11/03/2010

Life, you're a sweet sweet bitch you. So two and a half weeks ago, I somehow found enough anger, frustration and self esteem within myself to realise that the job I've held for 7 years and hated for 6 1/2 was not keeping me on life support so to speak and that it was downright ridiculous to continue working there. So I gave my two weeks and now here I am, semi-jobless and cautiously content with the way things are. At least I think. I had some vacation saved up, so this week and next week I'm still getting paid but I'm still on the hustle for a new source of income. It feels good to have quit. Really good. Anyone who knows me personally or has even encountered me in the past 7 years knows how much I hated that job and how crazy it drove me to feel trapped there, year after year after year. The way I saw myself and my responsibilities were so menial and meaningless that it made me feel completely incompetent as an individual and I was so desperate to do something else that it would really show through in every job interview I had over the years. But that's over now. My perspective was always that that job was a harness holding me up, keeping me from falling, when maybe falling was really what i needed to do. The pay was bad and the company in shambles, yet the responsibilities minimal and the hours there for me week after week after week. I had to just break, and I couldn't have done it at a better time. The day before my last shift, the General Manager was fired by corporate, and I watched as he was walked very unceremoniously out of the building holding a file box as if he was going on his lunch break, and then later told not to talk about it because of "the rumor mill." Give me a fucking break. No better time for me to go. Well, beside years and years earlier. Working there was making my life like a subject on Hoarders. It was driving me insane, but I was afraid of letting it go, keeping it stockpiled and convincing myself that I couldn't live without it because I was too scared to find out what I would do if it was gone.
So here I am now. I got no job (well, primary source of income), but at least I feel in control. I'm out looking for jobs, and I realise that my expenses are low enough that as long as I hustle, I can make ends meet. I still have my job at Metro, which I was working at a very minimum because of the last nights making the days that much harder, but now I have no problem picking up any shift that comes my way, and I actually have a lot of fun doing it. What's going to be going on in the next two weeks is still a mystery, but I'm not really worried. Something will come my way.
For the first time in my life, I'm really starting to feel happy, I'm not really pissed off and feeling like the world owes me something. I'm finally realising that if I want something, I can work for it and if I'm up for what it takes, I'll probably get it. I have friends now, or at least a satisfactory social life which for years I felt the world was cheating me out of. Dammit, things are pretty all right.
What do I still want? I want to be able to afford the things I need when I need them, and provide for myself in a fashion that doesn't force me to compromise and go without (i.e. sleeping on a broken bed, sitting crosslegged on the bus because my pants have crotch holes, subsiding on hamburger meat left over from a barbecue at my house weeks ago). I want to find a way to live my life where I feel confidant with who I am and what I do and finding some kind of professional capacity for my talents and the things I enjoy. I want to find a lady to be a part of my life and for me to be a part of hers. I want to have a family. I want to know what I believe. I want to make my own decisions, being clear with myself about things and not compromising them or letting myself be swayed by minor obstacles or difficulties perceived at failure. I want to get shit done. Life's too short to be miserable with the way things are. It's time to stop putting things off and not getting things done tomorrow. It's time to get things done today. Don't give up early. Don't call it a day when there's still things to do. Shit's about to get real.