Show Me The Way

When I first started blogging years ago, it was to help me sort out issues that I was dealing with in regards to my sexuality. It took quite a while, but blogging definitely had a positive impact in helping me break the mental cycle that I was trapped in. In addition to giving me an outlet to vent my feelings and seek advice from others, it also gave me contacts that eventually helped me make progress. I give a lot of credit to fellow blogger El Genio, who happened to live near me and offered to meet up in person. With him I visited my first LA gay bar. More importantly, through hearing about his experiences with coming out and online dating, I was able to give myself the push I needed to sign up for dating sites. Once I did that, it was only a couple of months before I met Ben and had my first (and to this date, only) romantic relationship. It has definitely not been easy since then. The heartbreak from Ben's departure took a long time to heal (and the scars are still there . . . I still miss him a lot from time to time, even though he was only in my life for less than 1 year). Occasionally I will fall back into the doubts about my sexuality. Dating can be frustrating. Guys often turn out to be flakes or fakes or both. But, I've had some memorable experiences (not just with Ben but also with several other guys). I've made some amazing friends. And my confidence in that arena of my life has increased a lot. Why, on a recent trip to a foreign city I even had a mini-romance with a sweet guy. It was actually kind of nice having a short, days-long relationship with someone, with no expectations for it being long-term. Sort of liberating, in a way. Don't worry, this isn't the start of a new, more promiscuous Cal. Anyways, bottom line is, I have come far in overcoming my hang-ups and issues about my romantic life, even though things aren't where I would like them to be right now. And blogging definitely helped me along the path.

I say this because I'm at crisis level again. This has to do with the other part of my life that I have struggled with: career. There are a lot of parallels. For the last several years I have mostly avoided discussing my career problems on this blog. This has been for a number of reasons: one, I'm ashamed of them. I realize now that I have to get over this. After all, what's an anonymous (well mostly anonymous . . . there are a couple of readers who know me in person) blog if I can't use it the way I need it? Second, I felt like it would be better if the blog followed the theme of dating and relationships. It would be more focused that way. But really, the overarching theme is me finding myself. I am "Looking" after all (and know, not in the sexual sense).

As I've mentioned before, I took the title of this blog from a Soundgarden song called "Outshined." The full line is, "I'm looking California, but feeling Minnesota." No offense to any Minnesotans out there! Basically, when Chris Cornell says this he's implying that though he has a sunny disposition on the outside, on the inside it's nothing but overcast and dreary. Well, I write this post now because the Minnesota is starting to expose itself to the surface, and I'm sick of feeling this way. It has been years that I've been dealing with these same issues. Focusing on my sexuality for a few years and then my creative interests (improv comedy) for a few years were nice (and arguably worthy) distractions, but now it is high time I worked on this other part of myself.

My major issue is anxiety. It is now manifesting a bit of depression, but at the core anxiety is my main problem and always has been. Really, it was at the core of my sexuality confusion as well. If I had not been so anxious about dating the "wrong" sex, I might have started dating much earlier than 27.

Similarly, with career my major issue has long been fear of choosing the "wrong" path. This seems hugely more significant to me (or at least, to my mind), since one's career occupies the majority of one's time on this planet AND is responsible for providing one the means to have a life. It determines where you live, many of those you associate with, how much you can own, what you can do, where you can go. As much as people say that relationships are the real source of happiness in life, you can't get away from the importance of career. One problem is I have fixated on relationships and my career has suffered. Now I'm in a state where I feel the discontent I have with my professional self is adversely affecting my relationships. I'm leaning a bit top heavily on my family and friends for emotional support. And I find myself being a lot less motivated to date when I feel so down (and feeling like that doesn't make me the most attractive dating partner anyway).

Not to say that my job is bad. I work with some really great people. What I do is in the medical realm, so its mission involves helping people. It allows me to travel periodically, sometimes to really cool cities. It also allows enough flexibility that I can spend extra time in those cities when I do go there. That flexibility also allows me to go to appointments when I need to during the day with minimal drama. And the work hours are light enough (most of the time) that I am able to keep active in improv comedy, which has been my major avocation for the last several years, as well as date and spend time with friends.

But. As much as I know how important it is to be grateful for what you have, there is a lot that is wrong. There is very little room for advancement in my job. One career path that many who do what I do often move to involves the loss of much of what I like about my job. While it pays better it also involves constant travel, longer hours, and very solitary, detail-oriented work.

Over the years I have tried to push myself one way after another. I was accepted to a PhD program but then freaked out as I realized all the negative aspects of an academic career. I researched a number of different health care practitioner careers but none of them spoke to me. I applied to med school despite great reservations about that life, and did not reapply when I failed to get in. I have considered high school teaching and mental health counseling, both of which I could see myself caring about a bit more than other things, but I've had worries about the stress levels, job market, and finances. I've thought about seeing where my love of creativity could take me, but come up short with ideas about how I could go about that.

So far this year I've waffled back and forth between trying to force myself into something and trying to get a handle on my anxiety/depression first. Frankly, the way my work performance has suffered recently I know that my number one priority is to improve at my current job. It's nice to have that as a goal, since there's no question in my mind that it's a worthy goal. Unfortunately, I can't for the life of me figure out what bigger-picture worthy goal to focus on. In this way it's not like my sexuality dilemma was. That was a 50/50 choice and one clearly (once I was honest with myself) had more natural appeal. When it comes to career, there's an infinite number of possibilities. I feel completely stuck and overwhelmed.

So, I'm going to try blogging more as I sort through this. It's tough to show this side of myself, even anonymously, but it's adversely affecting my life and hey, blogging has helped me before.

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading. Have you struggled with anxiety and depression? Have you struggled with career indecision, or indecision in other areas of your life? Have you found things that have helped you? What factors have you used to make tough decisions in your life, and how did things turn out? I know this blog doesn't have many followers, but if you happen to read this feel free to weigh in.

Cal