I set myself deadlines, always.

I’ve missed nearly every single one of them for the past eight years.

And I have no memories of anything before then.

I’m working on a deadline now, and I still will be after I finish this, because there’s a whole line of them, and most of them are of the long-standing, “you missed it so long ago it’s just haunting you now” variety.

I meant to have most of this done yesterday. I watched a beautiful movie instead.

On the upside, I love that movie, and always find myself inspired by it.

On the downside, I still don’t want to do anything, feel more hopeless than ever, and the pressure is even higher.

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I’m still working on a big chunk of writing for last quarter, and I’m praying (stupidly, to a god I don’t believe in) that no one’s really noticed. I know they have, I know they’re all politely ignoring me while I fall rapidly in their esteem, and I still don’t want to get it done. The problem with deadlines, see, is that they create all this pressure that makes it almost impossible to get anything done, and especially impossible to get anything done and feel good about it. I haven’t found a workaround to this conundrum yet, but I’m hoping to in the next hour, because I really need to get all this backed up stuff off my chest. I guess the best thing I can do is do the hardest thing first, so everything after that seems like an easy victory. On the other hand, I really need to apply for this job first because that’s really time sensitive. I’ll figure it out in fifteen minutes, after I move the laundry.

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The upside of all of this is that I still feel like I’ll survive, no matter how many of my own deadlines I miss.

I guess it’s something about my personal history that I’ve given up on acting fatalistic.

Everything’s going to be okay, is the thing, as long as you try and you don’t get so down on yourself that life feels awful.

It takes a lot, actually, to completely fuck up on life.

At least, it takes a lot more than they made it sound like when you were seventeen.

Not being perfect, or meeting every goal, right now, isn’t going to kill you, or me, or your mother, as much as mine likes to make it sound like it would.

That’s a different story though.

This weekend I’m trying, I’m setting aside some time, and I don’t feel terrible. I feel like I can do it, at least good enough for right now.

That’s all that matters.

I’m not perfect, and it’s the whole point.