July 6, 2008
New Directions
Sometimes depression and stagnation hit you where and when you least expect it. At the beginning of June, while on our long awaited vacation to NYC, I realized how unhappy I'd become with how we were living life. As I sat in a hotel room for the better part of a week, the silence was all I could hear, and all I could react to. All of my plans for museums, gardens, and catching up with a city I love, fell by the wayside; I was so tired, and so fried from being available to people 24/7, that it WAS a vacation to simply interact with no one. The silence gave me a lot of time to think, and a lot of time to listen to myself. What did I really want? What was best for me, and for us? What are the benefits to continuing on this grinding road... day in and day out? Is what I'm doing really making a difference? What am I missing out on by keeping this up?
At the end of the week, I'd had some fabulous food, had seen a decent movie, and decided I'd resign the next day. Would I miss the money? Somewhat, though I was underpaid and undervalued there. Would I miss coworkers? Yes, definitely. Would I miss the job, the structure, and the work environment? No. The news was shocking to some, but most folks understood my reasons. My last day was June 20th, and the solstice is a great metaphor for the balance I seek on this new path.
In the past two weeks, I've focused on my garden, and I'm working on getting the house cleaned up and in shape. Life has been better, and I know it will continue to improve. Letting go of the stress and the bitterness, and the frustration of working there pays more than my salary ever did.
Posted by jodikins at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)
March 31, 2008
Small change
Sometimes when I'm up late, and can't quite get to sleep, I do some online shopping. Sometimes eBay, sometimes Amazon, sometimes Peapod, sometimes iTunes. I was using my laptop for the first time in a long while, and was visiting one of my favorite cooking sites, and I noticed a banner ad. Noticed, because on my desktop I block most ads at the source (lmhosts is your friend), so browsing is entirely different there.
The banner ad was for something called Modest Needs. Being somewhat Objectivist in nature, charity is not something that I support readily. Scandals in recent years with United Way, and lots of other charities with huge huge overhead and very little return on investment make charity and donation ugly words. I'd rather help out friends in need -- when I know that whatever I can give will make an impact in their lives. To me, that's better than tossing money in a giant charity borg existing mainly to fund their next fundraising campaign.
So, I went to the site, and I started reading the requests for grants. Most of the requests were situations that could happen to anyone. Reading the hardships, the choices that people were being forced to make, touched me, because in a very small way, I'd been there myself. I remember being one of the working poor, and I remember how lucky I was to still have family that could afford to send me help when I needed it. After reading through a few pages of requests, I found one that hit home. Instead of buying more clothes, or more housewares, or another video game, I bought points on Modest Needs. I helped a child get an abscessed tooth treated. I paid a vet bill for a disabled person's cat. I helped some seniors pay a hospital bill. All of these relatively small amounts, combined to make a difference in the lives of all those people.
One of the big changes in our circle is a dear friend is getting a divorce, and the woman he's divorcing has decided that she'd like to be one of the most despicable people I've ever met. Despite being able-bodied, well-educated, and fully employed, she's decided she's entitled to destroy his life and bleed every dime from him in legal fees and outrageous demands. She had the audacity to email me and say that she still thought of me as a sister and hoped I felt the same about her.
To her, I say the following: the way you've conducted yourself is repugnant and unconscionable. Your selfish need for attention, for vengeance when there is no wrong to be righted, has quite literally wasted thousands of dollars in legal fees. If you had put that money towards some of these Modest Needs grants, and really focused on helping others in true need, then maybe you wouldn't feel so bad about yourself. Maybe you'd be a better person. Maybe others would like you and want to know you and spend time with you. Maybe you could fill that hole in your heart, the void in your existence, that is driving you to behave like a spoiled child. Buying another seatbelt bag, getting another pedicure of the month, or getting another day spa massage is not going to hide the fact that you are absolutely disgusting.
Posted by jodikins at 1:32 PM | Comments (0)
January 25, 2008
Drained
My week of refocusing has not quite lived up to expectations. A friend is going through some really ugly times, and that came to a head over the past couple of days. Feeling so helpless and powerless to stop the chain of events there has been more draining than I could have imagined, but we'll all get through it. I've realized that I do believe in karma, or more specifically, karmic retribution. And when the woman behaving like a 13 year old child gets that retribution, I'll be very very happy. Hope the misery and pain was worth it!
On the work front, I still don't want to go back on Monday. The thought of it is already bumming me out, and that's just not a good place to be mentally. I know that I can't quit yet because I'm not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to live on one income. At the same time, I'm also too exhausted and burned out from the day job to have any energy left for planning and executing an alternative. I'm trying to keep myself going til the end of May when we take the NYC trip, and I'm trying to think of work in terms of what it's earning me. How many days til I can pay for a new roof? How many days to save up for the animals' emergency vet fund? How many days to pay for the NYC trip? Whatever gets me through the day...
Posted by jodikins at 9:11 AM | Comments (1)
December 11, 2007
all there is
We yell, and snipe and fight
even in the best of times
I think of us growing old,
of all the things that could befall us...
cancer, heart disease, stroke, accident
And i wonder.. is this all there is?
The yelling, the sniping the fighting,
is that the sum total of what we mean to each other?
Of what I mean to you?
- december 11, 2007
Posted by jodikins at 12:22 AM | Comments (0)
August 12, 2007
In two weeks,,,
a dream we've shared since we first got together will be fulfilled. Many chapters are coming to a close, and new ones are beginning -- very cliche but it's true. I'm sad to be leaving Redmond; the trees, the mountains, and the water are all things that I fell in love with the moment we arrived, and I'll miss them dearly. I'll also miss Leslie and Adam even though life's been so crazy for the past few months that we rarely get to see them.
Posted by jodikins at 8:58 AM | Comments (0)
June 24, 2007
Tiger Beat all over again
Flying from Chicago to Dallas today, Rick Springfield was in first class with us! And I will totally let go of how old it made me feel when NO ONE I mentioned this to even knew who Rick Springfield WAS. Christ on a cross people, get with the program! I totally wish I had my Tiger Beat magazines from way back then -- it was always a toss up between Rick Springfield and Scott Baio... until I went totally bad-boy to Billy Idol. Rick was looking smoking hot, too. I called Leslie when we landed and she informed me that Rick Springfield is actually a year older than my mom, hah! Whatever botox, plastic surgery, etc he's done, it's worked for him and then some.
When we finally got home, I had to check through my iTunes, and found my collection sadly lacking in Mr. Springfield's tunage. Yes, everyone remembers Jesse's Girl, but there's also Don't Talk to Strangers, and Affair of the Heart. Listening to them now, I realize how many vaguely smutty songs I listened to as a kid. Whether the person I am now is an endorsement or an indictment of that fact, I know not :)
Aside from the omg Rick Springfield 2 hours of breathing the same recirculated air, it was a long week. Changes are snowballing, but definitely not in a bad way. We'll be moving in a few months; I've got a clear position and task ahead; and I really feel lucky to have the team we do. More than that, I feel like I'm back on my game after years of sitting on the sidelines. I missed myself a lot, honestly, and it's going to be a learning experience reconciling that with the facets of myself I've added in the last 5 years or so. There's a lot to sort through there still, but things will work out in the end.
Posted by jodikins at 1:39 AM | Comments (0)
June 13, 2007
But I need more than myself this time
Growing up and moving on in life sometimes means leaving friends behind. It's not that you care about them any less, but life and change get in the way. Some of my oldest and dearest friendships were formed when I was working at GlobalCenter eight years ago. The culture there -- everyone was young and new and fresh and ready to go places in life -- and the nature of the job -- shift work and team work -- combined and left us with more than a job, but an era in our lives. Since then, I've moved cross-country twice; gotten married; helped build a business; and have changed immensely because of those things, but I've kept those good times with me -- a touchstone for getting through the darkest days.
I found out today that a dear friend from that time is really in trouble with drugs and needs help. The warning signs were there, both when I saw him in person last October, and in phone calls and IMs since then, but somehow I managed to wall them off and ignore them. Being so busy myself, I didn't put together the snips and clips of his descent into paranoia and his personality shift. Maybe that's a cop out... 'being busy'. I didn't have free cycles to acknowledge his problems, and part of me still feels incredibly guilty about that. Even through that guilt, I know that there's very little if anything that I could have done to prevent this. He's an adult, thousands of miles away, and he made his own choices.
Tonight I spent some time mourning the loss of that great kid he used to be; the one with the promising future; the smart one; the kid with dreams and hopes and a life ahead, waiting for him. I hope the adult he's become can get clean.
Posted by jodikins at 8:07 PM | Comments (0)