Sorry – this somehow became a very long post. It kind of got away from me.
I just turned 19 a few days ago. I work 61 hours a week/6 days out of the week at a dry cleaners and chipotle.
So far I've stayed with the dry cleaners because of all the jobs I'm able to have, it's probably one of the best. I work alone and don't have anyone breathing down my neck. When I'm not too tired or too busy I can work on some personal tasks/minor projects. I've also stayed because I have the title of manager which would look good on a resume. (I don't really manage anything I'm just a bit more responsible for the store I work at)
I started at chipotle about a month ago because they offer tuition reimbursement and I've been really bummed out that I'm not in school. I won't be eligible for tuition reimbursement until the fall tho.
I thought that when I started at chipotle I would feel like I was dying. Like I would feel like I was always tired and always frustrated and wanting to leave this whole set up. But for some reason I haven't had any strong emotions about it. I feel like I should be more affected by the fact that I'm working 61 hours a week – just looking at that number seems insane to me – but in the day-to-day I don't feel it. I literally just get through life one day at a time. I wake up, I go to work (sometimes 12 hour shifts), I come home and watch TV with my parents and go to sleep. I have no purpose in life and I have forgotten why I'm doing this.
I don't really have any friends. I have one friend I met online who lives across the country. Besides that I do go to a young adult group at my church that I love but it's been so hard to make friends there. I have people I say hi to and who will talk to me at group but there still isn't anyone I'm close enough with who would actually think of me when I'm not around, ya know?
I was actually supposed to be in college right now – I got accepted to my second choice school with a shit load of scholarship money and I was accepted into the honors program and a major-specific honors program. But the school required the covid vaccine and my mother is anti-vax. She basically said she would cut me off if I got the vaccine so I chose my relationship with her over my education, any potential friends or career connections I may have made at school, and starting my own life.
My mother has had to literally remind me multiple times of why I've put myself in the situation I'm currently in – because I'm saving up for this really great 2 year program that has a 99+% job placement rate in the field that I want to work in. I say 'put myself in' and 'want' but it doesn't feel like it. The person who made those decisions and wanted those things feels like someone entirely different. That person feels so far away. I don't have any motivation I don't know if I want anything because I'm too busy with the daily bullshit at my jobs. I think I had set this very far off long term goal but I have no medium term goals – nothing to look to right now that I can actively remember that I'm working towards.
I know this is pretty dumb but if you've ever seen the show Severance I feel like that. I was trapped in a corporate hell by a different version of me who only had good intentions.
I don't only blame myself tho. My mother is very,,,, capitalist. She's the kind who loves talking about how amazing Trump and Rockefeller and Elon Musk are. I think it probably has something to do with how she's an immigrant and an orphan and feeling like money and capitalism are her only path to having any sort of purpose and self worth or something. She always “encourages” me to do things – such as take the chipotle job – in ways that are low-key forcing me, especially since I live in her house.
Anyways. I feel like I'm in hell but I'm not even awake to that fact. I don't have any desires anymore because the daily grind has snuffed them out. I don't want to live like this forever, and I know that part of me, a part that I can't feel anymore, doesn't want to live like this right now.
I feel like if I didn't work this much I would still waste my life anyways, so maybe there's no point in changing it. I have always loved sewing and I've made some cool projects that I've been told people would buy, but I'm so awful at marketing especially in this age where you have to be good at TikTok in order for your small business to actually get anywhere.
I've tried to think about what I would do if I hadn't been born in this era and country where it's the norm to slave under a corporation for pennies to try to get any ideas of where I should go with my life. I think I would have probably apprenticed under an artisan like a silversmith or wood-worker. Or honestly if I had a spouse who treated me well and loved me I would love to be a homemaker. Ya know I could build a beautiful and well-kept home and life for myself and the people I care about and be a good steward of some land or something. 'Romantic'/life partner relationships are a very important part of my world-view so maybe being a homemaker would be ideal for me. I feel like I was made to love and care for and support someone, and that that should be my primary job. However I hardly have any friends let alone a spouse so that's out of the question.
I don't even know what I'm asking. Where should I go from here? Should I keep enduring this until I've saved enough to enroll in the program? Is the situation worse than I'm realizing and I need to change things? Is it too late for me, as a person? Have I already become too resigned to the 'sure, go ahead and let the bastards grind you down' lifestyle? If I weren't living this life, what life could I live?
If you read this far, sorry you had to endure my rambling, and thank you for taking the time to read it.
Tl;dr – I am very much so letting the bastards grind me down and I have lost sight of myself, my personhood, my goals, etc. Should I endure it temporarily until I've saved up enough to go into my dream program for my dream career or am I extremely far gone?