my goals
Today, I’m not sure if I can truly achieve my goals, I don’t know if I can manage to realize my dream self, I don’t know if I can consistently show up as my best version, I don’t know if I can live up to my potential. And I don’t mean this in a black-and-white, perfectionist way that wouldn’t allow for slip-ups or variation in performance; that’s normal and already factored in. Instead I mean whether I will be able to achieve it at all, and be able to keep it up even somewhat.
I feel very weak and vulnerable today. I’m reminded of how sick I am. I think about all the opinions and societal mechanisms that make me feel worthless or like a burden, or that I’m too unreliable. I think of all my lofty dreams and goals and I wonder how the same person that’s rotting in bed today can possibly even work towards it, let alone maintain it. I know things look different on my better days and I have so much energy and drive and resourcefulness when I feel good, but when I feel sick, it all feels so incompatible. In those moments, I just wanna give everything up. Do the bare minimum. Survive and not allow myself to attempt anything because of the inevitable failure.
It feels like my options for everything are so narrow, too. And I’m not sure how I’ll deal if I never hit my goals.
I wanna be invited to speak on panels, I wanna have my own Wikipedia page, and I wouldn’t mind writing an article here and there in professional journals. I wanna work in the public sector still, in regulatory if possible, or academia, or an NGO.
I feel like I’m running out of time to do everything. Death is always around the corner, the new flare up of my conditions is too, meds no longer working… and so much of what I wanna do is gatekept by qualifications that are really expensive or take so long to finish next to work and all. Some are also impossible for me.
I also would give anything to be able to tolerate my existing work more. Every work e-mail I get right now, even though totally harmless and friendly, for some reason sends me into an internal rage (that I hide on the outside because it’s not a justified feeling and other people should not be the target of my problems and shortcomings). I don’t wanna be mad at the slightest bits of my job, but it feels like a reaction to ongoing issues with it.