I've had better days.

I didn't get the job.

I kind of figured it would go that direction because it took them so long to get back to me. I thought that if they were overly impressed with me, they would've stopped interviewing other candidates by now.

But I'm still disappointed. Because of Roy's car being totalled, I really needed the pay increase. Because my current job sucks big green ones, I really needed a change - and to have a job that actually challenges me.

While I know that this is a temporary setback, I am still feeling very discouraged right now. I feel that I have lost my purpose in life. I made a promise to myself when I was about 19 years old that I would never become a part of the rat race, and here I am, knee deep in it. I am working a job I hate for money, benefits, and resume building, instead of doing something I feel truly passionate about. I can do so much better.

I feel like I am destined to be one of those people who hates her job, no matter what it is, and frankly, I don't want to be one of those people. I want to do something that makes me happy, something that means something. Instead I am an office drone. Yes, I am about a year away from having my Master's degree. Yes, I have an awesome life aside from my shitty job. But I can't keep doing this for 8 hours a day for God knows how long.

In a strange twist of fate, Kari pretty much summed up my feelings exactly in a post written today (of all days). (Kari, I hope you don't mind if I quote your blog entry in its entirety.)

Boxer by The National has snuck up on me and is threatening to trump Arcade Fire as my Album of the Year. If anything, the song "Mistaken For Strangers" is one of my favorite tunes of the decade so far. The lyrics are ringing so true for me...

You get mistaken for strangers by your own friends
when you pass them at night under the silvery, silvery citibank lights
arm in arm in arm and eyes and eyes glazing under
oh you wouldn’t want an angel watching over
surprise, surprise they wouldn’t wannna watch
another uninnocent, elegant fall into the unmagnificent lives of adults

That last line just kills me. I think the song for me is about the way that people sell out. We all get "showered and blue blazered" for our day jobs, and become someone we barely recognize. Somehow we all "grow up", whatever that silly expression means, and suddenly life is no longer about truth and beauty but is more about paying your bills and wanting to buy an apartment. Maybe I'm feeling all of this because I haven't written in weeks and I honestly don't want to. I'm feeling hopeless and like my artistic aspirations are pointless and, frankly, stupid. I feel like I fucked up my life by chasing some silly pipe dream to NYC and not planning properly for what would happen if it didn't work out. I thought that it would. I've always said that stuff like money and security didn't matter to me at all. On the contrary - it matters to me a lot. My life was fraught with such turmoil and uncertainty growing up (financially and otherwise) that I just want to know what happens at the end of the half hour.

And yet, I still sometimes catch a glimpse of myself in the mirrored windows of Park Avenue and wonder when my "uninnocent, elegant fall" into Corporate America happened. I feel like every single day, all of my emotional and intellectual energies are focused on a job and earning a paycheck while the things I thought mattered to me so much are coming in second. I hate even calling myself a writer because it feels like a lie now. It's been months since I've written anything of worth, and while I am trying not to put undue pressure on myself, I feel myself questioning whether or not I want to do this anymore. And that scares me so much. That scares me more than anything. I'd love to chalk it all up to laziness and a minor internet addiction, but if I really had a burning need to be a playwright, I'd write a fucking play every so often. I'd at least try. I don't want to try. I don't want to do anything. Lately I've wondered in fleeting moments if getting my MBA is really such a terrible plan. Those fleeting moments are quickly beaten down by guilt and a sense of obligation to a teenage girl who is long gone.

I wonder sometimes who I am, who I really am, instead of who I expected to become.

Exactly.