I saw the constellations reveal themselves one star at a time

I haven't felt like this in a very long time. Actually scrap that, it's been a little over a year since the last time. You know? When I feel like my life has spiraled out of my control causing me to become a complete and utter failure? It's never one of those things that can be anticipated. Doesn't hinge on SAD; autumn is my favourite season (and it's been rather magnanimous too, considering our bleak and wet summer). It just happens.

I've had one of those cliched "landmark" 12 months. (Maybe it's because I'll always be a student at heart but a year is September to September.) At this stage in life, every year that goes by is supposed to be progressing at the same rate and scale as a Homeric epic. Except that my story has no invocation of a muse and far more resembles the epci phail variety of Murphy's Law. There has been nothing artful or poetic in the route I took to get here. Watching Levi Johnstone's drunken yet adroit hand unhook Bristol Palin's bra for the first time probably would've been more poignant and meaningful.

So here I am, brimming with wasted potential waiting for what's supposed to be the next big phase and wondering if it's my fault that the I am where I am. I've often pointed out that with a sub-conscious like mine having a well-dressed-dastardly arch nemesis would sort of be superfluous. Somehow I've managed to become an unrivaled self-saboteur. The most recent and weighty example of this would be the whole drama surrounding my foreign service application.

I was told by my grade nine guidance counsellor that it is not uncommon for people to go through 3 or more career changes before settling in for the long haul. Of course I didn't pay any heed to what she had to say, I already knew what I wanted to do and where I was going to do it. Yes. I do want to slap my grade nine-self right upside the head. At current count I think I'm already briskly moving towards career change number 3 or even a potential 4th. Surprisingly this does not bother me as much as I thought it would and that bothers me.

Since I've recently become one of the first casualties of the financial crisis, scanning all the requisite places for a new job has become a regular fixture. During one of these daily perusals I discovered that I had 7 days to get my shit together for some post-grad federal government positions at CSIS and Foreign Affairs.

I sat on it.

Decided living in Ottawa would blow.

Bounced the idea off of a few friends.

Had them tell me that living in Ottawa would blow.

Then I finally reluctantly recalled the time when an on-campus recruiter had suggested that I join up. A job at CSIS/Foreign Affairs is the "grown-up" thing that remained constant through all the high school angst, university uncertainty and career letdowns. One of the last original things about me.

I was too afraid to apply because the thought of being rejection blew harder than the thought of living in Ottawa.

Again, that too really bothered me. The apathy that I thought was only reserved for fundamental Christians and politics was seeping into my own life a bit faster than I had anticipated. I've felt the shift for a long time but never thought it would engulf me so soon. After every one of these little mini-life-direction-crisis-points are done and finished with it feels like I've said goodbye to another part of me.

My life up to this point has been shaped with the mantra of not having any regrets. I've doggedly tried to adhere as closely to that as possible (which has caused some to call me impulsive). So I forced myself to go through the application process, which I did in a state of automatism. I remember tweeting at the time that, "I can't recognise the person staring back at me."

It all felt so unnatural and I suppose that neatly sums up where I'm at now? My life is no longer being actively lived out by me, instead I've just become a casual observer who flips through when there's nothing else to watch.

*Title shamelessly stolen from a line in Bobcaygeon by The Hip.