i confess: i'm in the wrong place

looking back on the last 25 and more months, i can see that i should have left here all the way back in august of 2007, when i moved out of the house i'd been living in for 8 years. i'm not sure where i was supposed to go, but i have never truly felt at home here, and my perseverance here may border on plain ridiculous.

i have moved 5 times in those 25+ months and will again in the next few weeks (again, not quite sure where). i have seen my debt grow 3 times faster than my income. i have lost the good use of my left knee and may not ever get it back. i had to get rid of my cat (much later than i should have, yes; but nonetheless, it hurt). i endured a hateful roommate situation that left me in what can only be called post-traumatic shock at the idea of ever living with anyone from craigslist again (not kidding, not funny, don't go there). i could list more than the septic floods, asthmatic reactions to carpeting and mold in one apartment, and the unsettled and embarrassing situation of not being in my own place yet again.

and yes, all of these troubles are due to my own fault and doing. truth be told, i probably should have left here long before 2007. i have been fighting with this town since i moved here in 1999. my old apartment was broken into twice in the 6 years i lived there. my car was first broken into and then stolen.

i came here unwisely and sinfully to pursue the law degree for which i will be paying the rest of my life, and i stayed long after i ever intended to be here. but more than that, i wasn't supposed to come here. i was supposed to be somewhere else… doing something else. but God, in his great Romans 8:28 way, has worked out for good all the bad decisions that i have made, including coming here 10 years ago. he has restored much of what i had lost or left behind, and i have had a great deal of healing of my heart and mind in the years that i have been part of your lives here. and for that i am very grateful to him and to you all.

please do not feel that i undervalue my friendships. i am very grateful for all of you that i have remained close to and those i have come to know in these years i have remained here. you have been both a simple joy to get to know and a great help to me in need these past two years, and i am thankful.

but at the same time, i just don't feel like i want to be here any more. i am tired of being jealous of everyone who gets to leave here for someplace else. i am tired of being angry at God for letting them go and not me. i am tired of moving around town from one roommate situation to another and dragging my crap from place to place, leaving straggling pieces of it behind, here and there.

and i don't think i really have a good reason to be here. the reasons i thought i should stay are just not coming to fruition and are truly not worth mentioning at this point (those whom i have told them know, and those i have not needn't be troubled with them). needless to say, my ambitions and plans have been poorly conceived and even more poorly organized and worked towards. i thought that i could accomplish something here - establish something here. but i am doing neither what i want to do nor what i need to do here. it both is too comfortable (for me to do nothing) and hurts too much (when i try to accomplish anything) to remain here. and whether it is just that i have not been responsible to work towards it (and i know very well i have not) or whether it just was not meant to be here, i don't think i have the heart or desire to continue to beat my head against the wall that is columbus in order to scrabble out some practice run of what i really want to do.

what i really want to do i don't feel like i can do here. what i really want to be is not here.

yes, i'm still here.

i am still here.

those words are like boulders i carry around on my shoulders. they work together with other words to taunt me and convict me. they form sentences in my head like:

• "i am still here in columbus where i never thought i'd be for a week, let alone 10 years."
• "i am still here even though i'd rather be almost anywhere else."
• "i am still here because i haven't grown up."
• "i am still here without anything to show for my life but an unused law degree and 50 pounds of extra weight."
• "i am still here and i have to pretend i don't hate almost every day of my miserable life."
• "i am still here because i am a chickenshit do-nothing who hasn't done a thing of value with my life yet, and time's wasting."
• "i am still f---ing here. why am i still f---ing here?!"

i hate that i am still here. i hate that i have no hope for my life these days and don't even care that i don't.

i feel like i'm in junior high all over again. i feel like i am more an annoyance or a source of entertainment than a valued worthwhile person in my world. i would like to think i'd be missed if i left, but i can almost guarantee that i'd not be very missed. just like a tv show that gets cancelled, i may be missed for a while and talked about every now and then, but i don't think i'm much more than a regular time-filler.

sometimes, i can't even stand hearing myself tell people why i haven't taken the bar. i hate hearing myself make excuses for why my life is in f---ing limbo. why can't i actually do anything? why do i watch other people take risks and actually do things in their lives? i am getting to the point where i can't even stand to hear myself think anymore. i need to leave and find my place. i need to know that i even have a place.

and why bring this up here at all? is it a cry for help? is it really that pathetic, you may ask? and why am i even writing this? what has inspired me to write here where i haven't been in months? because i am confident that no one is waiting for me to post here. i am confident that this is my last quiet place.

no, i know that this is my one place where i am often truly able to say what it is that i really feel, even as i get worse at doing so in my walking around.

so why am i still here?

i am still here because no one is listening.