Losing my Innocence

I will never be able to enjoy work again. I will forever live in fear. My fairy tale dream of a great job after college has been crushed. I have wasted most of my quickly aging life in school. Preschool and kindergarten, 12 years of grade school, four years of college. Of my 23 ½ years on this Earth, some 18 years have been spent in school.

And, now, I can see it was all a waste because, now, all I have left is an estimated 40 years of this, work. Work that will be emotionally unsatisfying. Work that will be unpersonable. Work that will be just that, work. I'll come in, I'll work my 8 hours, and I'll go home. Any professionally satisfying and rewarding days will be overshadowed by the gloom that stifles me.

It has nothing to do with where I will work. Changing jobs can't change this dark cloud that will now rain on my spirit. I have been aged many years in just a matter of days. I cannot eat without feeling nauseous. I cannot sleep. I cannot make it through a conversation without tears welling up my eyes. I cannot make it through the day without my chest feeling like it is going to explode.

I am no saint. I am no angel. I am no so-sweet-it-hurts. I am no ideal citizen. I am no ideal friend. But, I am a person, a person with who had feelings, a person with who had dreams. My innocence has been stolen like a child who finds out there is no Santa or Tooth Fairy or Easter Bunny. I know that I can no longer dream out loud, for there is no Fairy God-mother to come to my aid.