Coping skills

Anne Shirley: Can't you even IMAGINE you're in the depths of despair?
Marilla Cuthbert: No I cannot. To despair is to turn your back on God.


Even though I read not too long ago that the unemployment rate has been dropping from 10% to some fraction in the 9%, I was put there in the ranks of the jobless. A couple days ago I was laid off from my job. And I reacted the way I usually react to bad news or any sudden change. I tried to controll whatever I could.

I went straight to my part time retail job and explained the situation to my managers and changed my hours. Since I'm now more available, I'm taking steps to take advantage of that. I needed a new computer since I don't know if I can successfully re-install my wireless card into my tower without breaking anything. So, I asked for help on the research for the spec's and I was lovingly taken care of with acquiring my new laptop. (Big props must also be given to Molly of the Johnson City Best Buy who spent a better part of an hour working out a way I can walk out of the door with the purchase.)

Of course, I am going through all emotional swings one might go through. Moving to Tennesse has proved to be ... character building. At 32, I thought I was mostly through with 'finding myself', but like any piece of furniture you try to put together, sometimes you have to go through the painful disassemble to rebuild a part to make things stronger or prettier or more functional.

Even before the shock of a couple days ago, I had been contemplating the people in my life. The people whom I have and will continue to love and who will continue to love me back. I have been a part of intensly beautiful relationships of all stages and levels. And that love and support from all I can count on, emotionally, spiritually and physically, is what is going to help me find where I'm going.

The silly things we do to ourselves

One of the songs that comes up on my Christmas station (Pandora) is “The River.” Usually sung by Joni Mitchell, but it comes up a couple times since several people have covered it (one of my favorites being Robert Downey Jr.)

But every single time it comes up, wherever I am, it makes me sad. Sometimes near tears and even fewer times does it actually succeed in making me cry. About 10 min ago, there was success.

I just suddenly started recounting everything of this past year. From last Christmas when I was sad and crying my eyes out from being away from family and missing Christmas to the events of my last couple of months.

I sat there and I listened to the whole song without skipping it. Whenever I do that, I call it my lyrical cutting. I do it just to feel that emotion out until I can get past it.

It normally doesn't plague me for too long and I do calm down and breathe through it. But, man, it's hard sometimes.

Reverse order: something that's been weighing on me today

Who doesn't know what I'm talking about
Who's never left home, who's never struck out
To find a dream and a life of their own
A place in the clouds, a foundation of stone

Many precede and many will follow
A young girl's dream no longer hollow
It takes the shape of a place out west
But what it holds for her, she hasn't yet guessed

She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes

She traveled this road as a child
Wide eyed and grinning, she never tired
But now she won't be coming back with the rest
If these are life's lessons, she'll take this test

She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes

As her folks drive away, her dad yells, "Check the oil!"
Mom stares out the window and says, "I'm leaving my girl"
She said, "It didn't seem like that long ago"
When she stood there and let her own folks know
She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes

I'll trip, fall, pick myself up and Walk unafraid

In honor of my year anniversary of moving to Tennessee, let's review what's happened:

-I have been at my full time job at BCTI for 6 months and continue to keep my part time job at Bath and Body Works
-I'm slowly, ever so slowly, making friends and starting to have a bit of a social life
-Of my friends, there have been 4 couples who have become engaged, 3 who have married, 2 babies born and one old friend who has passed away
-I am in the process of finding my own place to live.

After giving it more than just the college try, Max and I have come to the conclusion that we will not continue our relationship. It's taken the couple months since the final decision to come to a point of being able to talk freely about it, and to even consider picking up my still packed boxes to my very own place.

There was no catastrophic event that broke us up, so there's no lasting anger. It's not how I would have thought things would go and but there's no hate. And after three years of a relationship, there is still the detanglement that needs to happen. I have some really fantastic friends who has been helping me limp along and I'm still slipping on the basket case clothes from time to time, but everyone, including Max, has helped in their own way. And I love all of them dearly for it.

And now I'm looking at a different benchmark. Even while incredibly nervous of the unknown, I know that I was lead here for the purpose of finding out what I've been about for the past 31 years. While living in the same area and having friends since middle and high school is great, sometimes it just doesn't help you figure out the 'you' of the younger years and the 'you' of the adult years. Now that I'm basically starting from zero with no one here in my day to day who knew the 'me' from before, I get to really figure out what I'm made of. I've never lived alone, so that in itself will be a new challenge.

I am hoping to chronicle what I find out, but I've never been great about documentation and I find that most things should be in the 'duh' category and feel embarrassed about broadcasting. But who knows? Maybe it'll be as cathartic as I hear it's supposed to be.

If I just breathe, Let it fill in the space between, I'll know everything's alright

Today was my first day of yoga. My manager at Bath and Body Works has been promoting her parents' studio and encouraged me to go. Plus, it turns out a coworker at BCTI has been long-time friends with the couple and she also was insisting that I join. So, after weeks of promising myself I'd go, I finally got myself out of bed this morning and went.

I met my coworker on the way in and she picked out the spots for our mats. The only problem was, mine was right next to the decorative water fountain. Throughout the full hour, there were the gentle sounds of relaxed breathing, lovely music, and the tinkling of the water cascading and draining. No matter how smart I was in using the bathroom before going to class, I had to concentrate hard to not be... too relaxed. Which leads me to think of 'Friends'

Because my mind works by running clips and blips of all kinds of media, while I was supposed to clear my head, I, instead, had a plethora of brief images of what I've seen, but not really songs because the instructor had some mellow tunes running in the background. First image: the first episode of the 3rd season of 'Friends', Phoebe was trying to get Monica to relax so that she could sleep, and with the even-tone and relaxing voice she was trying to have Monica concentrate on the 'plinking, plunking' sounds of the music and 'the lovely waterfalls, and the, the trickling fountains. And the-the calming sounds of the babbling brook....' and making her friend need to pee.

My mind then shifted to stand-up comedy.

In Ellen Degeneres' stand-up she spoke of two commercials and this popped into my head as well: 1) the old Clorox jingle, "Mamma's got the magic of Clorox 2"; 2) the end tag-line jingle "By Mennen". So that took my thoughts for a while as I tried to suppress the urge to laugh out loud.

I got serious and tried to do the following things:
-Commit to myself the next hour
-Appreciate my feet
-Become a dead bug or a happy baby

...with minimal success. Commercials were going through my mind.

During the time when we were just supposed to lie down, relax and clear our heads, I continued to resist letting go of thoughts and could only theorize on "Lost". I'm working on a different idea of why there are some in the 70's, some in the 'present' and what was supposed to happen when 815 was first knocked out of the sky. And to make it even funnier, we ended our session by saying to each other-

'Namaste'

The class on a whole was fun and the people there were nice. I'll go again and do better next time.

Weight off my mind

Since about a week before Thanksgiving, I have been basically auditioning for a job that I saw listed on a job search website. At first glance, it was just listed as an 'executive assistant', but after a phone interview, a face-to-face interview with two people from HR and then a third interview with the same two ladies, the project manager and the boss they were looking to assist, they gave me a better idea of what they were really looking for - a brand new position to keep the boss organized. And he's not just a run of the mill boss. This guy started this company about a decade ago and has way too many ideas and way too many tasks already running, but no filter system and believes the world runs on a 48 hour day. His co-workers finally realized that they need someone to keep his schedule, keep his voicemail, kick him out the door to be in time for meetings and basically make sure that his brain and the schedule of others actually coincide. And that is just the first couple of layers.

The more they explained the job, the more they kept halting the conversation and was asking me if I was getting scared off. I kept insisting that I wasn't, and I wasn't just trying to get a job. I am so intrigued by this position. In my professional life, there's nothing that matches this, but with the grand total of my experiences in my personal life, I know I can do this job. The guy is a computer engineer tech guy, who is high energy, no concept of time and not the greatest at explaining everything he wants but would like it to come to fruition anyway. Within the group of people I know, that's a mishmash of a good number of them.

Now, the job was only confirmed to be mine today, after about a week and a half of waiting. And they can't have me start until late Feb/early March because my boss is busy training a new person to take one more responsibility off his plate so that he can go full force on the bizillion and one other ideas he has cooking. But in the meanwhile, they have offered to let me audit the classes they run at their location. This will give me a chance to catch up to all of the 2007 upgrades to the programs I need to know. I'm excited, though a little disappointed I can't start until then. But I think this is really going to be a interesting opportunity.

Hooray!

Well, that was successful, though not with any content.

I do plan to sit down and have an entry about the slight differences between what I know of Tennessee and what I grew up with in Jersey, but for another time. Soon. I hope maybe this afternoon, if football isn't too much of a distraction.