i've been so focused on thinking about what i want to do for a living, i haven't thought about where. and it turns out, looking backward, where has always been the most important. my priorities are for sure changing. i've gone from so happy to be earning a better living than i had in the past (with some reasonable savings finally) to knowing that money isn't enough, that money can't override a lack of satisfaction. but then watching roseanne reruns where she amusingly hates every damn job and boss she ever has (except tellingly when she, jackie, their mom and nancy open the diner) has sent me a message that maybe just maybe life outside of work can make work worth it. now i don't have kids to support. i have me. and being a safety net for people i love. beyond that i'm eating a cold burrito right now because i'm so tired from being bored at work i don't have the energy to heat it up.
i'm taking a graphic design class at night starting in a couple of weeks and it's so happening at the same time as america's next top model, which if it doesn't repeat sundays, i'm screwed. or maybe freed. i'm sick of watching. i want to be the subject of my own life. i want to be the one with plot points and happenings and a soundtrack. life outside of work can't change work. my body wants to leave and it scares me because i don't have anywhere to go so my mind insists on staying and this scares me because my body and mind want different things and my heart is dead from the pulling and doesn't know where to go and this feels like being hurt.
i understand i have hallucinations. things like believing certain things aren't possible. that i couldn't handle them. things like change. new people. sex. love. happiness. before this current job, i'd left a place that had at one point meant something to me profound. i was helping my community in real ways. then funding dried up. my job changed. my hours got cut. i wasn't utilized to my potential. so i left. and ended up somewhere else in which, while i do a good job from their point of view, i know i'm not utilized to my potential. similarly, i know that in situations of change, spending time with new people. sex. love. happiness. when i am actually experiencing them, i am fully capable of inhabiting the experience and being my best self within it. and yes this includes sorrow and inhabiting that. i'm an equal opportunity emotionalist.
and i try to not hold or grasp or push the emotions. i understand some miniscule percentage of buddhist principles. i have life experience. i just never knew how different i could feel and be from day to day. how fast change comes sometimes. how welcome and unwelcome.
for a moment today i closed my eyes, and was all about propriception. that sense where you know where your body is located, if you're sitting or standing or jumping, what positions your arms are in even if they are not touching anything to give you a reference, the slope of your shoulders, the curve of your back, the angles and locations of body. and the next moment i was only awareness and everything was nothing. and sense made no sense and didn't matter and i was nowhere and everywhere.
i want to work somewhere with a mission to help the community. to make the world better in a deep way. i may not need to boost my graphic design skills to do that. i may already have the skills to be at a place where i can help the community. and earn a fair living. my ace in the hole is bulk food at the co-op and being frugal as all get out. but wherever i go, and i will go, i will no longer sacrifice my desire to make the community a better place. helping me, stabilizing my life financially, isn't enough. now i'm ready to help others, and from a deeper place. because i'm doing damn fine. and i can. and i will.
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