What you Do vs. Who you Are

Jobs are important. Having the money to survive your life and pay your way through it while also having some extra to do fun things is important. It’s so important to many that we get jobs that are a complete and utter waste of time. They have no meaning. They add nothing to our lives nor do they enrich it any way. So we have to find our fun outside of work, make that money we earned doing useless task after useless task mean something. To have it matter in some way.

Maybe that fun stuff is donating to charity, maybe it’s simply going to the bar with friends to have a few drinks and relax or maybe it’s renting a movie and relaxing at home. For everyone it’s different. For everyone it is special.

But what if you don’t have that? What if you go home from work each and every day and just feel sad that your life has been reduced to this?

Or what if, after a day of meaningless work, you are so tired and strung out that you have nothing left to offer anyone and just crawl into bed at 8:30pm because you know it all starts over again tomorrow?

Is this depression? Maybe it is. Or maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s a feeling of being stuck as a cog in a wheel that goes absolutely nowhere. That day in and day out you go to work, you do your job (in a mediocre fashion because really, what does it matter?) and then you go home. Eat dinner. Go to bed. Lather, rinse and repeat for tomorrow.

I don’t have any answers here. I am merely trying to figure my place in this world. Because I work at a job that is so completely without meaning that I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t know how I am going to continue waking up at 6am and going to a place where people obsess about the weather, where they rant and rave against invisible toilet paper snatchers and where they make everyone take a turn at being kitchen captain and then are mystified when their kitchen captains DON’T GIVE A SHIT about it.

I try to look at the good. They are kind and seemingly compassionate people who have been very patient while I have fallen apart mentally and physically these last two months. They have not questioned or become angry at my missing work (I have missed more work here than I ever did in the six years I worked at ATM, go figure) and they don’t care how much vacation time you take. I can wear jeans and flip flops. I can sit here writing my blog post and no one notices. There are very clear “Pro’s” to this job.

It’s just that the “Con’s” are making me feel crazy. The work runs dry a lot so I end up sitting her with nothing to do. It also gives me 8 hours each day to contemplate my place in the world as I suffer through my very first existential crises. Good and Bad. Too much time to think about yourself and your problems can oftentimes create MORE problems. In the end though, it has given me the space to see what MY issues are and how to go about rectifying them. So that is a plus right?

I guess in the end it is a way to make money, it’s health insurance, it’s a way to keep a roof over my head, food in my belly and a cold glass of whiskey in my hand.

But it cannot last for long. Or I might just lose my way and I cannot lose my way again. It took me far too many years for me to find it. So if you see me on the street and I start obsessing about the weather and toilet paper, give me a good HARD smack across the face and remind me that there are other things to obsess about.

Christian Bale for one.
Cookies for two.
Booze for three.

What I do for a LIVING isn’t important. Who I AM is what matters.

The Juice Gives Great Phone.

Not to brag, but I give great phone.

Seriously. As grumpy, persnickety and ornery as I may seem in real life. Over the phone I am the epitome of kindness, grace and peppy good nature.

Normally that type of good phone work gets a response from the person on the other end of the line with equal parts happiness. Not here, not here at my work where good manners went to die. Here my happy little spit fire nature is met with what can only be suspicion or confusion. Like these people aren’t used to talking to nice people. I don’t get it.

My adventures here in office land have been met with failure. I appreciate the kind and open vibe of this place but there are no manners that I have come to expect via email and phone and in PERSON over the years. There isn’t that genuine love for what is being done that I got spoiled with at my old job and there isn’t any PASSION here.

I still do not regret quitting my old job but I’m starting to question the longevity of this position. I may lose my mind here.

Thank God I have Yoga. Or I would if my body and mind would stop collapsing so that I cannot go. But hey, Yoga is always there right? A patient, loving friend waiting to wrap its arms around me once I am fully able (mentally and physically) to return to its embrace.

Thank GOD for YOGA.

Cuz I ain’t kidding my friends. I wouldn’t make it here without it.

“You cannot do yoga. Yoga is your natural state. What you can do are yoga exercises, which may reveal to you where you are resisting your natural state.” ~Sharon Gannon

I've Lost That Faithful Feeling

Let me take a moment and preface this post with the following:

1.I know that everything my friends and loved ones say is meant to help.
2.I know it all comes from a place of love and that it eventually does help.
3.This is in no way an indictment of the kindness of those who love me. I appreciate and adore them and would be lost without them.

All that being said, let us begin.

My whole life I have had ups and downs emotionally. I range from depression to happiness like anyone else. As the years have passed I have found a way to crawl out of the depression in a more clear and healthy way. That doesn’t mean that I don’t still fall into the hole of it from time to time. It happens and I wallow for a bit and then usually move on.

This time it feels different. This time I feel as though I have hit the wall of my ability to have faith in the Universe. I know and still believe there is a plan behind it all. But as time goes on and things fall apart for me I have less and less faith that the Universe is going to come up with one big giant win for me. Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t. Problem is, I have a win. I’m happy. I’m going along and that nagging little voices is whispering in my ear “It won’t last. You know it’s all going to fall apart. You aren’t worthy of this happiness.” I have gotten much better at pushing that voice aside. But you know what? 9 out of 10 times that damn voice is RIGHT.

I feel humiliated by my blind faith in the Universe, by my going around saying this is great, this is going to work out. Im finally going to have the things that I want and be HAPPY. I ignored the little voice. I ignored my own gut instincts and I sit here, writing this and wondering about the point of it all. Yes Ce, I am having my very own existential crisis.

My friends are amazing, wonderfully strong and so supportive it makes me want to weep with joy at having been lucky enough to have found them. But they don’t know what to say. There is honestly nothing to BE said about it. What has happened to me in my life lately is what is happening. I cannot control it. I cannot ignore it. They cannot fix it. All they can do is love me and they do.

But I am sick of hearing the following phrases:

1.In the future, it’ll be easier (yes, I know this)
2.Their loss.
3.There is a plan and a lesson with this, as with everything.
4.You did the right thing
5.That right thing/person/alien life form will come along and you’ll be SO happy

The reason this stuff pisses me off? Because it doesn’t help me. It doesn’t soothe the pain and it doesn’t make me suddenly get up and say, “By God You are RIGHT! I feel better.” And that may not be the point. But its all that can be said to someone in pain. It doesn’t change the pain and it doesn’t make it go away. So I ask those that I love, don’t say it. Just love me and try to distract me from the pain I feel and let me just be in this space with it. I have lost my faith, I don’t know if it’ll come back because I can’t see that far ahead but it’s gone right now. I need to retreat for a bit and lick my wounds, wallow a bit and just sit with the pain and confusion that is inside me right now. I know this sounds melodramatic and really, I am quite aware things could be worse but the last month or so have been too much for me. Too many tests and too many painful realizations for me to continue on with my blind faith in the Universe.

It is all a leap of faith sure but I am too afraid to leap right now. I admit that with a heavy heart but I cannot be honest with myself without saying that. And I wont live in the fear forever, I know myself to well to lie like that as well but its what I need to do. My heart feels broken in a million pieces after so much pressure on it and it wasn’t one person who did this but many events and people over a period of time (and my own body breaking down in the last month) and I need to heal.

Depressing Thoughts

Its cliched but true that death makes you re-evaluate everything in your life. Your job, your friends, your lovers, your family, anything and everything gets shoved under a microscope and you study it until your cross-eyed, exhausted and want to throw up.

And you start asking yourself questions that are really fucking hard to answer.

What is the point of my job other than money? Is it fulfilling me? Is it feeding my soul? Are my friends doing these things as well? Am I doing these things for my friends? Am I making a difference in anyone’s life? Why am I still single (if single), why cant I find the one? Why do I keep finding the ones who don’t want me? Where is “Mr. Right” and why isn’t there a “Mr. Right Now” available to comfort me when I am feeling this low?

And on and on and on it goes…a revolving door of tragic thoughts, maudlin wallowing and overwhelming life questions. None of it makes me feel better and none of it serves a purpose really except to remind me that my friends and family love me and I them. That my job is pointless and boring and doesn’t do anything except pay my bills and maybe that’s not enough for me anymore. That I need to find something fulfilling and I don’t know how to find it or what it is exactly. And that men will always elude, confuse and mystify me.

So I feel cross-eyed, exhausted and kind of like I want to barf.

But as these things do, it will all pass.