TheFirstCutIsTheDeepest,TheFirstStepIsTheHardest.ANewDay.TimeForAChange.ARollerCoasterOfEmotions.

I couldn't figure out which title to use, so I just put every one I had thought of while I wrote this in my head.
In the last week, I have been content, bored, depressed, hopeless, back to content, scratching at the walls of hope, determined, content, happy, blacked-out drunk, miserable, bored, hopeless, amazed, hopeful, entertained, hopeful, stuffed, content, hopeful, hopeless, emotionally drunk, fatigued, regretful, amicable, fatigued again, hopeful, determined, prepared, and ready for the future. The ups and downs describe the motivation behind the last title option. That was the tl;dr version, so if you don't want to read an essay about my life, you can stop now knowing that my current emotional state is a mixture of the last 4.
7 days ago, I was so far down in life that I actually googled "what to do if I can't afford therapy." Life had beaten me down so far that I saw no future for myself in which I was happy with who I was and what I was doing with myself. My life was a blender of computer games, sleep, computer games, work, computer games, and more sleep. Even my friends hardly ever saw me, and I live with them. After some browsing, I found a site called http://7cupsOfTea.com which is dedicated to providing a listening ear to anyone and everyone who just needs someone to talk to.
I saved the conversation because I figured I might want to refer back to it at some point. I'm not afraid to show it to anyone, but know that I was not in a good place when it was being made.
Link
Priya, a random individual who was simply there to listen to anyone and everyone with a problem, actually gave me some hope. Some people will be surprised to know that I left the Minecraft Pokemon Server community, since I didn't exactly broadcast it. But I did it. I haven't even logged on in 10 days, and I banned myself and every alternate account I own to insure I'd have an extra layer of prevention. I was determined to start making a change in my life.
By the time Thursday evening came around though, things didn't look much different. I'd replaced Minecraft with an old game that sucked my life away in middle school, Titan Quest. So once my roommates/friends got back from a trip to Lake Tahoe, I was ready to hole up in my room and let them have their own fun. They had different plans though, so after I volunteered my little stash of alcohol for their drinking games (I know it sounds like I'm an alcoholic now, but I hadn't touched those drinks for at least a month or longer) I wasn't going to let them drink all my stuff without being involved myself. As the night went on, I was labeling my drunkenness on a scale of 1-10, with 5 being fairly tipsy, and 10 being blacked-out, won't remember this part of the night.
I reached a 10 sometime around midnight (I think, as I said, I don't remember that part) and I also don't have any idea how I got from the kitchen to my bed. Though apparently knocking over a dog's water bowl was part of that process. I'm still amazed I had the motor function to change my shirt.
Which leads me to waking up at 9am Friday morning with my very first Hangover! Yay! Not. I wasn't sick or anything drastic, but my head was pounding, my face felt fuzzy, and I was equal parts regretting drinking at all and being tempted to call in sick to my work shift in 6 hours.
However, I pushed through it, and 6 hours later I was at work with no problems at all, and telling everyone I could about my newest 'first' on the list. The day was nothing special, fairly boring really, but once the shift was over at 11, I sat at the bar I worked at with some coworkers that I consider friends now, had a shot and shared a shot, and was then bought a shot by some old guy who was out with his old friends and wanted to buy everyone a round. That man also seemed to see something in me that I still hadn't seen in myself.
That night though, my coworkers/friends invited me to a movie and sushi the next morning, and while my wallet grimaced, I was not going to let money get in the way of spending time with these people who I actually cared about. I didn't know them very well, but I wanted to, and this was the perfect way to start.
So that morning, I walked to the theatre that I always visit on my own, waited for them to arrive, saw 22 Jump Street (I liked it, but it might have just been the atmosphere or my current mood swaying my opinion) and then we all left to get sushi at the restaurant we all work in/near (the bar I work in serves all the margaritas and other liqueurs ordered at that mexican/sushi place). They kept trying to get me to try new things, but I'd made the mistake of eating breakfast before the movie, and I also wasn't as much a fan of spicy foods, so the jalapenos on half of their orders sorta turned me away. That and the cilantro on one of their rolls, which just happened to be her favorite one. Cilantro makes me grimace. Just thinking about it. It's evil. The Ceviche roll had jalapenos and cilantro, so I couldn't bring myself to get over it. If it hadn't had cilantro, I probably would have gotten over it and tried it. I hope I didn't offend her by so stubbornly refusing to even consider it.
So afterward, it was off to get ready for, then leave for work. 4-midnight is my normal Saturday, and it was a bad one. Hardly anyone tipped the bartenders, so my little 20% of their tips wasn't anything useful.
I happened to pass some time at the bar again, though I eventually headed downstairs to our Sports bar, where the bartender on graveyard shift is someone I confide in frequently. I proceeded to get quite drunk, and basically confided in anyone and everyone who happened to be looking in my direction. I really need to stop drinking in public. By the time I left, I had talked to 2 bartenders, 2 barbacks, 2 ladies who work in our other restaurant, one waiter at the Mexican restaurant, some manager of a completely non-food&beverage department, and one girl who was a complete stranger but still listened and responded. By the time I got home, I didn't want to get up to do anything that day. I also happened to dent the back of my phone as I drunkenly walked home that morning, around 5am.
So I slept. I missed a call from work asking if I wanted to come in at 9:30, but there was nothing I could do when I'd been asleep for 2 hours before they called. Nothing could wake me up. Once I woke up, I called back to make sure they had actually found someone, wandered to the living room couch as I talked, but they had the shift covered, and I probably just annoyed them by calling at 11. Oh well.
So I slept some more. So many dreams floated in my mind that day. Around 2 some girls from a church stopped by to talk about some events they were hosting. I wasn't going to be rude to complete strangers, even if they did wake me up. So I listened, I accepted their handout, and they went on their way. They asked if I knew anyone else who would be willing to talk about their work, but I wasn't going to set up anyone I knew with that kind of interaction. Most people I know probably wouldn't have the patience, or wouldn't appreciate me testing their patience with that.
So I slept again. My roommate came down once or twice, which woke me up, and I proceeded to fiddle with my phone, since he's always had a problem with me sleeping in the living room.
But I kept going back to sleep. I might have woken up long enough to text, or ponder my drunken idiocy of the previous night, but every time, I always fell back to sleep. I kept dreaming every time too. I can't recall a single one, but I know they were all good dreams.
I slept in my own room when my roommate came downstairs at 8pm. I don't even know why I was in the living room for that long.
When I woke up at 3am this morning, I tried to go back to sleep. Apparently my body had different plans though, so I was stuck in the middle of the night with nothing except my thoughts for company. I didn't want to get up, so my computer and all its games were out of the question. All I could do was think about this past week. Priya and her hope for me. The old man at the bar and his hope for me. My coworkers I hardly knew treating me like a friend. The interactions I had as I was spilling all my thoughts to people Saturday night, since I was actually listening as well as talking.
It was time for a change. I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself and do something about it. Priya was right; I am the only one who can help me.

It's funny, I was reading an existential comic on a site linked by one of my Facebook friends a few weeks ago. I've always loved thinking about philosophical puzzles, conundrums, logical loops that don't have any point except to be thought of. So browsing through this site a while back, I happened upon a strip where a logical man, Sanus had said that he would quit smoking, and his logical friend with less pleasant ideas, Amentia, found him smoking. In every plan, there are 2 parties. The Past self, and the Current self. The Past self makes the decision, decides to quit smoking, decides to improve his quality of life, decides to stop feeling sorry for himself. The Current self is the one that is tempted. Gets stressed and thinks about that cigarette. Gets bored and thinks about the computer games. Gets worn out and thinks about how much better life could be if only, if only...

Today, I let Past self win for once. Past self decided that I was going to exercise today. I haven't actually been self-motivated to exercise since I was in High School. So I decided that when I saw the first hint of light out my window, I would get up from whatever I was doing, and I would run.
At 5:30am that comic hit home harder than it should have. The me of the present was sitting at his computer checking his emails and dreading that daylight. I swear I was actually having an argument with myself from the past. But the past won.
I actually got up, got changed, and left my house. I'm not physically fit enough to run for long, but I still navigated myself in a full loop around the university campus. I don't know if I ran for 1/4 of the distance, 1/5 of the distance, or even 1/6 of the distance. But I took that first step. I saw the sunrise, I saw 3 rabbits, and I felt pretty good about myself, even as my lungs and heart were complaining every 5 minutes. Who knows, I might even do it again tomorrow.

I told Priya that the only question now is, "what do I do with all this free time now?"
I still don't know. But it will lead to a better tomorrow. I won't say that I'll never feel sorry for myself again. I can't promise that. But if I ever do, I better have a damn good reason, and not my own lazy habits to blame.