The horrible cycle...

I always think I've got it beat, but this always happens.  Things start rolling, I get into a nice groove, and then they change.  I try to keep my momentum, but end up crashing hard.  I'm sure a therapist would say that I'm lacking some sort of maturity that keeps a person functioning during seemingly neverending bouts of under-stimulation, but I'd like to think my problem is just that no one else has to go through with this sort of thing.  Don't worry, I am fully aware that I'm kidding myself.

Week one of unemployment was fine, due to a ton of craziness (hair photo shoot for salon, coffee date in Evanston, free ticket run-off from TSG) and then I spent a few days in Georgia visiting my parents.  I've been off the plane for four hours, have already bathed the dog and cleaned my room, and I am crashing.  The library will be too crowded to play piano, it's too cold(!) out to walk Elvis or enjoy the sunshine, and I feel like a giant lump of failure-ridden mush.  

My dad is definitely a product of his generation: this week, I could not get him to understand the fact that I need to be working.  I need stimulation, inspiration, and a sense of getting things accomplished.  I also need the feeling that I'm paying my own bills (at least some of them).  He thinks that having all of this free time is an incredible opportunity for me to 'be happy'... but I just don't understand how a 23 year old can be happy by being a complete failure in their own eyes.  I'm not a good enough writer or musician to embark upon all of these projects people keep suggesting, and I'm definitely not in the mental state to make the much-needed return to ballet classes.  In a nutshell, I don't know what to do with the gift of time.  I am such a spoiled brat.