Remember the old adage: “Break a mirror, hence seven years of bad luck?” It’s like if you look at the mirror the wrong way it just may break. You may as well breathe the wrong way and cause chaos. Four weeks ago, I broke said mirror in my bathroom. I jinxed myself again. Two weeks later started that bad luck: a broken hand in an accident. Call it coincidence or just life, it feels like I’ve broken almost four of them throughout my twenty-five year battle with mental illness.

From then on, it seems like I can’t get my life right. I’m not happy that I’m immobile. I’m really not happy living with mental illness. And truthfully, I’m not happy in my profession anymore. I think sixteen years in retail and management are too much. I think I’ve wasted too much time struggling to manage a business, manage and supervise employees and tired of putting on a happy face for people that just want their products and go. Last night, I think was the turning point. I was on duty and was one staff member short again. This time a partner got injured in an accident and no one else could come in to help an immobile manager. I was so done putting a happy face on an unhappy one. I didn’t need another person asking me how I got hurt. Imagine hundreds of people on a daily basis asking you the same question over and over again.

I really feel that a huge part of my unhappiness is with my job. I’m getting so sick of retail. I love the company that I work for and I would love to stay and move into a different department of the company. One area where I could work in a simpler area with less badgering. I really love the idea of writing. Picking your own comfortable pace and in peace and quiet and just write. Write a book, novel, poem, essay or whatever. I really would love to be a professional writer but I have no money to go back to school just to get a degree four years from now. Why do all of that and then lose interest? A freelance writer would be more up my alley.

For most people my age, I’ve never traveled out of the country and really see the world. I’ve never had the money. Any money I had was to pay for bills, college, car payments, and rent. I’ve never been married because of a little thing called social anxiety. I refuse to go out. There are so many things that I want to change in my life. I kind of felt like I’ve wasted too much time and just let it go past me. If I didn’t have depression, my life would be totally different. Maybe I would be traveling everywhere, get a better and more fulfilling job, and maybe find someone. I don’t know.

I really just want to start living my dream and doing something that I enjoy. Every time I say that reality sets in. Your rent, car payments, and your credit card bills will not pay for themselves. Quitting your job is stupid if you have no job and benefits. If only life was simpler. I just want to be happy for once and for all. I just want to live and breathe for the first time.