Kick the Can

Life always has ups and downs.  Everyone knows this, or quickly finds out.  Perhaps another way to phrase a down-time would be to call it a fight or internal/external battle.  Maybe it’s the lack of struggle, for some people find that they need the external upheaval and discord to make life interesting and not fall into a rut.  Many people seem to suffer from boredom and tedium, something I’m not familiar with, but have craved for most of my life. 

Finally, after many years of struggle with one situation or another, I feel free from most stressors.  Sure they’re laying off people at work and some day I’ll be one of them, but I don’t go to a job were I clean up human feces straight from the source (anymore), and no one tries to punch or kill me (anymore).  Outside of work, I have my hobbies and things that keep me occupied.  Going to the gym, rolling my oblong form around on the ground with the other limber (slender) participants.  I read and write (sometimes).  And for years, I made art.  Huge emotionally dark things bespeaking to a time as a cripple and horribly depressed, financially ruined person.  Giving up art meant giving up a lot of that anger. 

Or perhaps it was how I’ve changed my outlook in  general.  In times of strife I like to rely upon family.  In this case, my favorite aunties: auntie-depressant and auntie-anxiety.  Mixed with large doses of a shrink, and equilibrium has been made.  After twelve years of dedication and love, I left my long time lover, Cigarettes.  God, I miss her.  But with her out of my life I have a great deal more time.  Which could lead to the precipice of tedium.  Along with smoking, I gave up a favorite hobby: dating. 

If pressed, I’m fairly certain that my long history of inappropriate dating would instigate a line of men that would wrap around the block and meet back at my door to ask for dinner and a ride to their friend’s house.  Would you lend a $20 for the bar?  Needless to say, it’s a lot more relaxed in my head and my home.  That being said, now there is more time for the dreaded life review and goal setting. 

When I turned thirty, I looked back and said, thank God I never made any goals in my life.  I did graduate from collage, a BS (and yes it is) in art, have a job (but not a career), and a couple of very lovely housemates.  This, I’m afraid, is the part I have the most difficult time with.  The job and living like a teenager.  Granted, I adore my housemates and would hate to move out, not to mention that I can’t afford to and as for the job… welcome to the economic boom.  As in crash. 

My troubles are now so white middle-low-class (is that real?) that it makes me want to vomit.  Is this what it means to not have the constant battle?  To have the glory of just being happy to not be in pain or to be able to smile and mean it?  No one to avoid or be chased by, to break in or try, no one to cheat you or on you.   Is this really enough?  Just to be happy that nothing bad is happening?

The answer:  Yes.  What do you think?  Sometimes its not easy to make it through the day, wonder what cosmic joke you rode in on, or galactic asshole is pressing down on you for fun.   But those horrible things, those terrible nasty days that make you never want to wake up again have the ability to make the days that aren’t like that seem just that much brighter.  I’ve been waiting for so long to not be terrified, or hurt, or angry that I almost feel all those things just out of the normalcy they bring.  In a way, its as addictive as smoking was.

Its easy to get used to misery.  To having nothing to rely on but yourself and a broken reality.  Getting bogged down in the garbage of work.  People who get paid two to three times more for doing much, much less but hold you responsible for any errors just to make themselves look better.  It seems like a fake trouble.  Like something not real.  But it still is.  And its valid. 

I suppose the point I’m trying to make (to myself), is that even when life slows down, or things seem insurmountable, its important to own your feelings, but not be carried away with them or by them.  The other day I was sitting in my cubicle and actually lost my complete luster for what I do everyday.  Hard not to.  And the difficulty to engage in my own purpose has been smothering.  I forgot to forward an issue to be reprocessed on time.  It wouldn’t have been a problem if the payment run was still operating twice a week, but that change recently to once a week.  My first though: shit.  Now I’m going to miss my deadline, get written up, get my lead (whom I adore) written up and possibly fired.  And then the gloom rolled in.  Not even fear.  Just gloom. 

With a better written statement, I could find a way to end this with an upbeat, or with some moral, but I can’t right now.  Later, maybe?  Perhaps that’s the part of life that I’ve been missing for so many years.  It just goes on. 

The end.