Promoted from "Intern" to "Flunky"

My internship at Krios Memorial officially ended this week.

Luckily, I was hired back on to help with an ongoing project-a database to match Kepral's patients with promising studies. Lots and lots of boring, low-level tech work that needs to get done. I'll get my current wage and a raise if I pick up certain certifications.

...Which means I'm reshuffling my much-abused class schedule again.

I feel weirdly sad. Like, I'm happy my life is turning out this way...but I'm not going to be a cop or a Spectre or be inducted into the shadowy board of people who acually know what's going on, and the unfixable parts of my life are likely to stay that way.

Has anyone else been suffering from UNEXPECTED MELANCHOLY lately, or is it just me?

Me. I have. Because after months of worry and fear and self-examination I finally work out that I need to take charge of my life and then this happens. I mean, I tried. I really did. I got through the aftermath of Entish, I've actually stayed here on this forum and not offended anyone so that I have to leave or make grovelling apologies. I've been thinking more about home and the choices I made than I have in just about ever. I even weathered what happened when I went out to Tayseri - you probably read about that in the news, since you live there. I had to piece myself back together, and to do that you have to actually be looking at yourself, you know? And it's not easy. It hurts.

I don't have that long left, by most peoples' standards. Less than a decade, probably. I look back at it all and I see that I've just been running, you know? Just putting my head down and trying to block it all out, and now I realize that I did it, it worked, I escaped, I got out, and now here I am and what is there to show for it?

I finally start getting over that, finally start getting ready to face things again - I'm finally through the hazebush - and then more uncertainty with this rachni thing. It's like the galaxy keeps trying to be as confusing and dangerous as possible to erode any stability I find. I'm trying, really. I don't want to be the guy who panics and makes a fool of himself all the time. I can be insightful sometimes, people have told me that. I want to be that me again, but with the self-awareness I was missing before. I mean, does that make sense?

My whole life I just kept my head down, making myself believe what they wanted me to believe, because that was the only way to stay a good pupil, right? It was like second nature to me – support the clan, listen to the teachers, do a good job. That sort of thing. But it just eroded any faith I had in society. Like, completely eroded it. Every value and virtue I had, it just... withered over time - fairness, justice, eloquence - I mean, they still meant something to me back then, but I could see they meant nothing to people around me, they were just means to an end. And they didn’t even seem aware of their hypocrisy. Because their minds had been twisted, you see, like they were trying to twist mine. For a young guy like me, no real sense of stability, I needed truth the way I needed oxygen, but I wasn’t getting it. My mind wasn’t focused on learning or self-improvement but on doing whatever was necessary to please others, you know? Until I couldn't take it and I just got out. Just left and severed my ties and went to become the token salarian in a human company in the Systems Alliance.

I'm trying. But, yes, I'm melancholy.

Kayana - don't mistake being famous, powerful, or otherwise "legendary" for being happy.

You're doing valuable work, work that helps people. You have people who love you. You're making a living doing something that matters to you.

Many envy you that.

Congratulations Kayana! I know the mixed feelings a little, any time you move forward on one path, you're leaving others behind and whatever might have been on them. I think it'll pass in time - the 'might have beens' will fade away pretty sharply once you see the real good your work (unglamorous it may be) will do.

A little, although on a fairly inconsequential level. I was saying in the relevant thread that Daughters of the Storm - EP's next big naked blockbuster adventure - will be the last film project I'll be involved with in a significant way. Where I am with the studio, as a kinda-sorta name, isn't something that can be sustained long-term - they've been very generous to give me the opportunities they have, but at some point the talent they're putting in significant roles (the ones who get their faces on the movie posters, in other words) have to step up and commit to being 'stars', with all the extra work that demands in maintaining a schedule of publicity appearances, networking, being involved in multiple projects - it's a career, and it needs time. If I did that, I'd have to give up something else, either escorting or Envirometrics (or time 'off-duty' with Ana, but that's never happening). The company needs me - not for my expertise (which I don't really have) but as an asari face, since there are a lot of doors on Illium that don't open for quarians. I hate it, but it's a fact, and we'd rather be able to make the clean-tech our customers need than close down over a matter of stubborn pride. And escorting is, well, you know how I am - might as well ask a hanar to give up swimming. :)

So that's a little era coming to a close - I'll still be able to get parts, but they'll be much smaller roles, like the Consort in the original Citadel. Which is great, but for someone like me - I've never pursued acting (even if you want to mentally insert inverted commas around the word where that kind of film is concerned) - having the chance to be involved in a major way in these projects, to put on the costumes of heroes and legends and be part of these incredible fictional worlds (regency Dekuuna was the best, in all its grandeur)... well, you can see how it's been a memorable time. I'll miss that.

Still, life goes on.

Some of us don't seem to manage even that, regardless of good intentions. :) I don't know if it'll be any help, but I've seen - and felt - that sensation of discovering what you thought was stable is actually a lot more ephemeral. Happens to a lot of people, sometimes in big ways, often in little ways. For whatever it may be worth I've always found it comforting to think of life - the galaxy, whatever - as an ocean, rather than a rock. There's no sure footing and it'll always move underneath you, but so long as you're floating and have a paddle, you're not doing so badly.

Daia's bon mot for the day. If it's not any help, don't worry, there isn't really anything profound under the cute metaphor that you're missing in that case. :)

Thanks for the responses. I know I'm being overdramatic (and whiney!) but it's kind of weird.

I'm probably going to be basically like this for the rest of my life.

You're getting so many hugs when you get back home.

Capice, it sounds like you have achieved a lot.
Sometimes I think, maybe the suit is not that bad. Do I even really know that it’s better without? Or am I chasing just an illusion of what I imagine it to be like?

But yeah, I still want to do it, so yeah, sometimes melancholy.

It doesn't sound like something to be sad about. I've been down on my path and choices before, but there is always the option to leave and do something else if it turns to unhappiness...
But this just sounds more like feeling locked-in than it does a regretful choice.
When what I do for a living starts to pull at me, I try to make a distinction between what I do for a living and what I do when I'm living. Most livings are either dangerous or boring, and most lifestyles will be defined so much more by how you spend your time than what you do for a living.

So don't feel sad! Feel open! You've got a track laid out - grab some things you like and take a ride. If you stop liking the ride, step away from the track.

If it's unfixable, you could always try to replace it.

Congratulations.

Kayana: Is it that what you have, while it makes you happy for the most part, doesn't match with what you always thought you wanted?

Or is it that you find yourself wondering how things might have turned out differently if you'd done something other than what you did?

I don't know that it's either. I wanted everything and this is one thing but...

This is going to sound all hells of childish, but I got through the war thinking that if we All Pulled Together we would (somehow) Get Through! On the other side of that mystical horizon things would be Okay! I didn't know what Okay could possibly look like, but I am very clearly there now annnndd....I still need my meds?

Ah. Yes, that makes sense.

My parents thought that recovering me from the warlord would make things Okay. Instead, they got back a child that didn't speak, slept under a bed and had a precocious affinity for weaponry. I don't remember who I used to be very well, but I miss her, and I don't know how to be that person any more. Perhaps just as well, given I'm a bit old to act like a 5 year old....pink, glittery sweaters notwithstanding.

If Trex told you...well, suffice it to say my initial reservations about Trex had to do with my lack of belief in Okay. As it turns out, though, Trex and I are both adapting. We may not ever be Okay, but as a work in progress, things are definitely moving in the right direction.

So... Okay is not a place, and you will not have a handshake or a ticker tape party when you arrive. It's a journey. For you, your meds are part of it.

...and for Trex, being suspended from school for fighting is apparently part of it, so it'll probably be a few weeks before she can go out. If you or your friends would like to come visit, though, we could arrange that.

None of this is as interesting or fun as you think it would be. At least in your current position you are in some way improving your species no matter how minor. So be glad for that at least.


Its never unexpected for me.

if its any consolation, everyone basically goes through this

after i got out of the hegemony (dunno how old you are but presumably about the same age if not a little older) i was determined that id be the one who tore it down and freed my people from tyranny (the usual)

2 years later i was doing most of the typical stuff you'd expect from a young batarian let loose in the terminus: awfully paid merc work, even more awfully paid manual labour jobs with former/actual slaves etc, etc and about 5 years after that i realised my dream just wasn't gonna happen, so i just settled into the rhythm of what i was doing and 20 years later (disregarding the reapers and shit) i can look how my life turned out and go "i didn't do too badly, really"

guess i count that as a success lol

I don't hate my meds really-the side effects aren't bad, they don't mess up my sleep like the first bunch did. But I really like to think of myself as...well, being right and that somehow clashes with having to take medication and listening to a therapist go on about how I'm 'persevering' again.

Yeah yeah, my poor ego!

Apparently, I also thought that the I would be freed of my more annoying personality traits when I reached the land of Okay.


Shoot. Well, I'll try and drop by. I have this...and my translator does not love me today. It's this drell thing about ships I was able to borrow off someone from work.


Yeah, I know that. Intellectually. Can you imagine the kind of liars and murderes you'd have to spend time with?


Actually, very consoling.