5 years of living with the mistake of moving to Los Angeles. I've had a number of fairly unremarkable jobs, each having it's own pros and cons, though all for the most part being unsatisfying and not moving my life forward at all. Out of all of them, my current position is probably the worse. Having to drive 1-2 hours each way every day takes it's toll on you physically and it makes it a lot more difficult to even do laundry or get dinner. At 6 each night it's the same debate - if I leave then, I'll get home around 9, if I leave at 8 I'll get home around 9 too. And when I get home, I'm up till 2 every night doing things like paying bills, laundry, trying to eat, etc. Wake up the next morning at 7, rinse, repeat.
It doesn't help that the work itself sucks. I'm used to feeling like I'm actually getting something done, when here, I surely do not. Now other people take pride in their ability to obstruct the progress of coworkers and projects. Simple questions result in eg-stroking meetings that take hours and accomplish nothing at all. No one here really takes pride in their job. Yes, work sucks, your job sucks, but at least TRY to do your damn job. There don't even seem to be consequences for slacking off, and the whole organization is broken into little fiefdoms that don't communicate at all. It's a big mess, and no one is even trying to make it better, in fact a number of things done by higher ups have made things considerably worse.
Because of stupid, useless procedures and the meddling of other departments, projects that should take less than a week often take several months. There are people in this corporation whose sole purpose seems to be wasting shareholder value. I don't want to work here, and looking around at the job market, nothing seems any better.
I had thought about going back to school, but that depended on a lot of other things, and I wasn't entirely comfortable with it to begin with. Go back to school for what? After being on my own in the "real world" for so long, you would think that I would see some purpose in pursuing that- but I don't. There isn't much advantage to be had for me by getting a degree.
My health is not what it used to be. My memory loss has gotten progressively worse in the past year, both long term and now short term as well. Recently my learning disability, and now what seems to be ADHD or some variation thereof, seems to have come back as well. On top of those neurological problems, my teeth and heart are not good. I'm having heart "palpitiations" more frequently and severely now - it's not so much palpitations as a herd of buffalo running in my chest. I've woken up in the morning unable to breath, spitting up blood in globs. I'm not doing well at all, and work has managed to prevent me from getting to see a doctor about it. Every appointment in the past 2 months has had to be cancelled or rescheduled, pretty much. From what I understand of the problems, to correct them I need to make a number of lifestyle changes that because of my learning disability and mild depression, I can't do alone.
Now Chelle is a wonderful person. She really is my other half (for better or for worse, for all her faults, for all her sparkle). Anyone who knew both of us can see that as plain as the nose on their face. We should have been inseparable, but because of a great many reasons - quite a few of which were mistakes on my part- that didn't happen. Instead a lot of the things I did and said made it easier for her to keep distance between us. We burned hot, and fast. We were perhaps too intense together for her comfort. For all those things and more, I'm deeply sorry, and that's one of the few things I can honestly say that I regret. What Chelle gave me, no one else could or would. Before her, I could trudge on, handling these problems and many more as best I could, taking one thing a day at a time.
And then everything changed. Because of her, I had something to look forward to. Love, family, a long life with a person who I adored and was a great friend. She had her faults, but that made me love her all that much more. We didn't always agree, and I was always fine with that. She changed my perspective about so many things... and when that was taken away, there wasn't anything left. Nothing to look forward to, nothing to hope for, she broke a lot of promises and abused my trust. I don't hold that against her, but the net effect was that I could not beleive that she was serious about me, about us, and that left me hollow inside. There wasn't any reason to deal with my problems, to continue on anymore. The things that she gave me, I would never be able to keep. She really was the only one I would ever want to share my life with, but now I don't think that she thought the same way, her actions told me a different story.
I see her moving on with her life without me, and I can't deal with that. It's been that way for some time now, and I suppose I've done some things to push her away. Things would happen, things would get worse, and the thing that needed to happen to make things better, she wasn't ready for and never would be.
So where do I go from here? One way or another, I think that it's time for me to go. Once you hit bottom, nothing is there to hold you back. [ 10/28/2002 04:39:46 PM ] [ ]
