My mind is racing, nervous, full of worry. This is a usual occurrence for me; most nights are like this. I have spent a lot of time recently feeling extremely stressed out, which has caused me to not sleep well, get a load of ulcers, and other illnesses such as coughs and colds are things I am afflicted with very often. Quite frankly, there is a shit-load of stressful things about my life, and I am not coping well. YAY!
Tonight (well, this morning), there were numerous things on my mind preventing me from sleeping. I am going to type them out in an attempt to calm my mind down; for this morning, at least. In no particular order:
1. My current employment situation.
This is a very frustrating aspect of my life. I have tried many different avenues to change the fact I am unemployed; last month, on the 19th of August, I went for a job interview at Tesco, in Aylesbury. I was the best dressed person there, being the only one wearing a suit and tie. I gave the best answers as part of the group interview; the 7 of us that were there were asked to go out into the store and "pick one product that represents you". I picked a box of Cadbury's Miniature Heroes, and said "this product represents me because it is sweet, nice, versatile, and will put a smile on your face". I both displayed my positive qualities, while also communicating why I'd be good at the job. In contrast, one girl said "I have picked Iron Bru, because it is Scottish and orange, like me". Not to mention the fact that a man there said - in a very deadpan way - "I have picked Lucozade because I like it...and because I'm energetic", which was greeting with 5 seconds of pure awkwardness in the room. As I left the interview - being the first one to make the effort to shake the hands of all of the current Tesco employees in the room, thanking each for their time - one of them (who worked in the position I was applying for, though wasn't in charge of employment) even said "see you soon". While this could have just been her usual polite greeting, I was - understandably, and rarely for me - feeling confident, so I presumed this was a sign that she recognised my good chances of being employed. While I haven't heard back officially either way, they initially said "we'll contact you within a couple of days", then 10 days, then 2 weeks. It's not going to happen.
2. Lack of creative output/progress
I guess this is why I woke up, came downstairs, and booted up the PC. Partly because I had some stand-up comedy ideas swirling around my head that I wanted to write out so I don't lose them, but also because -
like every night for a long time - I have spent time worrying about my lack of progress, output, and achievement creatively. Granted, I know part of this is due to my employment situation - and the high levels of worry and stress caused by the uncertainty of pretty much every aspect of my life - but it's still a nagging concern.
3. Money, money, money.
This goes hand-in-hand with the unemployment. I don't have an income, so I am constantly worried about what's going to happen when my bank account runs out. I've only been able to get through the last month or so due to some utterly lovely people I know just simply giving me money to help me out, which I cannot thank them enough for. But even when I know that I have enough money in my account to last me the next 2 months (for example - this is a rare occurrence, to tell you the truth), there is always the very real worry about how I am going to be able to afford to live happily over the following months. There's also many daily causes of frustration due to my lack of income/funds. There are times that I spend 50p in a charity shop, and find myself stressing over it, thinking "could I really afford to spend that? God Tom, you're being an idiot, why did you spend 50p on that thing you don't need to live? You should only spend money on things you absolutely, 100% need to exist, nothing frivolous at all". Earlier on today, I bidded 1p on a Smash Bros. 3DS demo code on eBay. The official demo is out September 19th, but for 1p I could have got it 4 days earlier. It is the game I am most hyped about for over 3 years (since inFamous 2 in 2011), and I really want to play it. But there was part of my brain that was saying to me "you moron Tom! Why did you bid 1p on that, when you get the demo for free in 4 days?! What a waste of money, you dickhead". Over 1p. I didn't win the listing in the end, as it happens - it sold for £4. I'd rather just wait for the demo to be released in a few days, to be honest.
But then, there's also the side of me that can think "hey Tom! Things aren't going well for you generally, but you wrote a nice thing/had a nice gig/made a good video; why not reward yourself by buying an album on Amazon?" - and yes, a £9 album is genuinely, 100% an extravagance for me right now. I just want to be able to earn money myself, even if it is just £60 a week. Heck, that would be enough for me to be able to do the things I want to do in life most weeks, quite frankly. Over the last 21 months, sadly, that has been too much to ask.
4. General depressive thoughts
Oh, you know the kind. "What's the point of this all?", "why do I keep bothering when things aren't getting at all better?", all of those things.
All 4 of these things all work together to make each-other more powerful, annoyingly, like some Dickish Power Ranger Morphin' Time. On the downside, I'll only get around 4 and a half hours before I need to get up (just my luck before my first early morning in weeks, eh?). At least I've written around 5 minutes of stand-up material to test in a Word Document, and this blog. That's something.
Thanks for reading.
Tom.
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