It’s about 4am. I’m writing this post because I was laying in my bed for over an hour trying to fall asleep. When it’s just you and your thoughts like that, you tend to do a lot of thinking. This post may be less focused than others, but I wanted to log what has been going through my head.

My first train of thought is that I’m incredibly scared how I’m losing my memories of my childhood. I touched on this before last August, but it occurred to me again tonight.

A couple times from when I was 7 to 13 I visited my cousins in Virgina during the summer. Some of my best memories are from down there. They had a great pool, and were a very active family. What set off this fear of losing touch was a specific memory.

It was night and I had settled into bed. It must have been around 10pm. I was alone and struggling to get to sleep. Then I heard a knock on my door. My cousins wanted to know if I wanted to have some cereal with them. I thought it was the most random thing as a kid, but I gladly agreed. We ate cereal in the kitchen and went to bed.

It’s not a particularly “important” memory but it’s one I cherish. And it’s getting increasingly frayed at the edges. I was surprised I remembered it at all. I become incredibly sad at the thought of those memories I used to love but are now lost.

Another train of thought is that I don’t know what my future will be, especially since I’ve started doubting my worth. It would have been amazing if I had gotten that job in California last March, but I didn’t. And now I don’t know where to go from here. When you have a million options to choose from, you get anxiety over which one you should choose. Before, the plan was pretty simple. Go to college, get X degree, apply to jobs that list X degree as a qualification, get hired.

But I’m not in college anymore. I need a couple credits to finish my Associate’s, and despite my desire I will be unable to complete them this spring. Maybe in the summer? Who knows. More doubt.

Aside from that, in spite of my sincerest efforts I still can’t choose between game design and web design. Web design comes easy for me, but I love designing games. I can’t make up my mind. At this point, it seems like I’ll apply to jobs for both and whatever the type of company hires me first is what I’ll be.

Finally, although I am in the final stages of getting my long-fabled driver’s license, it’s not mine yet. And this combined with my being out of school and out of work has resulted in a debilitating lack of social interaction. I miss my friends. I had a meet up with some great friends from high school last month, and I realized that it was a drop in the bucket compared to what I need. I need to see these people more often. And I can’t at the moment and it’s killing me.

I enter 2012 more unsure of myself and my future than ever before.
-Andrew