The last three years have felt like an endless endurance test. Between 3 job losses in 3 years, losing a ten year relationship and the multiple deaths of people and pets, it's felt like no sooner have I been getting up from the blow of one event, but the next one has come has come barrelling along, brass knuckled and ill timed.
Things are what they are now. My life is much better in many respects, and worse in others.
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I remember starting this blog as a means to build a disciplined writing practice, to get back into writing in some way. I thought that having a sense of a readership, people waiting for the next entry would help me do that. To a degree it did, and so I thank all six of you from the bottom of my heart :).
Some people write blogs as an exercise in catharsis, putting it all out there, warts and all for readers to consume. I respect that choice, but it's never one with which I've been comfortable. I tend to leave my wailing and gnashing for my journal, if for no other reason than that my journalling can lean towards negativity and is not necessarily a reasonable summations of things. There, I try to process my depression, make sense of things and of my life, take a tally of the small victories where I can.
Whereas my blog is written to be read. The revelations of my life are selective and better thought out.
For whatever reason, I've been coming back to this blog quite a bit in the last month to read old entries. I thought the selectivity that I apply to what I write about here would make the blog entries less interesting to me than those in my journal. I've found the exact opposite to be true. The fact that I have written from a different perspective here has given me just that, another view on my life that I may not have appreciated if I had just written about the same time periods in my journal.
There are things documented here that I had completely forgotten about, things that at the time seemed to take on a life and death meaning. There are passing notations on things that ended up becoming quite significant.
And in the end, it's just a different kind of documentation of my life. Because if I am truly honest, I am always seeking to find some sort of meaning in things. The record I've created here is another way to help me connect the dots. I suppose in the same vein, the lack of documentation here during the past few years is a record of a different, but equal kind.
* * *
Tears come at the silliest of times. This morning I got back home with my coffee and as I pulled into the driveway, thoughts parsed through my mind in nano second increments, unbidden and unwanted. But if I was to slow down the progression, I would say it went something like this:
I am tired. As warm and friendly as I try to be, I'm an introvert and a creative at heart and I've just spent all week running around dealing with people having to solve problems that were not of my own making. I can't drive any agenda. This exhausts me. If I was meant to be a creative person and have a creative job, surely it would have worked out for me somewhere along the line by now. I feel trapped and I don't know how to get out. I feel so lonely. I feel middle aged, fat, used up and past it.
Cue waterworks.
I don't know what to do these days other than to KBO. I'm just at a point for the first time in a decade where I'm not worrying week to week how I'll pay the bills. That's nice. That's something.
I'd like to keep and stay in my house but it needs a lot of work. I don't want to spend the rest of my days paying off a mortgage. I'd like to enjoy some relief from that before retiring if possible.
I'd like to carve out a space in my home for writing. I'd like to get more organized and have a normal living arrangement where things are easy and straightforward to keep clean. Still trying to get there.
And Jesus H. Roosevelt, can this winter please END already.
I think I've cried more in the past three years than I have in my entire life combined. I'm not exaggerating here. There's sometimes no other way to move past things than to cry them out. Then you can move on. Any room in my house, the bathroom at work, driving in the car - all these places have been my sadness safe houses the last few years. Tears aren't noted for their convenient timing.
I've realized that I won't fall apart if I cry. That has been a great blessing.
* * *
There have been a great many other blessings that have come to me since I was last regularly writing here.
Perspective.
Losing one job is tough. The second time is unimaginable. But by the time it happens to you for the third time, in as many years no less, it's kind of a non-event. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't happy about it, and it was a tough situation even though I was incredibly unhappy in the job I had. But less than three weeks later, I was back at work on a month's contract with no financial ground lost. I knew what to do to turn that situation around, had learned from my past mistakes and was willing to take things as they came. As it turned out, the same place has kept renewing my contract. It's a great fit for me and it may go permanent. I can do that job while I look for something for which I'm more suited.
And if it doesn't work out, I'll find something else.
Maturity.
The scales have definitely fallen from my eyes on several fronts when it comes to people, work and life in general. I still struggle with walking the line between when to take things personally and when not to. I tend towards the latter when frankly, that's just not appropriate. As Maya Angelou once remarked, don't go through life with a catcher's mitt on each hand. Know when to throw the ball back once in a while.
I'm still trying to get better at knowing when to throw the ball back.
I certainly don't have the same rose-coloured perspective on things I once did. I don't believe in the potential of everyone to do and be better anymore. A lot, if not most people, don't want to do or be better. A lot of people just want to stay stuck in their stuff and their own agendas. It's cosy there.
Don't be a jelly fish, when the waters are shark invested.
Happiness.
I've learned that it's truly simple things that are the basic constructs of a good and happy life. Showing up. Keeping your promises. Paying the bills on time. Cleanliness and order in your home. Regular and restful sleep. Routine. Being able to save money for a rainy day. Taking care of and maintaining your physical and mental health. Setting goals, however minor, and achieving them.
If you can get the above right, I don't think a lack of friends and family will buckle you. You can be immensely lonely and still feel a basic level of happiness. I believe you can have the best friends and family in the world and will not have happiness if your life is a never ending shit storm of reactivity, crisis, disorganization and ill health - physical or mental. I know, because I've lived that way most of my adult life.
* * *
So I have some plans. But more on those later.
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