Happy Day Express

Ambivalent About Either/Or

I had some pangs today about the possibility of leaving the department. People really have been awesome to me. They really like me - and they are affirming both personally and professionally.

Could This Be My Ticket?

I got called for a second interview at the county today. I am wondering if this could be why all of this happened and we were exiled to Columbus. I think I could handle living here if I didn't have the atmosphere of the state to deal with. I don't hate my current job. Exactly. I love my coworkers. For the most part. I like the work. Generally. I just hate that there seems to be so little concern for people and empowerment and freedom.

I am still waiting for the yea or nay on the chief position. It's been protracted and scandalized and WTF way too long. Yet another example of how little real regard the system has for people - for ME - as a human. It's crazy.

So I am absolutely not sure what will happen. It will be a crap shoot but I least I feel like I have some dice.

Time With Brian

I met with Brian today. It was good to be back after a holiday hiatus but it it took some time and will take some time to get reoriented to therapy. What we did talk about was the fact that I am holding back.

I am holding back at work, not wanting to get involved or make it "home", I am holding back with R, not really telling him what I am feeling or asking him for things I need, I am holding back at home, not really wanting to treat it as my home.

So the question is, what am I holding back? Why?

Suddenly

Suddenly. A striking and immediate manifestation. A sudden new understanding or awareness.

Hmmm. I wish for EPIPHANY. Unfortunately, there are very few sudden revelations, bolts of lightening so compelling that they change forever one's perceptions and beliefs. Instead, we are left to the tyranny of the gradual. And when things do change suddenly it is rarely accompanied by the corresponding insight and knowledge that supports the new reality.

I am in the land of waiting for epiphany, of waiting for revelation and a cataclysmic newness. It's just not happening.  My life changed dramatically last year, a whole new place and a whole new arc of plot. Yet I feel like I am running to catch up with the understanding, the insight, the world. And I'm not sure that I like what has been revealed.

It is in this waiting that I wait for a new job. Will it be the Chief or will it be Union or will I be passed over for both? I don't know if it really matters. I think that the real epiphany is waiting in people. In a person. In people. I think that I really just need to pick a job and go balls to the wall for it like it's the only job that I could possibly have. And I need to more than double down on my domestics.

Is that a revelation? Or is it merely revealing.

I'm lonely and feel like it just needs to be something. I have been adrift long enough and waiting for the flashing oracle to bring me what I need. I probably just need to go make my own epiphany.

“Do you ever feel that way?"
"Lonely?"
I search for the words. "Restless. As if you haven't really met yourself yet. As is you'd passed yourself once in the fog, and your heart leapt - 'Ah! There I Am! I've been missing that piece!' But it happens too fast, and then that part of you disappears into the fog again. And you spend the rest of your days looking for it."
He nods, and I think he's appeasing me. I feel stupid of having said it. It's sentimental and true, and I've revealed a part of myself I shouldn't have.
"Do you know what I think?" Kartik says at last.
"What?"
"Sometimes, I think you can glimpse it in another.”
― Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing

SMM - Soul Murder Monday

Today was just a Monday. Post-holiday. Post-apocolyptic. I don't hate my job. The work is generally interesting and benignly meaningful. I hate the Tower. I hate the air and the color and the harshness. I hate the soul-murdering system that makes decent people abdicate and shitty people permanant. I hate not being able to control when the lights go out in my office and I hate walking through smoke to get into the building.

And, perhaps most of all, I hate the mentality of absolute minimum. What is the absolute minimum we can (do, provide, pay, expect) to provide for our (employees, constituents, bosses, planet)? What is the absolute minimum length of paper towels that we can provide and still say that we provide paper towels? What is the least we can pay you and still get everything we need out of you with a minimal of hassle?

Nothing is maximum. What is the maximum amount of creativity we can inspire in our employees to bring the maximum amount of joy to the world? Nope.

And so every day I'm there I die a little inside. I become more of the SOT gray, that harsh, flourescent Soviet shade of despair. I don't want to be anyone's minimum. How long can I deal with this bullshit? I want to work somewhere that I make more money and have more color and engender more life and don't get disgusted by the absolute minimum. I bequeath that to Dr. VAJAYJAY and she can have my sloppy seconds.

I hope I hear from the Union soon. I think I could like working there and being the one who brings color and life and engagement. However, I need to remember that even if nothing happens, nothing changes, new positions are given to others, that this is not the end for me. I can continue to look for something amazing.

http://youtu.be/q3VPt2BSFn0

Dream a Little Dream

Last night, I had a very strange dream. I was making a documentary of stories of my family. I was interviewing each person and intended to make a film of them telling about themselves. My grandparents and parents were there and so were others. However, my attention was needed somewhere so I made them watch a documentary of the 1960's that was controversial and which I knew they would find objectionable.

My idea was that they would see the gritty, truthful documentary and then understand that they needed to be more transparent and real, not giving the Jesus-shined version of family folklore, but tell the truest truth.

I knew that they would be up in arms with the content of the free love film, but I saw on my mother's face a look I had never seen before: she understood. She got it. Her expression was one that said, "I know I need to step outside of my usual constructs and just tell the damn truth."

And then I woke up. It was over. Her expression faded and truth was gone.

It never ceases to amaze me how much parental content I have in my unconscious. It's as if their entire job, especially my mother, was to jam pack my psyche with bullshit that would take me a dozen lifetimes to uncrate. Their work was flawlessly executed for amateurs.

The origin of the dream is undoubtedly a package from my mother that arrived at Christmas. It sits unopened and completely mocking by my barren tree. Here is my thought about it - they do not get to have it both ways. They do not get the right to gift me and then check something off in their minds that they made they effort.

They already have their gift - it is the gift of thinking that they're superior and right. That supersedes all relationships, just being right. No real need for any mind-expanding Aquarian documentary on the necessity of transparency. It would do no good whatsoever.

I will mail their gift back. Or maybe I won't. I don't know. I know that there will never be a documentary of family film where people own up to things and take responsibility and see things differently so random packages are of little consequence. Just the stuff of dreams.

There' Got to Be a Morning After

Last night was great. Our host was wonderful and he really worked hard to make things special and detailed.
It was fun to be a bit boozy and handsy and laugh and get to know people. Maybe we're getting a little more established here. R seemed to have a good time and feel well-liked. That helped us both.

The host is clearly into me. That helps too. I'm sure I will get to return the favor of the invite...

Party All the Time

We're getting ready to go to a party tonight at the home of a new friend. Actually R went to a party on NY's eve at another friend's where our host for tonight was a guest. I joined them after work and the host for tonight was deliciously drunk. He ended up sticking his tongue down my throat and kissed me and confessed his undying lust.

Um, yes please.

He's quite handsome. I'm looking forward to the party. We have a nice assortment of things to take to eat and share, lots of booze and drinks, and of course, a tasteful gift for the host.

Not nearly as tasteful as what he will get from me later.

On Writing and Emily Post

Well, here we are at the first day of 2015. Who would have thought that at some point it would be THIS year? That it would be the year of my 50th birthday? That I would be where I am NOW? I am not sure what to even think about manifesting this year in terms of the wheres, whens, whys and hows. I never dreamt I would be living in Cbus, married to R, and looking for an identity I thought was fairly well fossilized.

I don't have huge New Year's resolutions today. I don't have the "THIS IS THE YEAR I FINALLY GET IN SHAPE" compulsion at this time. Of course I need to, but...What I do have, however, is a commitment to writing- every single day. I don't care if this is just a sentence that says "Absolutely nothing to write today." I need to make sure that writing is a discipline that supports my feelings and needs and what I have to say is recorded for later reflection.

The other thing that I believe will guide me toward reestablishing the positive trajectory of me is ORDER. I need to have order. I need better organization and to keep up with housework. But really what I need is to manifest correctness. There is a correct way to do things. A correct way to run a household, a correct way for it to look, a correct way to interact with others and inhabit one's space in the world.

For some wack reason I was reading Emily Post's 1922 Etiquette Guide and came across this quote:
"Carelessness in any of the details that to well-bred people constitute the decencies of living, are no more tolerated in the smallest cottage than in the palace."

LOVE!

God is indeed in the details. I need details and niceties and correct living. Silverware must be polished and clothes must be sorted by color and pattern. Far from being silly additions, these are the things that ground me and I love them and it is what I offer to the world.

Regardless of where I work or where I live, there are lots of things that I can do to make things nicer and more conducive to feeling good. There is lots of space in our apartment to organize and make things more livable. There's lots of room in my life for taking a little extra care with fashion and decor and home.

I will channel my inner Faulkner and outer Martha to make things work beautifully and appear effortless. I must and I will.

Affectionately yours,
DS