existential crisis time

we've signed the lease! the direction is forward, now. packing, logistics, all the shit i don't know how to stop obsessing about until it's resolved.

should i have KW make a zipcar account just for the month of April so that we can run apartment-setup errands without having to lug stuff on the subway or pay for expensive ubers? IKEA is so far.

see, that kind of stuff. i'm just not going to have a resolution for that yet. i want to solve all the problems but it can't be done all at once, by myself.

it's hard not to feel distant from KW right now. he's busy, i have only a sketchy idea of his schedule... i should check in and see if he's put in for the friday post-move off. see? logistics take over my brain. as i was saying... i texted him a time or two yesterday and didn't hear back until late, to learn that he had actually taken the day off and done nothing. why that didn't mean he could answer my texts, i am still unaware. sigh. it'll be less of a problem in 2 weeks. texting has never quite been his forte.

the rest of my time has been an existential crisis on a few levels. one, i decided to take the enneagram test (the free ones online, of course). i really tend not to buy into personality-descriptor type stuff, knowing that my birthday may class me as an aries but god, nothing about that sign describes me. and having taken online MBTI tests a few times and consistently getting different answers. do i have no personality? or poor self-awareness? it seems to have low test-retest reliability, to reach back into my college-brain for some psych research methods terminology.

anyway, as i was saying - i decided to take the enneagram to have another personality type indicator to reject. i got typed as a Nine (or 9 with a 1 wing), which i guess is the type that strives for peace and harmony in all things, including internally. which like... idk if that sounds like me. none of them sound like me. but apparently part of the Nine type can be poor introspection and therefore thinking that none of them sound like me. so that's been too much introspection for the past few days. i don't think it really has any implications on my life, but it does cause me an odd sense of anxiety in my chest to think about it.

the other existential crisis is that KW wants me to be more useful to the world. a job recruiter reached out to me on linkedin - and then followed up, which caught my attention - for a position in a truly frivolous industry with a starting pay of $100k. naturally, i followed up with the recruiter (unfortunately it didn't go anywhere), and i talked to KW about it. he was like, "wow, that's awesome, i'd definitely be happy for you if you made 6 figures... but also it's ridiculous that i save lives and am paid dirt." (i'm heavily paraphrasing here.)

he wound up calling me to chat about it and said that he feels like i don't respect the work i do - i disparage it by describing it just as "arranging rectangles". and he wants a) his partner to respect the work they do and b) to respect his partner's work, which is easier if they do. there's probably a good amount of imposter syndrome at play, and my own lack of self-confidence (it must be easy, if i can do it), and i told him as much. he said that he'd like to see me make a difference in people's lives, that i have a skill that is still (for now) relatively rare, and i could use it for good. i could help make websites for small woman-owned businesses, for instance. maybe that could be my job and i could take a step down in pay for it, or that i could do that volunteer work on the weekend or something if i still wanna stick with a high-paying, less-useful job.

i just... don't know what to do with this. i don't feel useful, i never have, and in all likelihood i never will. KW has always talked about his drive to feel useful, how that helps him feel better about himself - no matter how low he feels, he knows he's helping people who need it. and that's just never resonated with me. i don't know if it's that i'm selfish, but i think more so that i just feel innately useless. there's nothing i can do that someone else can't do better, and it would be a disservice to do something for someone when they could get someone better to do it for them. all i would do would be to come in and fuck it up and complicate their lives when i should be doing the opposite. like making a website for someone - no, they should have someone who's good at that do it. i can't take that kind of pressure. to know that if i fuck up there's actually something at stake. i will not rise to the occasion, i will not meet the expectation, i will let everyone down, and someone will suffer because i suck. that's why i don't want to do anything useful. like i said in a joking tone (but fully seriously) during a classroom mock interview during my coding program, my primary goal anywhere is just to not fuck things up. i can either have no effect, or a negative one, and i don't want to have a negative effect so i will aim to move quietly through the world and leave it undisturbed. i want to not make a place worse for my presence.

one of the things that drove me to choose KW instead of running from my feelings way back when is that he really does make me want to be better. he's always seen potential in me. in my most insecure moments i've described it as him seeing something incredible in me, falling in love with that possibility, and then being let down and leaving when i show him i'm too fearful to be what he wants me to be. i think to describe this as being fearful would imply i see a truth in it i'm just too timid to reach out and grasp. that's not the case here. i have no idea what i could possibly offer the world, and as such my life philosophy is basically the macroscopic equivalent of "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

i guess this will have to be another thing i strive for to keep him. i try to be braver, i try to be less insecure, i try to be more interesting... i'll have to try to be useful. i thought i could get away without it, but i guess i was wrong.