What are you thinking RIGHT NOW?

[Stormy]

Thinking about how 2020 is just an hour away from me now. :l

[MeerkatOnTheMoon]

Thinking about how we are all entering the new Roaring 20's. A brand new day, month, year and decade.

[Kiana]

Like many, I'm just in shock it's 2020, and I turn 17 next month... wild...

[Regulus]

I've barely existed at all these past few months. I almost don't even know what's happened.

I spent so much time unemployed and looking for work, once I actually found something I put my whole life into that. For all of 2019 I was working my ass off--I finally had what I wanted, and I gave it everything. It looked like I was finally on the right track. My advisor really likes me and he wants me to stick around to do a PhD. The people I interned with last summer all seemed rather impressed with my work. I was happy to have something challenging and something rewarding to do, and I was getting experience and getting paid for it too. For the first time ever, I was able to be completely financially independent in 2019.

Buuuuuut then I got kicked out of my cousin's house, and needed to find a new place to live. It turns out, I actually don't make enough money to be financially independent. Rent is expensive, so I need to live with roommates. Great. Who do I know who I could live with? Let's see... uhh...

It turns out, when all I do is sleep and work, I don't really talk to anyone anymore. Aside from family or the other students in my lab, the only person I actually talk to is my girlfriend--and even then, it's not enough to keep me happy. So now I'm stuck living with my sister and her boyfriend, I'm ruining their relationship just by being here, and I'm being charged way more than I can afford just to exist here. It's driving me crazy.

I hate it here. My sister and her boyfriend are party people; they're up all hours of the night and so is their puppy that just never shuts up. I go "home," but it's not home to me. I'm not wanted here, and even though I'm paying all I can afford and a few pennies more, no one cares. My commute is now almost an hour long, it's too loud for me to sleep comfortably at night, and despite working 10-hour workdays and working on the weekends, I can't even afford to be here. My sister's boyfriend doesn't even care about the money, so it's not like I have any kind of negotiating power here. I'm supposed to be "lucky" and "grateful" to have a "home" at all.

It's just a few more months, and then I'll have my master's degree and I'll have completed my thesis. Yeah. Great. But you can only guess what's happening now: I'm trying to look for a full time job once again... and that is as bad as ever, once again.

All of this was with a very specific goal in mind. All I cared about was getting experience in any way that I could, so I could get the job I wanted a few years down the line. If I could go to New England and live with my girlfriend, that would be great. If I could just get my own place without roommates and be able to have her visit, that would be great too. But honestly, I'm not sure any of that is going to happen. I need to be able to find a different job--one in industry, rather than academia--and that is as difficult as juggling icicles in hell.

It's so weird. I see other people having pretty much normal lives, and I don't understand how. I don't have offline friends anymore, and I've lost contact with the internet friends I've had--even the ones from this site. If ever I do talk to anyone about anything personal, it's always just me complaining about how bad everything is. I'm just a machine--I sleep, I go to work, and I try to relax at the end of the day, but I just can't. I didn't enjoy the holidays. I haven't enjoyed anything in so long. I'm just a machine now.

And you would think, well, maybe it'll get better. Maybe this is all just temporary, and in five months I'll be over the moon. But I don't know. All I know is that I'm completely, absolutely miserable with the state of my life right now, and if it doesn't get better, it will all have been for nothing.

2020. It's a new year, and a new decade. "New year, new me," as people often say. But sadly, I don't even know who I am anymore.

[Azdgari]

We still know who you are, Reg. You're a stand up guy with a solid head on his shoulders, sound judgement, a great sense of humor, and a huge brain. You've got a girlfriend that, even though it's tough with distance, you have something with--it took about five seconds of scrolling to see a post from this August that showed how much you care for her. You might feel like you've lost touch with friends from MLK, but we're still here, and we still think the world of you, and I don't think any one of us doubts that you're going to do great things.

It's bumpy out there. And depression is a real thing, man. It's trite advice, but be kind to yourself. Cut yourself some slack. You can't control your housing, it sounds like, at least in the short term. By the way, I don't think you're capable of ruining anyone's relationship, that sounds like it's coming from a place I don't agree with. You can stay with your passions, find other people that have them. It sounds like you're stuck in a routine where you're not meeting people--one activity one day a week, even as simple as rec sports or a club, is an incredible way to meet people, stay social, give you something to look forward to. There I go again with trite advice, but hey, it works for me.

You're a few months from a masters' in aerospace engineering, with a thesis, and the option for PhD. Those are amazing accomplishments. The job market is nasty--you know that now, but you also know that things work out eventually. And this time around, your credentials are better AND you've got some experience under your belt. Even if it's not industry, paid research work in academia still puts you light years ahead of where you were.

You have made incredible progress in the last year, and even if it feels like you're in the trenches, you're headed for a great year. That doesn't mean you have to be happy every second or even every day, but I hope you know deep down that things will be alright--better than alright.

[Stormy]

Since I haven't been here long, I don't know too much. But I really truly hope 2020 brings you some great things Reg. Best wishes from me.

[MeerkatOnTheMoon]

Sending you positive vibes for 2020, Reg. May it be a better year and that things will finally look up. Keep on going.

[Stormy]

Now that people mentioned it’s bots, doesn’t sound as cool, but either way a new ‘most users online the forum at once’ reached a new record of 2.3K yesterday. rad.

[Kiana]

It's so weird coming back to the site after so long- I feel like a completely different person. If we talked before and fell out of touch hit me up, because I miss you, old friends

Also, skipping to the very beginning of this thread and seeing everyone while they were in school, dating and are now married and have homes. Wild how time goes on. It feels like we're all eternal, but we aren't. We still age, and we move on but the memories are at a standstill. The internet it such a crazy place, sometimes.

[Chizuna]

Why? Why can’t I just go to sleep?