Learning to Live with Myself

Yes, let's just name every post after a Merle Haggard song.

Working from home. I've been at this job nearly two weeks and have just been doing training on my laptop, using my TV tray and my WalMart folding chair. That's my only furniture other than an air mattress. Suppose to have all my other stuff moved here maybe next month.

The first weekend was the hardest, when I first got here. It's still not easy. I don't go anywhere other than my immediate area here. I like the town I'm in. There's a lumber company nearby that looks like something out of Twin Peaks. I walk along the river. Other than the occasional trip for grocery shopping, I try not to go anywhere if I can't get there on foot. There's public transit here, but I feel like it's irresponsible to travel that way unless it's important.

I may have already had COVID and not really known it. My wife had bad symptoms [though no fever, so her doctor couldn't test her.] I had a mild sore throat/congestion and a slight pain in my lungs, but that subsided eventually. We'll probably never know. My parents' area in Oklahoma has been hit really hard considering how small a town it is. They think they had an outbreak at the small country church they attend, even though they quit holding services a couple of months ago. My parents most likely had it, they were both pretty sick but have recovered. They tested negative, but I think were starting to recover by the time they were tested.

I don't know if I like my job or not. It feels like it hasn't really started. My life here hasn't really started. I'm only sad some of the time now. But it's hard to get used to. 2020 seems to be all about getting used to things that we didn't think we'd ever have to get used to, on every level.

Wishing All These Old Things Were New

This is a 2000s era Merle Haggard song. The title makes you think it's about regret and lost opportunities, but it's really about the desire to take up one's old addictions again, as if it were the first time, and bemoaning sobriety. Leave it to Merle to swerve into bad behavior.

Nevertheless, the title resonates for me as it first appears. I do wish I could go back again. I think a lot of my life has been spent trying to re-do things and start over. I transferred colleges like nobody's business as an undergrad, each time hoping that the next place would be more of a fit. I didn't have the experience of returning to the same college after summer break until my fourth year of school [and of course, due to all the transferring, I was only a junior by then.]

I went back to school to become an accountant, and only after about nine years and five different jobs do I feel like I may have succeeded, but I see the same pattern of leaving. Now I may be about to start what will probably be my last job at least for a long while, maybe the last ever.

Always trying to move on, looking for a better place. I married someone who had the same habit, and that caused an exponential increase in the behavior.

Now as I'm starting to approach the last decade of what could be called middle age, I may be finally somewhat settled. Depends on if the old things can remain old, and if new things can be learned. Guess we will see.

I'm trying to post more. I got nothing better to do these days.

Quarantine days

Ended up not flying and just renting a place sight unseen. I leave in a couple of days. Ending this chapter of my life. Feel like I'm going backward, but at least I'm moving to a new city.

The quarantine really starts now. I'll be living alone, and working from home until things change. Sleeping on an air mattress. Will probably buy a lawn chair or something. Gotta rebuild everything. Gotta start over. Still in a better position than I was, in some ways.