If the Door is Closed, Start Looking for a Window

"Your unhappiness is telling you something." ~ Ragdoll

I've been waking up feeling very anxious lately and I'm not entirely sure why. The frustrating thing is that often times there is no clear explanation.

Friday morning I woke full of dread and a story in my brain I'd read the night before about Islamic militants in Iraq beheading Christian children. Quite a way to start the day, the remainder of which was spent axe decidedly to the grindstone right until 6 p.m.

I look at LinkedIn these days the way I used to look at my bank account.

I'd log in, fire up my balance summary and had the feeling that if I just stared at the numbers long enough, more money would somehow magically appear or that I'd gain some glimmer of insight that would reveal the extra money I'd overlooked.

As it is, the only thing that's helped my bank account is remaining employed, sticking to a budget as best I can and regaining the tenets of a normal life. The is no magic, no calvary, no Delphic oracle with some elusive answer. The road back has been step by step by step. Every month, things get a little better and a little more stabilized, despite the addition of more expenses at times, like my tax payments...ahem.

But that's the trade off you make with freelancing and freelancing is what has made the difference between bills getting paid and not. I'm very very grateful for that and despite my general feelings of pessimism lately, I do understand fundamentally that things are better in my life than they were before, and realistically, will continue to get better.

But I now find myself staring at my LinkedIn message area, like I did with my bank account, trying to will some recruiter to ping me about an amazing opportunity that will magically transport me out of the advertising industry. I think that's what the anxiousness has been about. There is just too much work and not enough time or people to do it. I was leaving Friday night and stopped to chat with a client service person who I really enjoy working with and who is really good at what she does. She just looked so downtrodden. She told me she hadn't been able to sleep until 2 am and then woke up at 5 am. She was exhausted.

"I don't know who I am right now." she said. She was that tired from all the work she's had on her plate.

I could completely relate. Advertising is a sector that has some great aspects, but overall the last few years of working in it have been a soul crushing experience to which I'm craving an expeditious end.

Except I can only drive things so far. You can only make so much happen on your own. I remember after losing my job a couple of years ago spending a gruelling and delirious summer trying to find work. The mistake I made then was not considering freelance. It just didn't occur to me. So I focused my efforts on finding a full time permanent role.

And at least in that situation, I did get quite a few interviews from straight forward resume submissions in response to job ads. I don't know if something's changed, but I'm almost at the point where I don't want to make the effort to apply to job posts any more. It's a lot of work and it's been an absolute Road to Nowhere. I'm convinced there's a black hole in the galaxy that consists solely of unread resumes.

Instead I've been working on making my LinkedIn profile better, going through my vocational counselling to find other avenues, and getting in touch with former colleagues to let them know I'm looking. In fact my vocational counsellor said that's one of the best ways to get a job, through referral, and she was thrilled I'd done it and that I'm planning a phase 2 where I'll get in touch with recruiters. She said she literally sees people for months on end who do nothing to help themselves to find other avenues for getting a new job. I guess everyone gets there when they get there.

All I know is that I've haven't been this motivated to change a situation in quite some time. So all I can do is show up and work hard to do what I can to change it. It's frustrating, and I sometimes don't know if I'm doing all I can and doing it correctly, but I take some solace in the fact that I'm not feeling so overwhelmed by things that I can't even consider any action.

And I can't help but believe that despite my ambivalence, my work in Advertising has not been futile. I truly believe that on some level it's preparing me for something else. What that is remains to be seen.

All The Trouble In the World

"So let us not be blind to our differences -- but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal." ~ JFK's commencement speech at American University, June 10, 1963

Like many people, I've felt decidedly worried about the state of the world lately. Our planet is never without conflict. There is always some patch of land immersed in despair. But with the war in Gaza and Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 getting shot out of the sky and the fact that both these events find their origin in parts of the world not renowned for a lack of conflict generally, the tension in the the air has seemed higher lately, like that of a heavy bow string pulled back by a hand too weak for the task.

You can sense on social media that nobody really wants to talk about either of these events, Gaza in particular. This makes sense to me. Certainly I'm reluctant to weigh in, for the simple reason that I have my opinion, until that is, I don't. We are constantly getting bombarded with another event, another perspective. There are no straight lines or clear paths on this issue and people's opinions are already impassioned.

All I know is that I don't want anyone, Palestinian, Israeli, anybody getting bombed, shot or hurt in any way and this sensibility seems grossly simplistic in the face of a conflict imbued with a patina that only centuries of conflict, intolerance and genocide can bestow. 

This article by Basio Winograd the Washington Post summed it up beautifully for me.  Do your friends follow the news? Then this is what your Facebook feed looks like.

I struggle with whether digital media is the place to be discussing issues of such import and complication. I don't know if an editorial on Gaza should be in the same place as funny cat pictures. And don't get me started on the Comments sections of newspaper sites, or as I like to call them Troll Lounges.

But where digital media falls down in terms of reasoned discussion, it excels in spreading information and building awareness. Again on social media, a friend had posted this article and it did me a world of good to read it.  I hope it does the same for you. We need reminders that as wretchedly desperate some situations in the world can be, it also has parcels that shimmer with hope.

7 Reasons the World Isn't Totally Screwed Right Now

Set Adrift on Memory Bliss Part II

"It really is amazing how a song can take you to a place, a time from the past and make you feel the way you did back then...no matter how you feel at the present time...maybe that only happens to me...but I doubt it." ~ Martin Streek

"But I had to put her right back with the rest.

That's the way it goes, I guess." ~ P.M. Dawn

I've written about P.M. Dawn's song Set Adrift on Memory Bliss before. It's one of those early 90's rap gems that gets perilously close to cheesy, yet ultimately has remained a morsel of pure pop sampling goodness.  In the early days of Hip Hop's ascendancy, it was one of the first rap rehashes to get it right.

When I wrote about this song previously, I was talking about it in the context of music and memory and how visceral an experience that can be. Set Adrift...reminds me of a happy time in my life, the summer I stayed with my Grandmother in Glasgow, of having more time ahead of me then behind me, and of feeling hopeful.

This past Saturday, my family and I convened in our former home town of Brampton to say goodbye to an old friend, our family dog Gussie. My parents had kept her ashes since her passing in 1995. 

But with their move to a new town and the inevitable reflection that downsizing can bring, my parents decided it would make more sense for her ashes to be scattered in a place she loved. With summer vacation schedules converging, a task my parents were going to complete on their own became something our whole family would participate in.

We agreed to meet in a small plaza by our old house. Our old subdivision borders on two man made lakes that were added to the established forests already in the area at the time. Gussie loved walking along these lakes and in fact made many solo expeditions over the years from which we would frantically retrieve her. She had no road sense at all, and we were always worried she'd get hit by a car whenever she took off. 

The plaza was the best place to meet as it was close to one of the lakes and small forests through which we took Gussie on many walks. When I pulled into the parking lot, my family were already there. My Dad and I coordinated where we would be parking and I then followed him out. As the car started to move, the song to come on via my Itouch's shuffle was...you guessed it.

Coincidental? Perhaps.

Sentimental? Absolutely.

I felt as if it was a little visit from Gussie, a trip back to the time we had together. 

We parked in front of the path into the forest and headed in. None of us really felt like saying anything. We sprinkled some of her ashes amongst the trees and then down by the lake. The forest still had the same quiet rustling sound from summers past. The lake was slightly misty and more overgrown, with its requisite contingent of ducks and geese. It just felt right to bring Gussie back there and I said as much to my parents.

Afterwards we had dinner and then headed to our respective homes. It felt strange not going back to my parents' old house. And yet it felt right too. Brampton isn't the same city any more, and we're not the same people. And as much as I tend to live in the past these days, would I really want to go back there? Not really. I like who I am now more than I liked myself when I was younger. But I can't say I like my life as much.

I suppose I just feel my possibilities were better then. That sentiment and a general lack of progress in my life is something I've clearly been contending with for a long time now. It's hard not to go inward, to not feel afraid. There are many times where it feels like there is no point. Why invest in a new career path? Some bean counter can just take it away. Why try and have a relationship when your instincts and sense of self are so out of whack in that area that it will inevitably implode. Why try and build a home when paying your mortgage and repairing your home take all the financial resources you have? Why have artistic dreams and ambitions when it's all you can do to keep the sink clean and empty of dishes most weeks?

You might say that the above events are just part of the ebb and flow of life. You would be right. But I would like to win once in a while. I would like to stop being good at just surviving, and actually get some place I want to go. I didn't always win when I was younger, far from it. But I won sometimes. And that's what's been missing the last few years, a sense of progression beyond just edging ever so slightly more away from the precipice.  I'd like to feel I'm heading in a new direction entirely, that there is momentum, that I am leaving the wreckage of the last few years behind.

To be completely honest, I don't feel life is bad. I just don't find it currently or in the last while, to be particularly good. I just don't feel it's going to get much better than it is now, and that is frightening. I can say with certainty that as I get older, life will be filled with more loss. I'm not so sure it will be filled with any more gains.

And I suppose that's why when Set Adrift... came on my car radio, I gasped. I have been trying so hard lately not to focus on the negative, not to be glum and stuck mentally in what was and who I have been, but stay right in the present to try and make it better. One opening riff, and I got pulled right back. 

I'm tired of being adrift in my memories. I'd like to live in more bliss here and now.  

Just Four More Days

I haven't posted in a while as work's been a real slog. We had two project managers leave in one month and yours truly got their work to do.

I wrote the above sentence on June 11th and have just come back here now. Not much has changed unfortunately, and I'm having one of those Sunday nights where
I just.do.not.want.to.go.into.work.tomorrow.

Maybe the fact that I was at work until 830 pm Friday has something to do with it.

It's been bloody relentless, not only on the job front but personally as well. I am this close to getting my laundry service downstairs. The last part of the process is getting the electrical aspects transferred. I'll get there eventually. It's just been hard to get an electrician who is free at the same times I am. Working from home isn't exactly an easy exercise for me, given my job depends so much on my being on site.

I've also been taking some vocational sessions to help me hone in on something new to do for a living. I had an epiphany recently in that I realized for a long time, I just thought making my day job better seemed a waste of time. I know what I really want to do for a living and figured I'd get to that eventually. But I haven't gotten to that and I think it's because at times in my career, my day job has been draining in that when it's structured a certain way, it can be really unsuited to my personality. So given this, it's really no surprise I've had little energy to devote to my own artistic pursuits. I just don't have the mental and physical energy to devote to it. I'm too busy trying to recharge from the day or the week that's just passed.

At least that is one aspect. Certainly there have been other factors, but this one's a biggie.

Turning the vocational aspect of my life around is what's giving me hope right now as I continue to work all the hours God sends. That and slowly but surely bringing organization and livability back to my home. Every week I make progress, no matter how small. I get something on the house fixed. I get a cupboard or a drawer organized and it stays that way.

The one thing I do need to regroup on is exercise. My spin gym closed down, not for any financial reasons but because my instructor had an epiphany of his own and realized he hated running his own business. I've found another place, but given how much I'm working I'm feeling a lot of fear about signing up given the exhaustion factor. Then again, I'm just as fearful not doing anything. It's not as if I'm getting any younger.

I'm not going to lie. The last few months have been really hard. I feel like I could kill for a two week paid vacation right now, but that's not where I am. And for whatever reason, I'm feeling a bit gun shy writing here, not wanting to be too negative, not wanting to contribute to that energy.

And yet I do feel like something is in the air, and things are going to start really changing for the better, versus my efforts just being solely dedicated to survival. And some things have happened lately that have been sad and have been negative, but I have really gained some important insight from the experiences. Perhaps I'll write about them later. Perhaps not. All I know is I have four days at work this week and then I'm off for six. I'm clinging to that. For now that will do.

Sometimes Life Throws You A Tea Towel Soaked in Ice Water

In retrospect, I feel like I should have seen it coming.

I have been melancholy the last couple of months, very melancholy indeed, feeling somewhat lost in the current state of my life. I remember January and February feeling like a real gauntlet run at the office. We were far too short staffed and what had felt like a bearable gig for many months had become downright awful.

I was really thankful for my current contract when it came along, because it meant little loss of income, but part of me was feeling like I needed just a little break to catch my breath, even if that break came at the cost of the usual anxiety that accompanies not working.

As it was, I was right into the next gig and I'm only realizing now how much it threw me for a loop. All of a sudden, all these little routines I had built up were removed wholesale from my day to day experience.

Instead of a quick walk across the street to my office from the parking lot, I was walking to work along a wind swept, frozen Lake Ontario in the carnage of the never ending construction that appears to have become a way of life in the city's south end.

I was in a new building, working with new people, processes and completely new clients in a new culture.

All my regular go to spots for lunches and groceries and errands were gone.

All of these things in and off themselves are really quite benign, but I think collectively, it was a lot to get used to right away. I didn't really have a chance to psych myself up for it all and combined with a never ending winter, I slightly lost my sh*t.

Things culminated last week in my being sicker than I've been in a decade. That's what I mean when I say I should have seen it coming.  All the signs were there: the depression, anxiousness, hating my life, feeling overwhelmed, the dishes piling up and piling up.

I ended up having to take the whole week off work as I battled the viral onslaught of aches, fever and coughing.  And yet despite feeling really lousy [to the point where I sat with a tea towel soaked in ice water around my neck and a wash cloth on my head - it didn't look pretty but damn I felt less feverish] last week gave me something I really needed, which was some mental downtime.  It was truly one of those viruses that makes you so sick, you couldn't care less if the world was about to implode never mind anything work related. I completely disconnected. And once I started to feel better, it was almost as if some mental dust had settled, and things I had been wailing and gnashing about in my head just didn't matter all that much anymore.

I've come to some conclusions about things.

I'm not in love [by a long shot] with my current gig, but it's bearable and I can do it. The most important thing right now is to show up, do good work and keep making money.

I need to get out of freelancing. Although it has a lot of benefits, I'm not able to take advantage of one of its biggest, which is downtime. I just don't have the financial slack to, for example, take a couple of weeks or a month off between gigs. [God I wish!] In fact, it's the opposite. I never get any paid time off and it's starting to wear me down. I want to get established somewhere and not be changing jobs every year.

I've started applying for full time roles elsewhere. I'm going to rework my resume also.  I need to get out advertising and out of project management. I find both of them soul sucking and not liking what I'm doing for a living makes trying times seem worse than they really are. I lose perspective.

I'm going to get some vocational testing to see if there's another kind of day job I can do that will be somewhat fulfilling.

I'm going to keep going to spinning class because it makes me feel really good. Though probably not this week given I'm still getting over being so sick.

I'll keep plugging away on the house and getting it organized.

I have to create a space in my home to write.

In short, I'm going to chip away at what I can because that's basically all I can do at this point. I have to make happen what I can make happen and hope the rest falls into place. I just can't let go of my dreams for myself and maybe what I thought I wanted, isn't what I wanted after all. All I know right now is that there are the things I want to make better.

Perception

It's amazing how much your perception can change over the course of a day. I've begun to wonder if I perceive my life in any real way at all.

I woke up this morning, dogged by the same sadness that has been trailing me all week. I still feel, sometimes, so much at the mercy of my feelings and circumstances in terms of how it colours my perceptions of things.

For example, this past week was Daylights Savings Time. We went ahead by an hour, and as usual, the effect on my sleep was brutal.

It was that time of the month.

I'm contending with yet another new contract and trying to get used to everything.

I essentially felt overwhelmed, exhausted and miserable.

I felt mad at my circumstances. And then felt bad that I was mad.

I felt bad because I was in the feedback loop I lately find myself in, which is this: I have so many things that people want. Why am I unhappy?

I am healthy. I am mobile. I drive a nice car. I have a detached home in Toronto. I have a good paying job and the skills to get another if it doesn't work out. I can pay my bills, take care of myself and my pets. I have a kind and loving family. I have kind and loving friends.

And yet none of the above makes me feel any better.

I am unhappy. I feel like a failure. I really hate my life sometimes. Is it wrong to say that?

I have moments on my way to work, nanoseconds of space in my brain, where for just a moment, I am heading somewhere else: to do research for my next book, my play's rehearsal, to the studio to record, to paint, anything but what I am doing.

Where I am and where I want to be seem so far apart and it makes me so unhappy. And yet at the same time, it seems silly to try. In seven years I'll be 50 years old. FIFTY.  Jesus, where did all the time go?

Maybe I'm just tired and in need of a vacation. I just don't know any more. But I do know that getting out and about today really helped. I just focused on the present as much as possible. And as dumb as it sounds, Eckhart Tolle was on Super Soul Sunday today, and watching that really helped too, at least in terms of giving me perspective.

I feel like my thoughts are all over the place right now. Perhaps I can write on all this a bit better later on. But suffice it to say, just focusing on what I have right now, really did help me feel better. And ironically enough, I stumbled across this entry from a while back. Gilda Radner's quote was appropriate to say the least.

Still, I just don't know any more if I can find what it is that will ever fill the hole in my heart. For a long time, that was the Marine, but he's gone now.

Despite what I think will make me happy, from where I stand right now, it just doesn't seem possible in terms of making any of it happen.

Is it wrong to say that? So be it.

Is It Friday Yet?

I haven't been so glad to get to the end of a work day in quite some time.

I started my new freelance gig today, which for the most part, went as most first days go. Like most places, the people are nice. It's the same place, but different, and you just need to get your head around it all.

I didn't need to be there until 930 am, but I left early to give myself more than enough time since my usual route to the Gardiner has been under construction for some time, and I would need to take Lakeshore Blvd instead. As expected, it was chugga chugga chugga the whole way, particularly once I got near the core.

I can't begin to describe what an utter sh*tstorm construction is making the south end of Toronto right now. So many condos are being built. Union station is being redone. Queen's Quay is torn apart for blocks.

So with nearly an hour to spare, I get to the parking garage right next to my office, anticipating the nice coffee I'm going to sit and enjoy. Except their system is down, which means I have to go back out and can't go back the way I've come. This forces me into a huge detour up York street, across King and back down Yonge. Enroute, a porsche sped up and pulled in front of me forcing me to slam on my breaks. It was no small consolation that he was signalling to turn right on Wellington, a street that is only one way in the opposite direction.

45 minutes later, I was parked in the furthermost regions of Toronto's arctic tundra. Yes, in the middle of one of the most miserable winters on record, there's nothing I enjoy more then parking right next to Lake Ontario and walking in gale force winds to get to work. I made it with 7 minutes to spare for a coffee and a muffin. I hate muffins for breakfast as they don't get me off to a good start, but whatever. At that moment, I would have eaten an oven warmed sneaker I was so perished.

I get to reception, meet the resource manager and get settled. I start going through the orientation documentation, which in a nice change, is robust and they have done a really good job outlining where everything is and how things are done. Except my boss isn't in and hasn't been since the previous week. He did something to resurrect an old injury and broke a rib! My other boss is off sick. So the other senior person, quite a lovely lady, talks my ear off while sending via email, various other items of documentation. Except, I'm trying to keep my composure because my bowels are telling me in no uncertain terms that the hazelnut flavoured coffee I had does not agree with me.

I manage to get back to my desk and ascertain my email is now up and running. I attempt to send a message and discover that the keyboard I have is one of those awful scaled down ones that are half the size of a normal keyboard. So I keep going to hit the space bar with my thumb and instead keep hitting letters. I confirm, thank God, that I can bring in a spare normal one from home, until help desk orders me one.

That's enough of that and I decide some lunch is in order.

The weather is miserable so I decide that the Italian place inside the building will do for today. Oh I forgot to mention. The inside foyer of the building is also a ruin because it's being completely torn apart and redone. So the Italian place is shoved into a kiosk of sorts right by the front door. The servers are in jackets because it's freezing and every time someone opens the doors, I have to hold on to my top so it doesn't blow up.

I somehow muddle through the remaining documentation and get to the end of the day. I head back home westbound on Queen's Quay as that's the way I need to go and most people are avoiding it due to everything being torn up.

I get to the street just west of Bathurst to turn left on to Lakeshore and discover after nearly a decade of using this route, that there is a no left turn between 4 and 6 pm sign. I say to myself, eff it. If I get a ticket, I get a ticket. Fortunately for me, some other poor soul had been picked off before me and I escaped unscathed.

A visit to the pet store and a pick up of dinner, got me home by 6 pm.

I can only be thankful I had the foresight to not book a spin class tonight.

Moving Right Along

Tomorrow I start at my new freelance gig. I picked up a contract at another advertising firm for 3 months. I had an in person interview last week and I had good feeling about the people and the place in general. It's a bigger ad firm, more corporate and in my comfort zone.

In the meantime, I also interviewed for a full time permanent role at a smaller private owned firm. It's more of a mixed bag and if the money's is where it needs to be, I may just do that instead. Granted it has a lot of things in play that don't bode well: small privately owned firm, not much digital expertise [or they can't seem to keep it - I don't know which] Working at these places can be tough. You get a lot of big fishes in a small pond. But generally, I liked the people I met with a great deal and though not exactly my ideal, I could do far worse if the money is where it needs to be.

We'll see. I realize how much I've changed. There was a time when I would have felt "bad" interviewing for a permanent role when I've committed to a contract. There was a time when I would have felt "bad" on Wednesday morning saying "I have to leave at 130pm for an appointment." because a firm had called me in last minute for an interview. No more. If I've learned anything from the last three years, it's look out for yourself first and foremost, because if someone just doesn't like you or some bean counter needs to notch in the corporate belt, your job is gone and that mortgage payment is still coming.

This hit me most acutely sitting in the Service Canada office this week to discuss my EI claim. Given I'd been freelancing for a while, I wasn't sure of the impact, if any, on my claim status. I don't know if there's anything quite so defeating as sitting in a government office. I've been in this place, needed these services, three times in three years. Granted the most time I've ever needed EI was for 4 months. The two other times I found work within 3 weeks. But I was just angry. I felt in that moment, that it's a hard thing to feel that people are just messing with you and your livelihood and that you can't fight back or make them pay in some way for imposing such a difficulty on your life. I really hadn't realized I even was angry about it all. And then once I did, the anger just dissipated. There's no point hanging on to it. What's done is done and I am where I am.

So off on the next adventure as of tomorrow. I'd type more, but my arms are too sore from my workout tonight. More on that later.

Do Not Do This

Do not get up slightly late and forget to put on deodorant in your groggy rush to get out the door.

Which you will realize has occurred whilst sitting at your desk wondering why your underarms feel so sweaty.

You will think to yourself, no need for the drugstore. I'll stop by the car at lunch and grab the deodorant I already have from my gym bag.

Which has been sitting outside in a minus 16 windchill.

No bother you decide. I shall leave the deodorant at room temperature for a bit before applying it.

You wait. You go to the bathroom to apply said deodorant and it feels like WEDGING A GINORMOUS ICY GOLF BALL IN YOUR ARMPIT.

Do not do this.

Cold Rag and the Q1 Boogie

And so it's begun. Back into my first week of training. I started with a Wednesday night spin glass and a Thursday night Gravity class.

Spinning was intense and great. The lights go out and there are coloured ambient lights that transition as "Wallace" the trainer talks you through the various phases. There are modules that are placed on each bike that you plug your earphones into so the sound of both the music and his voice are crystal clear.  Wallace is seriously and awesomely good at this. The talk through is flawless, the sequences great as is the choice of music for each segment. I did a 45 minute class and when Wallace remarked that it was only 8 minutes to go, I felt like I'd only been biking for 20 minutes.

Downsides? Well the seat hurts like a mother. You literally need to break in your butt muscles so they get used to the seat. And the machines at my gym are top of the line and the seats are well cushioned. It was bloody agony at times, but I kept going.  Then at the end, Wallace distributed wet wash cloths straight out the fridge. Honestly, the feeling of it hitting my overheated face and neck was akin to the second coming of Christ.

Gravity was very challenging, but interesting. You use a machine sort of like a Pilates reformer and the resistance comes from your own body weight, the machine adjusted accordingly for different intensities. You work your whole body. This is where I can honestly say I felt weak in some areas, and I have been most sore and tired from this class.  But now that the pain is lifting and I can feel that solidification in my muscles that comes on when they get stronger. I'm already feeling addicted to it.  Gravity is going to be a hard class. It's aptly named, given how well it's brought me down to earth in terms of my current fitness state.

So yes, sore and tired, as expected. I had a rotten week at work, and was then up at 7am on Saturday to go catch Rosy's basketball toss tournament.[She came in 2nd by the way and is going to the All Ontario finals. Woot!]

It all caught up with me a bit and I was immensely grateful this morning that I didn't have to go to spin today.  I was the only one booked in, given the gold medal hockey game at the Olympics. I'll go tomorrow and God help me, that's me working out for four days in a row. I'm hoping I can take it and not get "emnoyed."

This is a new word I've coined. It's kind of like "hangry" except it's the combination of trying to hold down a job while trying to move ahead in other areas of your life and not having enough time for either.  Working out and getting in shape, quite simply, wouldn't be so hard if I didn't have a job. I'd have proper time to rest. But there are far bigger problems to have. I just need to guard against getting worn down because it affects my mood so negatively. Plus work has been a gauntlet run lately.

But it's all ending this Friday. The Q1 Austerity Beast has struck, and the freelance budget was hit hard.

I was initially pretty worried about this not sleeping well etc. I know logistically I'll find something else. I always do. It just took me a little while to adjust to it. I have some full time permanent opportunities that look like they might amount to something, but part of me is beginning to enjoy freelancing, which I didn't expect.

There are many things to recommend it though. You get to work in different places. You're typically there to cover off something specific so you tend not to get overloaded with work. Frankly, the client tends to be delighted if you can show up, ramp up and get shit done quickly. You get to meet tons of new people and experience different businesses and work environments. You learn. A lot.

It may be that this is where my career is now moving. Who knows? Right now, I'm open to anything.

As Ragdoll and I so often say to each other: Head down. Work hard. Keep going.

It can accomplish miracles.

Back to Training

I'm taking a bit of a risk and have decided to sign up at a new gym. No harm to Goodlife. I love me some Goodlife. But honestly,  I was getting tired of the crowds at peak hours BEFORE I stopped going there. Now I hear my old locale is even worse.  I really had to be honest with myself. I still need some sort of incentive to work out, be it the commitment to a trainer and time, the threat of financial loss if I don't show up, and sometimes a combination of both. I don't enjoy exercising. But I enjoy the results and that's what I need to drive towards. I don't trust myself right now to just go of my own accord.

This gym I've joined offers three types of classes: Spin, TRX and gravity. The classes are kept small so you get individualized attention. It's not as cheap as a regular membership, but I figure the plusses far outweigh the negatives. I'm getting trainer expertise, but not paying full training session prices, it's a good locale close to home, you have to book a spot in advance so the crowd control is built in and all the classes are things I've never tried before.  And I can go month to month so if it gets too pricey, I can bail.  Why not try something different?

Plus I feel like I'm in a much better place to start training again. Before I was dealing with Vitamin D, Iron and Essential Fatty Acid deficiencies. I had a sleep disorder and depression. Now I have none of those things. I'm not on any medications, the nutritional deficiencies are dealt with and I sleep better now than I have in years.

I can only imagine that training, though not easy, won't be as hard as it was before.

I also didn't want to go back to Goodlife because I didn't want my trainer seeing me having gained a bunch of weight back. Is that dumb? Prolly. But I guess I just needed a fresh start somewhere else too. I associate a lot of different things with that time in my life, the time I first started training. Going back to the same place to train, I dunno. It just seemed counterproductive. I wanted to go somewhere different to clear the slate and inject a sense of momentum into things.

For the most part, I don't really feel much momentum elsewhere. This winter is unabated, I can't seem to get a permanent job, my financial progress is slower than I would like. Working out is an effective antidote to those things. Beginning, middle end. Week in. Week out. You start to find it easier to lift things. All those reps start paying off.  I want to have that feeling again.

I've also started my singing lessons again, and I know in my bones that to gain any mastery there, I've really got to get my physical self on point. No ifs, and or buts.

What can you do but keep trying?

Regroup

I've wanted to write here on a regular basis for quite some time. I've only recently felt that I can start doing that again.

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.

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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. 

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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.