"I'm transforming, I'm vibrating...."

I am not the same person I was a year ago, and not just in the obvious ways [being married, living in a different city, with a different job...] I do miss my old life, my old home, the ease of my marriage even if it ultimately didn't work out.

Life is better in many ways. I don't have as many worries, and feel good about the future regardless of some of the things I'm dealing with at the moment. I think I'm through the miserable winter, and am hopeful next time will be better.

But as so often has been the case, I often feel my happiness is a delicate balance and the slightest setback could send me into despondency yet again. Hopefully I am learning and adapting. Several online acquaintances have gone through divorce fairly recently and my only advice is to eventually try to view it as an opportunity for growth and transformation. Early on, this will likely be impossible, but once an equilibrium is found---do something you've wanted to do but didn't think you could. Try something you haven't before. Run with a different crowd, or maybe no crowd at all. Become a stranger to yourself.

Hunger is the best sauce

My [now ex] mother-in-law had a saying, “Hunger is the best sauce.” The sense of need, of lack, makes everything taste better. I had no electricity for most of the past week. All I could think of was how much I would enjoy things when the power came back on. My neighbors had all left after the first day or so without power. I had candles which had a overpowering floral scent that made my apartment smell like a grandmother’s house. My next door neighbor came by to check on his place and asked how I was doing, but was giving me a wide berth. I probably looked a little crazed. Someone who goes without heat and light for four days in winter might be capable of anything.

Without meaning to, I’ve developed a practice about many physical comforts, where denying them for a short while makes me appreciate them more. I am that way a lot about food, and heat/cooling. Heat feels wonderful when you’ve been very cold, but is not that remarkable if it is on regularly, even in winter. I tend to skip meals often, in order to more fully enjoy the meals that I do eat, and of course the benefit of weight loss. I freely admit to not having the healthiest relationship with food, and struggle with putting too many psychological associations on it. I often enjoy making myself uncomfortable in order to better enjoy it when the period of discomfort is lifted.

My electricity returned in time for the weekend. I was out walking, trying to see if there were any work trucks in my neighborhood. Seeing none, I began to despair, but then saw that a traffic light that had been out for days was now working. As I grew closer to my apartment, I saw more lights on. When I opened my door, I returned to the 21st century. Today I replenished the food I’d had to throw in the trash, though I noticed myself being hesitant to buy too many perishable items. I wonder if I will always be skeptical about electricity from now on, always assuming it could be taken away again at any moment. Perhaps that’s not the worst way to be. Earlier in the week, I was walking to an emergency warming center that had electricity to get some work done on my laptop. As I walked, I saw everything closed for blocks…gas stations not working, traffic lights out, businesses closed. I felt as if I was in the prologue of a dystopian film or novel, like The Road. Perhaps this was an early glimpse of the future.

Stillness.

It snowed and it's the first time I've lived someplace with snow for about 5-6 years Thankfully, no need to get out in it unless I want to. Three day weekend but I'm stuck at home due to the weather and transit being shut down. Hopefully by Monday I might able to at least go somewhere else.
I often feel like a fugue took place in 2003 and I woke in 2020 in another state, older, with a different job. "I used to be darker, then I got lighter, then I got dark again..." My ex used to work in a nursing home and often spoke in horror about a patient who suddenly had a psychotic break one day and no longer recognized his family. I don't feel like the same person I was a year ago, for good and for bad. There's one good thing about being alone, there's no one to define you. It's easier to write your own story, wahtever that might be. Not that I write much these days.

I need to view this weekend as an opportunity to just be still, and think, and decide what's valauble, and how I want to write my story going forward.

Reinventing the wheel would be an improvement....

My workplace woes continue. I've been there almost 10 months now, and don't feel much more capable than I was on my first day. Still not too clear about most of my duties. Sometimes it feels like some really boring, unamusing game at a party that you never wanted to attend. I need to do X, I'm told to do Y, only find that doesn't work, so I need to try to find the name of anothr type of report from this other person, who responds after a few hours. But in the end, I'm still not sure how the report helps with my objective. I would say we re-invent the wheel every day, but that's giving way too much credit since having a wheel would actually be useful. This is more like trying to understand the concept of shapes everyday and choosing a rhombus.

Longtime readers [if any exist] know this is not a new problem for me, and it makes me think of the saying about how if you run into one asshole, you ran into an asshole, but if you run into assholes all day long the asshole is you. If you continue having issues getting started in job after job, and having communication issues with your boss, maybe the problem lies with me.

I've enjoyed a couple of my jobs since changing careers---I enjoyed working at the medical clinic in Oklahoma though I had a similar case where I never quite understood some of the things I was supposed to be doing. And I liked my job at the nonprofit, though I had similar issues with a noncommunicative boss. But I felt like I was supporting valuable work, and felt like I knew what I was doing at least half of the time. Since I had to leave the nonprofit a few years ago, it's just been a lot of uncertainty. I think I was happiest in my first full time job after college, as a data entry clerk for the Post Office. I'm lucky that I've been able to return to the federal system, so I should be in a position to retire in not too long now. But it's weird to be heading into the last decade or so of my career and to still feel so unsure of myself, and still trying to find my footing.

Looking at the bright side.

Valentine's Day is just another day again! Seriously, I do try to list the things that I no longer have to worry about now, though they have been replaced by other worries. Feel like there are so many things I need to do these days, but I try to just do what I can, even though that isn't much. Sometimes the main goal for the day is to do the dishes. To just go outside and walk for a while. To read [I'm still finding reading difficult, which greatly saddens me.] Work remains unsatisfying. I'm starting to think it won't get better. I haven't even been here a year and I'm already in a rut.

Deadly tedium....

It's winter now, and I'm still adjusting to it. The days are getting longer, thankfully. I try to remember to use a light therapy lamp half an hour a day. It's pretty cold and I often don't care to walk or go places like I used to. Which means staying in my apartment, which I don't really like. I still try to go out at least once or twice a week, though nothing like I was doing during summer and fall.

I don't really have an end goal anymore. Retirement, I guess. I feel like much of my life has been poorly spent, I guess that's a common thing to feel at this age. Trying therapy again soon. We'll see. Gotta keep moving. I hope the weather starts warming up in a month or two.

One of the hallmark signs of depression is losing interest in things you were once excited about, and I can say that's true. I have trouble reading. A lot of the online communities I enjoyed earlier this year have lost their appeal to me. I'm not really interested in exploring the city or even in going to many of the places I used to enjoy. I've kind of lost interest in going out and drinking. I can sometimes do passive activites like watching something online, but even then I often lose interest in shows. I tend to favor older movies these days just because they aren't so long.

I'm less fearful about 2021 after today, but really wonder what the year will bring.

The end of everything. Or at least 2020.

I often still long for the life I had a year ago. It is sadly amusing to look at the posts from earlier in my time here. I had more optimism. I don't feel that so much now. I wonder what I'm doing here. I feel permanently out of sync.

I made it through the solitary holidays with some help from Zoom and a lot of help from my online friends. Had a rough Boxing Day, I think the strain finally got to me on that day. I'm lonely but not willing to really do a lot to prevent that. My dating really escalated in the fall and I met someone who I knew wasn't right for me but I went ahead anyway. I finally was able to break things off while it was still relatively easy to extricate myself. I've stopped seriously looking for a partner. I think the whole dating thing was an attempt to create the appearance of normality, but it was similar to a drunken man trying to walk extra carefully during a sobriety test. I was not fooling anyone other than myself.
I mainly look for friends on the dating sites now. I have one friend with whom I have chatted almost this entire time, we finally met in November and that was nice. Work still isn't so great, but apparently it doesn't matter.

Self expression is really what's getting me through. I don't write as much as I once did, obviously, but I do other things. Maybe I will try to get back to writing in 2021.

This is my life now. It's hard for me to accept. I feel like I've gone backward and forward in time simultaneously. My lifestyle has become the same as 20 years ago, but I am 20 years older. As far as what 2021 holds...who knows. Thank you for being there, Imaginary [and maybe not so imaginary] Reader.