This week has by far been the most physically and emotionally draining week of my entire summer.
To sort of give some back story, my summers or free time consists of me sitting on a couch, eating, playing video games, watching YouTube until the crack of dawn, playing with our cats and talking to people. Overall, it can get pretty boring. I am one of those people who needs to be busy. Constantly. And when I'm not, I notice I shut myself out and begin to doubt I can ever change that. Since it is summer and my parents want me to enjoy my life, or do whatever and love etc. Whilst not having a job, I do what I'd discovered a couple years ago is the only thing I CAN do when I don't have school work keeping me up to ridiculous hours. I volunteer.
Now, before I get into details and before people start yelling at me saying I could do better things with my time, let me just explain to you why I do not have a job. It's really not that simple. I live in a city that is known to have one of the highest unemployment rates! Too many jobs being built with money the city doesn't really have. So, people get dropped and less jobs become available. On top of that, I have something called OSAP. I won't get into too many details, but it's essentially a student loan. They pay for my school and after I graduate, I have up to 6 months to find a decent job to start paying them off, with a shit load of interest on top. Now, as much as I love OSAP, if you work, the money they give you for school fluctuates like you wouldn't believe! That's why so many youngsters recently have been finding other shadier ways of making money. Whatever pays the bills at the end of the night I guess. And I know A LOT of people with OSAP that are still able to work with it, but the AMOUNT I'm getting from them pays off my entire tuition, which is not cheap. As soon as some income comes in from me, it gets cut off. And I need every cent I can get from them. Even if it means I'll be working it off for the rest of my life. Hopefully school pays for itself at the end of the day and I'm able to pay OSAP off before I die.
But enough about OSAP. I volunteer at events because it's something I've grown to love. My first "big" event I've ever volunteered for was a little something known as Re:action 4 inclusion which is all about breaking down barriers between people with disabilities and people without them. Simply put, we are all human and even though we may live differently or grow differently doesn't not make us any different or better than one another. This event helped me realize how much I enjoy organizing, or at least helping to organize events. But the thing that really kicked off my volunteering was Buffer Festival and it really helped me learn a bit more about myself. I discovered how much I thoroughly enjoy doing events and thus, this kicked off my spree of wanting to do more stuff like this. I then kept going with it. I volunteered for film sets, volunteered during school whenever I could, I became a TIFF volunteer, continue to volunteer for them and even got the chance to volunteer at Pan Am right in my home town! I recently just had my last shift and now I'm feeling at a lose again. I'm finding myself fall back into habits, mostly sleeping ones.
Finding the solution to my problems seems so easy and then I fall back into the habits. There is nothing wrong with that, it happens. Chemicals in our brains and all. Maybe my shortness and excessive amounts of coffee have something to do with this! Who knows anymore.
At the end of the day, I still have things going on but summer is slipping through my fingers and I'm finding myself feeling sick to my stomach, almost like I'm holding onto regret. How much of it am I going to regret in the long run? Was it all really worth it? Is this benefiting me in ANYWAY? Is it all a waste of time and I could've been doing something better/more? These are questions that always haunt me. But what I need to realize is I need to live in the present, which I'm getting better at. I do it in the moment but as soon as it finishes, I immediately feel that "hangover" or "Post-(insert event here) depression" and I'm always looking for that next thing. It's scary to think that August is only a week away, that I've got big things coming and all I can think of is endings.
Why did I chose to write tonight? Simply because I'm thinking too forward. Summer is almost done. I am no where near prepared for my last year of college and I am freaking out because I have a bad feeling that other things might be ending too. It's a scary thought because this THING that I'm mentioning but don't want to bring to full light yet is something I've been doing for over two years and I feel that chapter is coming to a close. I really don't want it to and I feel like if I'm the first to finish it, if I'm the first oldie to leave, then everything will collapse. But I don't want to leave. I love it so much and put so much time into it. Why in the hell would I want to leave that all behind? I guess I'll find out. And I'm sure when I do, this will be one of the many places I write to rant/vent.
Thank you for listening and hopefully we both get some sleep tonight.
X
No comments:
Post a Comment