Existential FOMO

I KNOW THOSE FEELS BROOOOOO

It's been exactly one year since I published a new blog post, and I didn't really intend to write one today, but hey, it seems like a good idea. I have some things to get off my chest.

Today, November 13, is my last day as a contract editor. In addition to my full-time job, I had a side gig for the last sixteen months editing work for online college classes. It was good work. I was getting editorial experience, which I desperately needed, and the money was good.

But in the last few months, I was being sent more and more work, and my day job was getting more strenuous as well. Suddenly it became the norm to work a solid 7.5 hours at my job, commute home, edit for another 3 hours, go to bed, rinse, repeat. And there was lots of editing on the weekends too. It became too much. So I put in my two weeks for the editing gig.

At first I was elated. I might miss the extra money, but I was going to have something I hadn't had consistently since who knows how long: free time.

I am a 28-year-old professional with a bachelor's degree and two master's. I got each degree one right after the other, with only a month in between each one (I just did the math and that's literally true, one month between each degree, holy shit). When I finally graduated with my final master's degree, I started my editing job a month later. I've had a full-time job for over four years. The entirety of that time I've also been going to school part-time or, more recently, working the side job.

I'm freaking out. Last night I sat balled up on the couch and cried because I didn't know what to do with an evening where I didn't have any responsibilities to take care of.

I thought that having all this extra time would free me up to do something really good with my life. Something creative! I'd get back into writing. I'd pitch stuff and get it published. I'd revamp my job search and find something more fulfilling to do with my Mondays through Fridays. I'd take up a new and exciting hobby. I might even relax a bit and enjoy down-time to do nothing productive or useful.

What I've been learning, as November 13 has crept up on me, is that I actually don't know how to relax. I've had this ache in my solar plexus for the last several days, which I get from time to time, that always tells me when something is wrong. It's useful only insofar as telling me that I'm unhappy or anxious, and then I have to do the more difficult work of figuring out why. What am I going to do with time to spend where I'm not accountable for anything? What if I spend the rest of my life working in a 9 to 5 job and spending my nights watching TV and exercising and seeing my friends and snuggling with my husband and cats?

The truth is that I'm really not happy without something to look forward to or some kind of goal that I'm working toward, and also I am incredibly afraid of death and am always thinking about how one day I'll be gone from the world and eventually no one will remember me, and things will keep going on as usual except I won't be here, and that sucks.

I have existential FOMO that pushes me to do everything I can do right now, to do something, anything that means someone might remember me when I'm dead, even if I'm exhausted and not particularly happy while I'm doing it.

But I quit the editing job for a reason, which is that I know free time to do nothing is good for me and something that all humans should have. I just don't know how to deal with it yet.

I'm going to try to avoid doing anything I think I *should* be doing this weekend. I am going to be lazy and useless and I'm not going to do anything unless it seems fun. I am not going to improve myself as a human being or cross anything off my bucket list.

Turns out I really don't know how to end this! So, the end.