"Landslide"

"Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I Handle the seasons of my life?
I don't know..."

The last two weeks have been quite treacherous for me. I don't really know why. Perhaps it is just the constant pressure I'm feeling and the act of consistently pretending for the public like things are not as bad as they are. I've broken down and cried in public twice in the last two weeks: Once on the bus going "home" from work and once in a coffee shop, while drinking a hot cider. Crying is certainly not a foreign thing for me. I do it often enough, but usually I can stand to wait until I get to the house until I let loose and break down. Now, I can barely do that.
I've been taking a mostly defensive, self-preserving stance in my battle against depression and the various situations that contribute to it, but I've known for a long time now that it'll do me no good to just take the blows and wait for the storm to pass. I feel that enough of my life has been missed due to the weight of all the shit that's been accumulating on me. I've had enough! I've had more than enough! Today, I'm going on the offensive. Today, I'm going to start taking massive strides towards rebuilding myself from the unrecognizable pile of rubble I once was!

Today, I told my boss that I needed to take time off to get my head on straight; to fix my life and get back on the rails. To my surprise, he was very understanding about this and granted me a few days off. Now, that I have this time to myself, I feel I can really get into the planning and execution of my plans.
For the sake of simplicity, I've laid out a list of objectives I hope to accomplish in my few days off. The first thing was "take some time off work" and that's already done. Here's the rest:
- clean my room
- find someone with whom I can practice driving so I can get my "N"
- find an appropriate school and program to enroll myself in (Creative Writing)
- Plan out my finances for the next few months to find the best way to eliminate my debt ($1000+)
- See doctor for some medication and/ or therapy
- Strengthen my relationship/ spend time with real friends
- At the very least, come to a truce with my parents
These all represent some of the hurdles I am facing right now. But there's only so much a person can do in a few days. I don't think this list is too unreasonable. That's not to say completing everything on this list is going to be easy... especially the last one.

Some of the things on my list of objectives my seem trivial or easy. But, even if they are, they are still things that need to be done. Things like finding a person who will let me use their car/ teach me to drive properly shouldn't be too difficult (if I can drive, I might be able to get a girlfriend). Cleaning my room... well, half of it is I've just been lazy, the other half is I just sometimes can't bring myself to do it, due to fatigue or just not in the right kind of mind for cleaning, but I will certainly have to get that done.
I've been meaning to enroll in school for a while now. More so recently than ever. I'm quite set on taking creative writing, mainly because I don't know what else I might do (besides teaching, perhaps?). Actually, I can't really see myself doing something that doesn't involve some sort of creative writing skill.
I am totally swamped by taxes and medical fees I didn't know I was suppose to be paying and now, apparently I owe quite a bit... as in more-than-a-grand quite a bit. My depression really got me into the bad habit of spending on trivialities. I know that before it became severe, I liked to buy things here and there and I wasn't exactly the worst money-saver in the world. But, afterward, I began buying things just to distract me from my problems: DVD's; games; books. I spent thousands of dollars on things I didn't really need (but were nice to have). While some use sex, drugs, or alcohol to forget their worries, I bought other materialistic miscellanea to keep my mind off of the problems that plague my spirit. It's now time to break that habit and overcome my debt all at once; two birds with one stone.
I've already been seeing my doctor to talk through some of my problems... but I haven't seen him in a while. Last time we met, he said that I probably didn't need any meds or formal therapy due to my grasp of my situations. However, after what I almost went through with on new year's eve, I want to ask him his professional opinion as to weither I should really be on some drugs.
One thing I really regret from last year was that I spent almost no time with some of my friends; people I really care about and feel a closeness to. That closeness really began to fade last year (...or was it the year before...?) and I really just want to re-establish some kind of good relationship with those I care for most. I'll definitely have to make time for them in the next few days.
The biggest problem to overcome will most certainly, with little doubt, be the one between me and my parents (more-so, my dad). I really don't want to get into that again. I think about it often enough (for anyone reading this that is confused read this and this). I just want the tension and the grit between us to go away... it doesn't belong in a family.

"Si vis pacem, para bellum"... It's a Latin saying. It translates into "if you want peace, prepare for war". This war has been raging both within me as well as the physical plane on which I live. I've been battered and bruised and forced to lock myself in a bunker as the bombs devastate everything around me. Today, I take the battle elsewhere; I'm on the offensive. I'm sick of living this way, if you can call it living at all. I've been dead for far too long. I want to live again. I know it will be a long and drawn-out battle... but I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees.