to lift enough for me to look at my children without crying. All sorts of things there I could do to reach any piece of that goal, but what am I doing? Sitting at the computer, not reading, with a mindless game on pause in the background.

I want no debt, or at least, not such an enormous, soul-stifling load of debt. But that requires getting a job, or waiting for some distant relative to win the lottery, alter their will to me, and then immediately die. Hmm, maybe I'm just working really hard on Choice B, there.

I want real-life friends, but I find too many people to be irritating or insipid. The times I do feel a connection with someone, I immediately launch into Self-Doubt-and-Shy mode, and I let opportunities slide. My dearest friends live over an hour away, making any interaction an event that takes planning and militarily precise logistics.

I want online friends, too, but I find it a challenge to trust many people. Women are catty, men are testosterone-poisoned, and everyone just seems to revert to a stereotype when flattened into pixels and bytes. I have some close, wonderful friends online, and I am grateful for them... and I also have a pile of acquaintances whom I sometimes suspect are all having group chats while I chat with each one-on-one, just to collude and collect instances of my idiocy so that they can hit me with them all at once.

Wow, there should be a law against blogging at nearly 1:00 a.m. while waiting for the Nyquil to kick in... I'm letting all sorts of maudlin, paranoid stuff leak out tonight.

Which is another source of conflict for me... I want more people to read my blog, because somehow when I see that hit count climb up over 20 a day I feel validated and cool, but then at the same time I hate needing that validation. Wouldn't it be neat to just be able to exist in the world without worrying what everyone else thinks?? I manage it, in a lot of ways, in my life - I'm able to be decisive and take action and can take whatever criticism comes my way with aplomb and general unconcern. But for some reason, I can't remain as unruffled about this blog.

And I'm not even writing about the *really* personal stuff here.