Stressors

I've kept busy writing, though not on my blog obviously. Random pieces of poetry and song lyrics flow abundantly, but they haven't turned into a lot of completed products. I'm in an editing class where we write and edit our peers' work. We've all written articles for either Guide or Insight magazine. Now we're working on writing, editing, and designing the February edition of Outlook magazine. It's pretty exciting. Unfortunately, my dumb ass slept through the class where we decide who writes about what topics. The topic I suggested in a previous class was taken from me and I got stuck with a topic that another student threw out there. "Marketing the Church". Tis far from my topic on how to spiritually relate to left brained scientifically minded individuals. But whatever.

I'm also a writer for the ClockTower at Union. I'm one of two "on campus" writers. Basically I'm supposed to interview people and write about the interview. Not my strong point. At all. Why. Did. I. Sign. Up. For. This. I ask myself this every single day. This is one of the big stressors in my life and I'm considering quitting because it's taking such a toll on my mental wellbeing. Which doesn't need assistance to be negative. The big issue for me is that I don't do these articles well. Partly because I have to interview people and I don't thrive with people. Since beginning college, I’ve developed some sort of social anxiety. It drives me nuts. Also, when I do conduct decent interviews, the word limit is 350, which causes me to cut many of the transitions that make the writing flow smoothly.

The ClockTower is published every week and because I can't dedicate long periods of time to working on it, the work suffers, and I worry that it represents me poorly. Aside from the articles themselves, I'm not fond of my editor. There have been problems in communication, disappointing editing work, and other small things that have built up unhealthily in my mind. I had a dream last night with him in it and I was extremely angry and might have even attacked or killed him (0.o). That's either really bad, or I'm just super passionate about my writing. I'd like to believe the latter.

However, I did have a productive talk with my editor and we hashed out that my writing style is quite different from reporting/journalism writing. He explained that that’s why some of the editing work has appeared shoddy. I understood and came to terms with some of the things we discussed. Once again, I was reminded that holding onto my frustration and angst isn’t healthy. Like Noah Gundersen says, “hatred/anger is a sharp knife held by the blade.” So true. I walked out of the newspaper office, conflicted. They were the same feelings I felt when I wanted to spill hot coffee on my McDonald’s manager and we ended up reaching resolution.

Another stressor has been my job. Perhaps I dislike my job because I dislike other areas of my life. But sometimes I wonder why I’m doing this work. I know I’m not at a stage in life where I can pick and choose what I want to do, but there are days that I absolutely dread walking into the building. The idea of going to work -sitting in a cubicle and making calls for hours- grows into a big steel ball inside my chest. It pulls everything inside me down farther. It has even yanked out tears.

Then there are my school finances. It feels like I work quite a bit, though it’s only about twenty hours a week. But, that money still doesn’t come near enough to cover monthly school payments along with phone and car insurance. Holy hell. If money problems come up in my mind, it’s a huge stress. Something else to consider; My spending habits are very sad. If I had all the money I’ve ever spent on pop, coffee, and fast food, I’d... have a lot of money.

So there are the things punching my brain on a regular basis.