Venting: I can't do anything right.

I woke up at 3:30 this morning and couldn't fall back asleep. I flopped around for four hours trying to get some rest, and all I got out of it was a sore back and a headache. In one hour I have a final exam for a class I never wanted to take, and a class I am doomed to fail because I never took the damn thing seriously - even now, I'm worried more about my dismal GPA than the actual class. I took this course because it was supposed to be easy; I've been taking care of animals for years, how hard can it be to keep up with an Animal Sciences class? and a 101 class at that? I should be crushing this thing with my eyes closed.

Instead I've been run ragged by crappy jobs and doctor's appointments, and my acceptable grade in the Animal Science class will be undermined by my crappy lab score. I don't want to think about what the final score will be, but I know it will be just as bad as the scores that put me here: living at home, trying to juggle part-time work and part-time school with a physical therapy course and make it all turn out at least okay. Instead I'm being set back again, failing another class before taking this next semester off to make some money at a night job that leaving me sick as a dog.

I hate this. I hate me. I hate how I can't seem to do anything when it really matters, and I hate how everyone around me can do everything I can't. I hate how anytime I'm trying to set things right and get my life back on track, I take on too much and I have to let something slip and leave it worse than when I started.

But I especially hate how for every two steps forward, I panic about taking one step back. For all I've gained, I get fixated on the one thing that's going wrong and I forget the things that are making this all worthwhile. So now I'm getting the bad stuff out of my head so I can look at the progress I've made.

The honest truth is that I'm doing far better now than I was a year ago, and by all accounts I'm only getting better. I feel alive again, like I'm in control of my own life and my own direction, I feel like there's something worth staying alive for, even if I'm not sure what it is yet. I'm learning to be an adult, and I'm realizing that I'm not as strong as I want to be, and that's okay. A year ago I was a suicidal mess with no hope and no future; now I'm holding a night job, finishing a course of therapy, and taking a college class on the side. The fact that I'm doing so much at all, even if the class isn't working out, is a testament to the progress I've made. And if I'm making mistakes, that's okay - in fact, that's great, because it means that I tried something hard. That's more than teenage me ever did, and as much as I can expect out of me now. And if I am failing this class, so what? I'm not an Agriculture major anyway - I took this class because I thought I needed something to do, and I hated it from the start. Next time I'll know to take a class I actually give a shit about, and try not to change jobs in the middle of midterms. And by that time I'll have a better clue about where I want to go, so I'll feel like I'm actually going somewhere, even if I'm stumbling along the way.

Now time for some last minute cramming. After this, I can start moving on.