Fleas.

My dog has fleas.

I've tried to get rid of them 4 or 5 times now, and its just not happening. It's futile. I get rid of most of them, but a few live on. And breed. And they keep coming back. No matter what I do, I can't get rid of all of them.

And I can't help but see it as one huge metaphor for the rest of my life right now. I get rid of the fleas, but immediately find new ones. What's the point if I can't get rid of all of it at once? One thing remains, and soon enough, it's all back to the way it way. A dog, covered in fleas. I quit smoking and biting my nails, but the drinking stays. The drinking leads to smoking, which leads to biting my nails, and now I'm back to where I was all of a sudden. I start running, I work my way all the way up to a 5k in under 40 minutes, but the other habits wear me down until I stop and just watch 4 hours of tv and smoke and drink more.

I can't turn my life around. There's always something left that slowly drags back the rest of it. I don't even know what the end goal is anymore. Sure, there are the basics. Quit drinking. Quit biting my nails. Quit eating like shit.

Seriously. I skip breakfast before I go to work, I grab some McDonald's around 10, usually a McMuffin or something cheap, then I eat a good lunch, then I skip dinner. I'm not in a good place. But hey, it's cheap and I'm not eating so much junk food. I think my mind's solution to eating like crap was just to stop eating. If I go buy food, it won't be good food. So I just don't buy anything. That effectively leaves me with no food, and by the time I get hungry, I'm either too lazy or too drunk to go get anything to eat. So I just don't eat dinner.

The same with working out. When I'm in a good mood for a few weeks, I'll work out after work. I'll go running around the lake, I make it a few miles, I feel good afterwards. I'll have a burger and a beer to reward myself. But then I have a bad day at work. I skip working out, I drink instead. I skip eating. I watch netflix like it's a religion and then the next day, I say to myself, "Well, that was a lot easier than trying." And I do it again, but without the 3 miles before it. And now I'm in the same place I started.

I can't get rid of my fleas, much less my dog's.

I think I know what I want, but I'm too scared too go after it, so I sit and drink instead. I want to go back to school and go for a doctorate in economics. I love knowing how the world works. Researching all the patterns of people and of the world. I want to move to Colorado. Or Washington. For different reasons - Colorado because of the mountains, Washington because of the beauty. Both because of the culture. It has very little to do with the whole 'weed is legal' bit, I promise. It's all the reasons why it became legal there. The people, the feel, the atmosphere. Everything to do with why more than half of the state would choose to say, "fuck it, I don't give a shit what you do with your time."

These are the things I want. But I'm too comfortable where I am now. I'm too scared too put it all out on the table and try with everything I have to go for it.

What I need is that veterinarian who knows how to get rid of all the fleas at once. To cleanse my life of all the bad shit dragging me down all at once. I need someone or something to barge into my life, fix everything, and get me to where I need to be. But that doesn't exist. That person, the one who has to fix everything, is me, and I don't think I have it in me.

There is no magical person like that. Back in high school, or even earlier, I had my parents. They were the go to fix it machine. They solved the problems. told me where I needed to go, what I needed to do. I never realized how much I leaned on that. I hated them for it. I called Mom a nazi for it. But I did, I leaned on that over-protection. I accepted it. And now that it's gone, now that I have to live my own life, I'm lost in the abyss.

This is why, if I ever have the opportunity, I will never be the helicopter parent. It doesn't help, it just makes kids dependent. I don't know how to take care of myself. I never had to learn how. And now I'm here, working a job I don't particularly enjoy, watching tv for the rest of it, eating like crap, caught up on habits like drinking and smoking, all because I never had to make my own decisions, and now suddenly I do, and what I chose was the easiest route to take. And it's not a good one.

So I have to actively make the good decisions. To do what's best. To make myself happy. To move to a distant place. To go back to school and pay for it myself. I don't have practice with that... I don't know what I'm doing, and I'm scared. Too scared to make the big calls on my own. I'm too used to having someone do it for me.

If only that magical person came out of no where, said, "I'm moving to Colorado and you're coming with me and here's a good job you can have and we're going running every day," I would do it. I would be on board and I would be in a better place. That's the voice of conscious that most people have that drive what they do and how they live, and mine never had a chance to develop. I keep waiting on someone to come along and be that person, all because I can't do it myself.

And I think every day I hate myself a little more for not being able to fill the role.

Sorry for the depressing post. What were the odds, I've been drinking again. Nice new whiskey I decided to try out. (see I can make my own decisions, but this what happens when I do.) The important thing is, this Friday I'm going to Denver. It wouldn't be happening without my friend Charlie, who set up the plane tickets and everything. But I'm going, and it's gonna be great. Friday and Saturday are going to be packed with awesome Denver things, and I'll tell you how it all goes when I get back. In the meantime, I'll just try to get through Thursday without cracking and quitting my job in a fit of rage. I'll just keep biting at the fleas until then.