One of those days

Is it because I am officially in my mid thirties, just five years from hitting 40, and still, well, here, dealing with bouts of self-doubt and severe self-criticism? Or is it because I look around me and see my contemporaries doing excellently in their chosen paths?

It's definitely one of those days: the kinds I dread but I know are just waiting to dawn on me. They're awful. Outside the sun is shining, everything's turned up: color, sound, smell. But inside me, it's gray and turbulent. Rain in my brain comes down in cold sheets of sleet and my spirit is too drenched in sadness and the chill of loneliness. I'm not sure if anyone can imagine the dissonance that takes place: bright and sunny outside, dark and desolate on the inside. And I feel lost and unsure.

Like I am feeling now. Suddenly I feel invisible, inconsequential, insignificant, incomplete, insecure. It's difficult to explain why or how, but there it is. I realize I haven't done enough in anything I chose to spend any effort on. I kick myself for not being good at what I do, in whatever it is I chose to do. Did I choose right in the first place? What is it am I supposed to be doing? Should I still be here, or should I be holding down a stable job by now?

Why am I still stuck where I am, which is, nowhere definite, certainly unsure and unmistakably mediocre? Suddenly I feel like I have not achieved anything worthy of being proud of. I feel no one else finds it commendable. I have no extraordinary skills, no exceptional contributions to any medium, no life-changing ministrations to other people. What have I done that is worth being proud of, that people outside my family and close friends will find impressive?

What am I not doing? What am I doing wrong? Am I asking the wrong questions, looking in the wrong places? Am I wasting my time doing something totally worthless?

I am questioning everything. Is this where I should be? Why? Why do I seem forever stuck? Why can't I seem to ever get to the next step, the next rung on the ladder, the next good opportunity? Am I doomed to always get the raw end of the deal?

Then again, am I asking for too much? Should I be asking for this much?

I wonder now if I missed out. Did I waste my time doing what I was doing and not discern that which was the better option? Was I so stupid to miss it? And will I get a second chance?

All of a sudden I am no longer sure of what it is I should be doing. What should I be? Who should I be? Will I ever find out, or is it too late?

What now? What next? When? I don't know where I stand anymore, or what it is I should be doing. I'm lost, so late in my life.