A Harsh Wind

I am in a bad state.

I was in a bookstore tonight browsing and I couldn't find anything. Nothing in an entire store. I found myself standing in front of the Anthropology/Archaeology section and I just started crying. I scanned the title of each book until my eyes started to drown and couldn't focus. I tried to move away. There's a truth there I'm just not ready to face.

A few minutes later I was standing before a shelf of fiction, the K authors. I let my eyes roam around and they landed on The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. The tears came again. I once read a Kafka anthology and there was one story, I can't recall the title, but he wrote that story in one night. One night. I will never in my life be able to accomplish what one man could in one single evening.

I know it's pretentious to compare oneself to a literary master. I know that I will have time to figure it all out but I can't help but feel like a complete and total failure. What have I done with my life? Nothing that I can think of. I am the same person I was in high school. I am doing the same things and having the same conversations I was four years ago. The strides I have made since then are insignificant. I look at what I could potentially be doing and I am terrified. I am terrified that in four more years, I will be doing the exact same thing I'm doing now. I'm scared shitless that I am going to settle because it's comfortable and I'm too scared of change. I am fucking horrified that I am nothing but mediocre. I'm scared that I'm a bad writer, a bad friend, a bad sister, a bad employee, a bad daughter, a bad student and one royal fuck-up of a person in general.

I don't know where to go for answers. I don't even know that there are answers. I don't know how on earth I'm supposed to grow up and have a future when I'm not even sure what to make of my past. I don't know what it takes to be a successful, happy person. Can someone be happy? Or is it this constant cycle of wondering if you're good enough? Neither answer will make me feel better.

Fuck growing pains. Seriously.