Jen left for a couple hours. I've been alone with the girls. I can't get any writing done when I am alone with them. I'm freaking out about health insurance. I'm just having crazy making day.
You can F' off, health insurance!
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
The Long Haul
Family? Friends? Are you there? Check, check, 1 2 3. First, let me start by saying that I could feel your love and support every mile of my journey to Colorado. (I can still feel the love.) Thank you all for remaining in constant contact with Jen and Lyn as I gave them updates on my “road” whereabouts. I also want to thank each and every one of you for being such a great part of my life. Without you I would not have had the strength to take the kind of chance in life that I am taking right now. I honestly don’t know where I’d be without my friendships. (Yeah. Yeah. We’re not at the academy awards here. I know. Enough, already.)
What I didn’t tell you all, and would not have told you, because I didn’t want you to worry, is that, while I put about $800.00 into my Nissan Xterra to get it road ready, even after the full tune up, a new timing belt, a new water pump, and a new radiator, I still wasn’t sure my truck could make the trip.
Turns out, I was wrong, but right. My truck made it all right, but it smelled like truck-working-too-hard-ass most of the time. Plus, because my truck smelled like ass and I was trying to baby it, every mile, I got to be an asshole for most of the drive.
You know what I am talking about, don’t you? You know what it is like when you are on a long drive, and you are so feeling your speed, so in your driving groove, and then, Oh, look. What’s with the asshole going 35 mph, blinking up the road with hazard lights, who is slowing my shit down?
Do you know how much that physically hurt, that every time my little truck tried to climb a steep mountain road I couldn’t even drive 55? There were times my speed got down to 15 mph. It was not only frustrating, it was freaking me out. Each time I was praying that Sammy Hagar wasn’t coming up behind me, going 125 mph, and wouldn’t plow me over.
So if you were traveling on either the I-15 N or the I-70 E last Monday or Tuesday, sorry. That was me you passed and it was me who was jealous as hell of you that you flew by me like lightening when I felt like a turtle in need of an enema. That was also me conducting my mountain-range-preserve-the-truck-towing-a-trailer routine: Roll up the windows. Turn off the radio. Listen to the strain on the engine. Change into the lower gears accordingly. Take a breath. Take another one. Um…now you need to let both of those breaths out. Steady. Steady. You are almost done being the “Slower Traffic Keep Right,” sign.
Actually, I was that “Slower Traffic Keep Right” sign the whole way to Colorado. I was the slowest traffic of them all. There were only three times I passed someone on this haul and each of those passes were made on a decline. One of the passes I made was strategic.
These two guys in a red Datsun truck, who were towing a green Jeep Cherokee behind them, were going a bit slower than me when I first came upon them (which is sad, considering we were both only going about 15-20 mph), so I decided that I’d rather have them in back of me than in front of me, that way they could buffer any Sammy Hagars coming through and they’d get it up their end instead of me.
It wasn’t long before I started to wonder how smart it was, being in front of these guys. It wasn’t just how much they were swaying all over the road. Every time we, our new little group of uphill deficients, hit a decline these jack holes were so far up my ass I could have spit them out through my mouth. I would have had to have gone faster than 55 mph in order to shake them. But, I was too chicken to go faster, which is, obviously, why the drive took responsible me two days. (Going 30-45 mph through most of the mountain range stretches wasn’t doing much for my timing either.)
So there I was, day one and day two, hauling myself to Colorado wearing a pitted out gray t-shirt, a baggy pair of faded jeans, and my favorite black flip flops, and trying to find good radio on the way. And, now that I have officially flipped through several of Utah’s radio stations, I have a question for Utah.
Really? Is this how it’s done? Did I hear your radio commercials correctly, Utah? Did you really ask: “Got a silencer for that kill?” Did another commercial say, “Get out doors this weekend; You know you want to hunt and kill something?” Also, did I understand it correctly, that when yet another commercial, with a voice that was intended to sound like inner thoughts, said, “I will get out doors this weekend. I will use my bow and arrow,” it was meant to be inspirational? Yes? Am I right?
Can I just tell you something, Utah? Your radio commercials freaked this native southern Californian out. I can’t think of any commercial (radio or TV) I’ve ever heard in my entire life which started with a question like: “Got a silencer for that kill?”
I don’t know. Maybe I heard it all wrong. I’m now convinced that sitting/driving too long cuts off the blood to the brain, so I could have just made that part up. Except, I’m pretty sure I didn’t. These commercial quotes, while written in napkin short hand, are in my road notes. Each with question marks after them.
Was it just culture shock I was experiencing? Does it really bother me to hear a commercial about how to hunt things down without making any noise? After all, I can totally appreciate how much a loud gun shot could mess with your ear drums, so killing quietly makes complete sense. But, killing anything isn’t something I think I can ever get used to.
I come from a land where people use re-useable grocery bags and don’t want to talk about how their chicken breast got onto their dinner plate. Non-vegan Californians are sheltered creatures that way. One might even say they’d rather let the Utah hunters do the dirty work and would prefer not to hear, on a radio commercial or otherwise, how it all went down.
But, now I am wondering. Is Utah just more honest than California? Does California prefer to pretend that the meat they eat comes from meat fairies? Maybe it’s better to put it out there. The reason you are eating your meat is because someone killed it for you. We all know I’m not a vegetarian, but, instead, a cut-back-atarian (or, as Jen says, a me-atarian, doing what I want). So, being relatively conflicted I’ll have to give up on this thought on move on.
On a more positive note, Utah’s St. George is beautiful. That’s were I thought I could take a road nap to refresh. Jen never said anything to me when I told her that I was going to try to pull that one off. But, after I arrived at her house, we both laughed at how ridiculous of a notion that was. How the hell is the girl, who needs white noise makers, four pillows, her own bed, a sleep mask, and (on many nights) some kind of a sleep aid to even fall asleep, supposed to get a nap in her car during the middle of the day at a truck stop?
But, I tried. Who cares if I was trying to nap during one of the most stressful road trips of my life? I gave that damn nap a go. I parked along side of a big truck already putting off some decent shade. I climbed into my passenger’s seat, reclined the seat, put my favorite baseball cap over my eyes, and I told myself: Okay. Fall asleep. Get refreshed. Let’s go.
Not one spec of me listened. I actually became a little panicked. My mind started whirling: I can’t fucking sleep here. What am I thinking? I don’t even want to sleep. I just want to get there. But I need to refresh. I’m tired. I’m really, friggen tired. This is BULLSHIT! I’ll find a hotel a little ways more down the road. FUCK! Now I have to back this damn trailer up. Son of a…
It was amazing. Once I got back on the road I felt invigorated. But I am sure I was running on pure adrenaline. Let’s get real. Who puts 90% of their life, all their possessions, into storage, and loads up U-haul with their bed and the remaining 10%, does it in one day, and then thinks she can make a 17 hour drive as a straight shot the very next day? Insane people think that way. Or, people who have forgotten that they are no longer in their 20s, which is when such feats are even remotely possible.
That was my pattern the entire first day traveling to Colorado. Every time I got off the road I felt clobbered. Every time I got back onto the road I felt alive. The most alive I felt was just outside of Grand Junction when Katy Perry’s song “Firework” came onto the radio. I’d never really listened to the words before, but when you’ve got a lot of gray asphalt stretching out in front of you, and you are all alone, there isn’t much else to do but what one does on the road: Drive. Think. Listen.
Then, I cried on the road. I felt the song become a personal anthem. I have been feeling paper thin and wanting to start again. The stress from that job and the life I’ve existed in was making me feel like the house of emotional cards I was stacking could fall at any moment. I have wanted another chance and I have never forgotten how much fire I have inside.
I do want to show what I am worth and believe in what the future holds. There has to be a reason I felt like all the doors in my life were closing. Hopefully I will be opening up one that leads me to the perfect road. (Thanks, Katy Perry, for your song lyrics—which I just switched up—and for your song at the perfect time.)
And thank you, all of Divinity, for Utah’s exit 62 off the I-15 N. Had I not stopped at this Shell station, had I not gone inside to ask the gal working behind the counter, “Where, up the road, is my best bet to stop for the night?” I might have ended up as one of those unfortunate stories, the ones you see in movies, where someone is out of energy, out of civilization, out of gas, out of whatever, and I may just have found myself sleeping (trying to sleep) in my car out in the middle of nowhere whether I liked it or not.
Without hesitation, this cute counter gal, a young, pretty brunette (who looked to be about 17, but turned out to have kids and an ex-husband in Colorado, so I am now putting her to be at least early 20s) told me, “There is lodging just after you make the change from the I-15 N to the I-70 E. Since it was pretty early in the afternoon, I asked, “Is there anything fun to do there?” If I was going take a load off in Richfield I wanted a little min—adventure on my big aventure. “Are you kidding me? This is Utah,” she said.
Partial Stop…
Here is a little advice for anyone traveling alone to Colorado from California on the I-70 E from the I-15 N. After Richfield, you’ve got about four hours of touch-and-go civilization and if you don’t do as I do on all road trips, and get gas everywhere you can, even if you’re just topping off, you might create your own bad story. So, stay in Richfield if you don’t have two drivers. Love up the nothing-is-there-ness of it. Eat, sleep, and top off that gas. It’s just better to be safe than sorry.
Back at it…
A couple of miles before the Richfield exit sign Jen called me. She confirmed Richfield was the place I should stay. Once I got my hotel key from the young blond clerk, McCall, and she said, “Your room is just down the hall. You can park your truck and U-haul along the curb just outside of your room,” my body confirmed Richmond was the place I needed to stay. All of my adrenaline drained out of me. I was so road weary I couldn’t even finish my sentences with clarity. Frankly, I felt as if I was drunk.
I didn’t even care that, because this Comfort Inn did not have room service, I’d have to get something to eat at the Wendy’s fast food restaurant next door. Give me the damn chicken sandwich and the French fries, please. But, spare me the soda and handover the bottled water. I’m dehydrated from stress. My nails are breaking. And, by tomorrow, my lips are going to look like a dry lake bed, all cracked and scaly.
I had no idea how famished I’d become. While sitting on my hotel bed, with my more-than-likely Utah-killed-chicken sandwich being crammed into my mouth, I watched more of the news on the Osama bin Laden kill. Between the news and how fast I was eating, it’s not surprising that I got a belly ache. That’s when it occurred to me that I’d never forget what was going on in my life and where I was when I heard the news about Osama.
The first announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed came the night before I was to start my haul for Colorado. It was about 7:00 pm and I was at my sister’s house sitting on the couch with my 7 year old nephew. After seeing the look on his face from what he was hearing on the television, I asked him if he understood what was going on and if he had any questions that I could answer.
He wanted to know if we were safe. I assured him that he and all of his friends and family were safe. Then I did my best to explain that a very bad man who had hurt a lot of people has just been killed and that while someone’s death should not be good news since so many people were afraid of him doing more bad things we can all feel a little safer now.
Personally, I can’t say that I feel completely safe. I admit that I am afraid of the retaliatory acts that may be coming from Osama’s followers. I do, however, feel wonderful about how much closure this brings to so many people that were affected by 911, including myself and Jen. Jen’s father, who used to be a United Pilot, was working that September 11th day in 2001. He could just as easily have been piloting one of those hi-jacked planes and could have been among the cherished that perished that day.
The next news I’d get about Osama’s death would be in room 124 of the Comfort Inn in Richfield, Utah. A Utah reporter said, “I’m glad they killed him. I don’t care what anyone says.” Yes. Utah tells you like it is. So thank you, Utah. Thank you for your magnificently beautiful red rocks. Thank you for a place to stay so I could get a fresh start in the morning and be way more invigorated the whole second day of my road haul to Colorado. Thank you for being so real. And, thank you for being a part of the journey I am on in life.
Now, having this road haul behind me, I have made a few observations…
Observation #1: Never expect to get fresh fruit from a gas station or convenience stop. Observation # 2: Those are not hay-fever (seasonal) boogars in your nose. Those are road boogers. You can’t drive over 1,000 miles with the windows open and expect to keep a clean nose. It ain’t gonna happen.
Okay, I can’t continue to name my other observations and road experience collections, so I am just going to put a couple more of them out there…
* It was awesome talking to a couple of bikers just out of Vegas. It was even better to learn that one of them was a blogger, like me. (That’s just bitchen.) Paul? Are you out there? Did I get your name right? (Shit. That was one of the stops where the convenience clerk told me that I looked like I needed sleep. This she tells me without even knowing what I’d packed up the day before or how I got a 3:30 am start.)
* I need to watch that Oprah episode again where Oprah and Gayle hauled a trailer. What I especially want to know is: Did Oprah and Gayle have 50 people, a crew, around them who could help at any time? Just curious, because they didn’t seem that stressed pulling an even bigger trailer than what I just pulled.
*I now want it noted that I never want to have to need to use my hazard lights again.
*I am also amazed at how much I wanted to file my broken nails during the whole drive. I just wanted to have a moment to breathe and to file. That’s all. Incidentally, between packing up the last of my stuff, moving it all into storage, packing up a U-Haul, and driving to a dryer climate, I only have one nail left to break. (So, there’s that.) The worst part of it? I don’t think of myself as persnickety. But, apparently I am. I don’t like jagged nails. Short nails are fine. Jagged nails on the road: not so much.
*Maybe Chad and Heather’s friend—what the f’ did I name him, Ike? Is that right?—was right about me. I’ve been set in my ways for way too long. Well, then, Ike. How do you like me now?
*I’m glad that Jen didn’t tell me ahead of time that there would be road construction between Georgetown and Idaho Springs and that I could expect at least a 20 minute delay where I would be at a dead standstill on a 6% decline for, exactly that, 20 minutes. Question: Why is it that your bladder is fine and you don’t have to go pee when your car is moving, but, the second your car stops it’s code yellow?
Observations over. Changing gears now. And, as you may have already figured it out, I am doing one of my blong posts.
I was going to separate “The Long Haul” post and what’s coming next (which I have not officially titled), but, I’m think’n: No. Emotionally, this next part feels like an equally long haul, so let’s just call this “Part II” and name it the “The Emotional Haul.”
Part II-The Emotional Haul
Since I have gotten here, to Lakewood Colorado, to Jen’s house, Jen has been worried about killing/spraying the dandelions in her front yard. (She’s now Utah and want’s those dandelions gone.) That said, I realize that so much of what I write from now on in this blog is going to be influenced by Jen and by her two little girls, Summer and Sparrow.
So here goes the gear shift…
Life takes your breath away, doesn’t it? Every bit of it. There are those seemingly small moments, like when you were a kid and you blew on the delicate, white cloud of a dried out dandelion, on what used to be the bloom of a wild yellow flower, brighter than your innocent, young, sunlight smile, and you hoped on hope for a wish to come true, but you didn’t follow through. The wish was done. You were a kid. When that spray of a thousand fairy white flowers went to the wind, you let go.
You didn’t question divinity. There was no asking for signs above. Did I wish it right? Do I have the might?
You weren’t even thinking about the fact that your one little blow of a wish on a puffy cloud at the end of a green stem, nature’s perfect representation of the cycle of life, started something. Sure, those fairy white flowers would have found a gust of wind soon enough to come along and help them spread their seeds. (In the scheme of things, a bigger picture is always in play.) But all you knew, in your youth’s mind, was that your wish, a sweet, solitary whisper into the wind, was just your prayer.
Then, as you got older and you took worry onto your back, and you started to weigh the sum of things, you didn’t wish any more. Instead, you started to fret. You stopped trusting and you began questioning. Is this, my Now, the crux of me? Why don’t life’s moments seem small anymore? Am I the one making everything seem so large, sometimes insurmountable?
Sigh… Youth has taken a back seat and life has gotten heavy. Gone, baby, gone are the days of dandelion wishes and mom’s kisses on boo boos. It’s on you now; all of it. You’re older.
I know. It’s a lot. Trust me. I get it. Sometimes it’s hard to breath. Welcome to life.
In my case, I guess I should be saying: Welcome to changing your life. No. That doesn’t seem like enough to say. How about: Welcome to turning your life upside down so you can see what shakes out of the pockets you’ve been to afraid to look into.
Change is still change, though, isn’t it? Whether the change is big or small, and whether you are five or fifty years old, when a metamorphous becomes necessary, I don’t think we are any different than a dandelion or a weed. We have the same needs. Like a weed, we will push through a crack in sidewalk to find a way to live and to find the best way to Be. We will kick ass to persevere.
Who are we kidding? This blog post, from the beginning, has so been about the physically long haul I just took moving from California to Colorado, but, equally, and just as, if not more, importantly, about the emotional haul I have ahead of me to get to where I am going.
I know I am going to find myself in some emotionally uncomfortable moments where I feel like I’m getting swallowed up by the journey my soul has yearned to take in order for me to follow my dreams, but I am okay with that. I’ve been asking all along: Are life’s challenges not here to teach us, to remind us, that nothing is bigger than our connection, bigger than us?
And, one rarely gets to where they want to be without effort. I have always known that I wasn’t going to find that place in life, where I am living from my passion instead of my fear, until I faced and conquered some of my biggest fears.
If only pulling a 5’ x 8’ U-Haul Cargo trailer behind my silver, 6 cylinder Nissan Xterra, as I went up and down several winding roads, was what scared me the most about changing my life. Yes. For me, pulling a trailer was really fucking stressful, but easy-peasy compared to what I know I have ahead of me emotionally.
I know me. I am already challenging myself in ways I never have so I will be facing things I’ve never faced. My demons will come out and my hope is that I will slay them.
More importantly: Will I ever pull a trailer again? Yeah…not unless the truck I’m driving has a powerful engine and I’ve got someone with me who will do all the backing up. You should know, I’m still marveling at the fact that I was able to drive over a thousand miles, from California to Colorado, and, by my design, I only had to back up two times.
What now scares me more than hauling a trailer is how much faith and trust I have found to step into my wish. While I am a very spiritual person, and always see the connectivity in things, there is just as much of my nature that fights against me and that doesn’t always know how to believe or to accept that things will all work out.
And, for an independent girl who has always done it on her own, it’s a big deal to put myself in the position of counting on someone’s generosity. It’s a gift that Jen has let me move in rent free so I can just get a part time job, which will be enough to cover my personal basic bills, and will have the time to finish my book. But, now, barely a week into this shift, it’s a gift I still don’t know how to completely accept.
Not being the one to always do it all for me and instead rely on others, really, that is one of my biggest fears. This is something I need to face. I need to fight off every last residue of resistance and embrace what Jen has done for me by believing in my dream even more than I do.
Plus, I’ve read Stephen R. Covey's book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and I know that in order to be interdependent, in order to achieve that which cannot be achieved alone, I must learn to work within the paradigm of cooperation. I can get my book done on my own. But, something I have not been able to do on my own is believe in myself enough to do what it takes.
This move to Colorado, this allowing of interdependence in my life, this is forcing me into doing what it takes and into believing that I have what it takes. Soon enough I will have my editor, my fact checker, and my found-that-jacked and wayward grammar checker.
Until then, I can no longer escape the reality that every human being is an interdependent creature. I have to accept what I’ve known all along. People need each other. At this time in my life, and because of where my life has been going, I can now admit without reservation that I needed not to be alone anymore. I have needed my friends to believe in me more than I have believed in myself.
I can also admit that this is the scariest thing I have ever done, and I don’t mean the moving part. A city, is a city, is a city. You can change your city any time you want. I’ve done it many times. Not lately. Not in 13 years. But I did move plenty when I was younger.
No… what terrifies me more is following my dream of being a writer, especially of being the kind of writer I am and want to be. Everything I write has me on the page. And here I am again, exposing myself, asking myself if I have the talent, or if I just have the guts and I am also a little bit nuts.
But the reality I’ve come to is that I’d rather fail at trying then fail to try. I’d rather fall on my ass in front of everyone than face myself alone at night knowing I have never given myself a chance.
I think I’ve known all along that if I didn’t attempt this leap of faith, if I didn’t put myself into the position of having nowhere to turn but to my writing, to my dream, I would have kept my dream as a place to escape rather than as a place to live.
I want to live my dreams not dream about another way to live.
But, again, being this daring, this brave, or this fucking stupid, has a price. I will have my moments. I’ve already had several of them including the first night I got to Jen’s house.
I arrived to an empty house. Jen was picking up the girls at their day care. I knew I was drained, but I’d made it. That’s when, even with wobbly legs and a new altitude high, I couldn’t wait until 6:30 pm, for Jen’s boyfriend Dirk to get off work and for him to help me unload my U-Haul.
It was 4:ll pm and I wanted it done. So, with the exception of unloading my bed, which Dirk did do for me around 7:00 pm, I got all of my shit out of my truck and trailer in slightly less than an hour. I was already feeling that thing I feel where I need things just so. (In other words, I needed to set down my ways.)
Once Jen got home, and Dirk got off of work and set my bed up for me, that’s when it hit, what I’d just done. I had just up-ended my life. I felt like I was going to have a panic attack.
Attack averted. It was time for Summer and Sparrow to go to bed. The story was read. The girls were tucked in. The good-night kisses were exchanged. I was about to combust, but, instead, a 5 year old girl, Summer, broke through the frantic fear that almost over took me.
As I lay next to her on her pink patch-work quilt, and just after I told her “Goodnight, my love,” she brought her petite little hand up to my right cheek, cupped it, and said, “Aunt Lev? I love you staying here.”
So now I ask you: No matter how afraid we are, doesn’t divinity always give us what we need in each moment? That little girl saw through to me and knew what to say. So why shouldn’t we trust a little more and worry a little less?
I’ll try to be fabulous at it if you will…
Ready?
What I didn’t tell you all, and would not have told you, because I didn’t want you to worry, is that, while I put about $800.00 into my Nissan Xterra to get it road ready, even after the full tune up, a new timing belt, a new water pump, and a new radiator, I still wasn’t sure my truck could make the trip.
Turns out, I was wrong, but right. My truck made it all right, but it smelled like truck-working-too-hard-ass most of the time. Plus, because my truck smelled like ass and I was trying to baby it, every mile, I got to be an asshole for most of the drive.
You know what I am talking about, don’t you? You know what it is like when you are on a long drive, and you are so feeling your speed, so in your driving groove, and then, Oh, look. What’s with the asshole going 35 mph, blinking up the road with hazard lights, who is slowing my shit down?
Do you know how much that physically hurt, that every time my little truck tried to climb a steep mountain road I couldn’t even drive 55? There were times my speed got down to 15 mph. It was not only frustrating, it was freaking me out. Each time I was praying that Sammy Hagar wasn’t coming up behind me, going 125 mph, and wouldn’t plow me over.
So if you were traveling on either the I-15 N or the I-70 E last Monday or Tuesday, sorry. That was me you passed and it was me who was jealous as hell of you that you flew by me like lightening when I felt like a turtle in need of an enema. That was also me conducting my mountain-range-preserve-the-truck-towing-a-trailer routine: Roll up the windows. Turn off the radio. Listen to the strain on the engine. Change into the lower gears accordingly. Take a breath. Take another one. Um…now you need to let both of those breaths out. Steady. Steady. You are almost done being the “Slower Traffic Keep Right,” sign.
Actually, I was that “Slower Traffic Keep Right” sign the whole way to Colorado. I was the slowest traffic of them all. There were only three times I passed someone on this haul and each of those passes were made on a decline. One of the passes I made was strategic.
These two guys in a red Datsun truck, who were towing a green Jeep Cherokee behind them, were going a bit slower than me when I first came upon them (which is sad, considering we were both only going about 15-20 mph), so I decided that I’d rather have them in back of me than in front of me, that way they could buffer any Sammy Hagars coming through and they’d get it up their end instead of me.
It wasn’t long before I started to wonder how smart it was, being in front of these guys. It wasn’t just how much they were swaying all over the road. Every time we, our new little group of uphill deficients, hit a decline these jack holes were so far up my ass I could have spit them out through my mouth. I would have had to have gone faster than 55 mph in order to shake them. But, I was too chicken to go faster, which is, obviously, why the drive took responsible me two days. (Going 30-45 mph through most of the mountain range stretches wasn’t doing much for my timing either.)
So there I was, day one and day two, hauling myself to Colorado wearing a pitted out gray t-shirt, a baggy pair of faded jeans, and my favorite black flip flops, and trying to find good radio on the way. And, now that I have officially flipped through several of Utah’s radio stations, I have a question for Utah.
Really? Is this how it’s done? Did I hear your radio commercials correctly, Utah? Did you really ask: “Got a silencer for that kill?” Did another commercial say, “Get out doors this weekend; You know you want to hunt and kill something?” Also, did I understand it correctly, that when yet another commercial, with a voice that was intended to sound like inner thoughts, said, “I will get out doors this weekend. I will use my bow and arrow,” it was meant to be inspirational? Yes? Am I right?
Can I just tell you something, Utah? Your radio commercials freaked this native southern Californian out. I can’t think of any commercial (radio or TV) I’ve ever heard in my entire life which started with a question like: “Got a silencer for that kill?”
I don’t know. Maybe I heard it all wrong. I’m now convinced that sitting/driving too long cuts off the blood to the brain, so I could have just made that part up. Except, I’m pretty sure I didn’t. These commercial quotes, while written in napkin short hand, are in my road notes. Each with question marks after them.
Was it just culture shock I was experiencing? Does it really bother me to hear a commercial about how to hunt things down without making any noise? After all, I can totally appreciate how much a loud gun shot could mess with your ear drums, so killing quietly makes complete sense. But, killing anything isn’t something I think I can ever get used to.
I come from a land where people use re-useable grocery bags and don’t want to talk about how their chicken breast got onto their dinner plate. Non-vegan Californians are sheltered creatures that way. One might even say they’d rather let the Utah hunters do the dirty work and would prefer not to hear, on a radio commercial or otherwise, how it all went down.
But, now I am wondering. Is Utah just more honest than California? Does California prefer to pretend that the meat they eat comes from meat fairies? Maybe it’s better to put it out there. The reason you are eating your meat is because someone killed it for you. We all know I’m not a vegetarian, but, instead, a cut-back-atarian (or, as Jen says, a me-atarian, doing what I want). So, being relatively conflicted I’ll have to give up on this thought on move on.
On a more positive note, Utah’s St. George is beautiful. That’s were I thought I could take a road nap to refresh. Jen never said anything to me when I told her that I was going to try to pull that one off. But, after I arrived at her house, we both laughed at how ridiculous of a notion that was. How the hell is the girl, who needs white noise makers, four pillows, her own bed, a sleep mask, and (on many nights) some kind of a sleep aid to even fall asleep, supposed to get a nap in her car during the middle of the day at a truck stop?
But, I tried. Who cares if I was trying to nap during one of the most stressful road trips of my life? I gave that damn nap a go. I parked along side of a big truck already putting off some decent shade. I climbed into my passenger’s seat, reclined the seat, put my favorite baseball cap over my eyes, and I told myself: Okay. Fall asleep. Get refreshed. Let’s go.
Not one spec of me listened. I actually became a little panicked. My mind started whirling: I can’t fucking sleep here. What am I thinking? I don’t even want to sleep. I just want to get there. But I need to refresh. I’m tired. I’m really, friggen tired. This is BULLSHIT! I’ll find a hotel a little ways more down the road. FUCK! Now I have to back this damn trailer up. Son of a…
It was amazing. Once I got back on the road I felt invigorated. But I am sure I was running on pure adrenaline. Let’s get real. Who puts 90% of their life, all their possessions, into storage, and loads up U-haul with their bed and the remaining 10%, does it in one day, and then thinks she can make a 17 hour drive as a straight shot the very next day? Insane people think that way. Or, people who have forgotten that they are no longer in their 20s, which is when such feats are even remotely possible.
That was my pattern the entire first day traveling to Colorado. Every time I got off the road I felt clobbered. Every time I got back onto the road I felt alive. The most alive I felt was just outside of Grand Junction when Katy Perry’s song “Firework” came onto the radio. I’d never really listened to the words before, but when you’ve got a lot of gray asphalt stretching out in front of you, and you are all alone, there isn’t much else to do but what one does on the road: Drive. Think. Listen.
Then, I cried on the road. I felt the song become a personal anthem. I have been feeling paper thin and wanting to start again. The stress from that job and the life I’ve existed in was making me feel like the house of emotional cards I was stacking could fall at any moment. I have wanted another chance and I have never forgotten how much fire I have inside.
I do want to show what I am worth and believe in what the future holds. There has to be a reason I felt like all the doors in my life were closing. Hopefully I will be opening up one that leads me to the perfect road. (Thanks, Katy Perry, for your song lyrics—which I just switched up—and for your song at the perfect time.)
And thank you, all of Divinity, for Utah’s exit 62 off the I-15 N. Had I not stopped at this Shell station, had I not gone inside to ask the gal working behind the counter, “Where, up the road, is my best bet to stop for the night?” I might have ended up as one of those unfortunate stories, the ones you see in movies, where someone is out of energy, out of civilization, out of gas, out of whatever, and I may just have found myself sleeping (trying to sleep) in my car out in the middle of nowhere whether I liked it or not.
Without hesitation, this cute counter gal, a young, pretty brunette (who looked to be about 17, but turned out to have kids and an ex-husband in Colorado, so I am now putting her to be at least early 20s) told me, “There is lodging just after you make the change from the I-15 N to the I-70 E. Since it was pretty early in the afternoon, I asked, “Is there anything fun to do there?” If I was going take a load off in Richfield I wanted a little min—adventure on my big aventure. “Are you kidding me? This is Utah,” she said.
Partial Stop…
Here is a little advice for anyone traveling alone to Colorado from California on the I-70 E from the I-15 N. After Richfield, you’ve got about four hours of touch-and-go civilization and if you don’t do as I do on all road trips, and get gas everywhere you can, even if you’re just topping off, you might create your own bad story. So, stay in Richfield if you don’t have two drivers. Love up the nothing-is-there-ness of it. Eat, sleep, and top off that gas. It’s just better to be safe than sorry.
Back at it…
A couple of miles before the Richfield exit sign Jen called me. She confirmed Richfield was the place I should stay. Once I got my hotel key from the young blond clerk, McCall, and she said, “Your room is just down the hall. You can park your truck and U-haul along the curb just outside of your room,” my body confirmed Richmond was the place I needed to stay. All of my adrenaline drained out of me. I was so road weary I couldn’t even finish my sentences with clarity. Frankly, I felt as if I was drunk.
I didn’t even care that, because this Comfort Inn did not have room service, I’d have to get something to eat at the Wendy’s fast food restaurant next door. Give me the damn chicken sandwich and the French fries, please. But, spare me the soda and handover the bottled water. I’m dehydrated from stress. My nails are breaking. And, by tomorrow, my lips are going to look like a dry lake bed, all cracked and scaly.
I had no idea how famished I’d become. While sitting on my hotel bed, with my more-than-likely Utah-killed-chicken sandwich being crammed into my mouth, I watched more of the news on the Osama bin Laden kill. Between the news and how fast I was eating, it’s not surprising that I got a belly ache. That’s when it occurred to me that I’d never forget what was going on in my life and where I was when I heard the news about Osama.
The first announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed came the night before I was to start my haul for Colorado. It was about 7:00 pm and I was at my sister’s house sitting on the couch with my 7 year old nephew. After seeing the look on his face from what he was hearing on the television, I asked him if he understood what was going on and if he had any questions that I could answer.
He wanted to know if we were safe. I assured him that he and all of his friends and family were safe. Then I did my best to explain that a very bad man who had hurt a lot of people has just been killed and that while someone’s death should not be good news since so many people were afraid of him doing more bad things we can all feel a little safer now.
Personally, I can’t say that I feel completely safe. I admit that I am afraid of the retaliatory acts that may be coming from Osama’s followers. I do, however, feel wonderful about how much closure this brings to so many people that were affected by 911, including myself and Jen. Jen’s father, who used to be a United Pilot, was working that September 11th day in 2001. He could just as easily have been piloting one of those hi-jacked planes and could have been among the cherished that perished that day.
The next news I’d get about Osama’s death would be in room 124 of the Comfort Inn in Richfield, Utah. A Utah reporter said, “I’m glad they killed him. I don’t care what anyone says.” Yes. Utah tells you like it is. So thank you, Utah. Thank you for your magnificently beautiful red rocks. Thank you for a place to stay so I could get a fresh start in the morning and be way more invigorated the whole second day of my road haul to Colorado. Thank you for being so real. And, thank you for being a part of the journey I am on in life.
Now, having this road haul behind me, I have made a few observations…
Observation #1: Never expect to get fresh fruit from a gas station or convenience stop. Observation # 2: Those are not hay-fever (seasonal) boogars in your nose. Those are road boogers. You can’t drive over 1,000 miles with the windows open and expect to keep a clean nose. It ain’t gonna happen.
Okay, I can’t continue to name my other observations and road experience collections, so I am just going to put a couple more of them out there…
* It was awesome talking to a couple of bikers just out of Vegas. It was even better to learn that one of them was a blogger, like me. (That’s just bitchen.) Paul? Are you out there? Did I get your name right? (Shit. That was one of the stops where the convenience clerk told me that I looked like I needed sleep. This she tells me without even knowing what I’d packed up the day before or how I got a 3:30 am start.)
* I need to watch that Oprah episode again where Oprah and Gayle hauled a trailer. What I especially want to know is: Did Oprah and Gayle have 50 people, a crew, around them who could help at any time? Just curious, because they didn’t seem that stressed pulling an even bigger trailer than what I just pulled.
*I now want it noted that I never want to have to need to use my hazard lights again.
*I am also amazed at how much I wanted to file my broken nails during the whole drive. I just wanted to have a moment to breathe and to file. That’s all. Incidentally, between packing up the last of my stuff, moving it all into storage, packing up a U-Haul, and driving to a dryer climate, I only have one nail left to break. (So, there’s that.) The worst part of it? I don’t think of myself as persnickety. But, apparently I am. I don’t like jagged nails. Short nails are fine. Jagged nails on the road: not so much.
*Maybe Chad and Heather’s friend—what the f’ did I name him, Ike? Is that right?—was right about me. I’ve been set in my ways for way too long. Well, then, Ike. How do you like me now?
*I’m glad that Jen didn’t tell me ahead of time that there would be road construction between Georgetown and Idaho Springs and that I could expect at least a 20 minute delay where I would be at a dead standstill on a 6% decline for, exactly that, 20 minutes. Question: Why is it that your bladder is fine and you don’t have to go pee when your car is moving, but, the second your car stops it’s code yellow?
Observations over. Changing gears now. And, as you may have already figured it out, I am doing one of my blong posts.
I was going to separate “The Long Haul” post and what’s coming next (which I have not officially titled), but, I’m think’n: No. Emotionally, this next part feels like an equally long haul, so let’s just call this “Part II” and name it the “The Emotional Haul.”
Part II-The Emotional Haul
Since I have gotten here, to Lakewood Colorado, to Jen’s house, Jen has been worried about killing/spraying the dandelions in her front yard. (She’s now Utah and want’s those dandelions gone.) That said, I realize that so much of what I write from now on in this blog is going to be influenced by Jen and by her two little girls, Summer and Sparrow.
So here goes the gear shift…
Life takes your breath away, doesn’t it? Every bit of it. There are those seemingly small moments, like when you were a kid and you blew on the delicate, white cloud of a dried out dandelion, on what used to be the bloom of a wild yellow flower, brighter than your innocent, young, sunlight smile, and you hoped on hope for a wish to come true, but you didn’t follow through. The wish was done. You were a kid. When that spray of a thousand fairy white flowers went to the wind, you let go.
You didn’t question divinity. There was no asking for signs above. Did I wish it right? Do I have the might?
You weren’t even thinking about the fact that your one little blow of a wish on a puffy cloud at the end of a green stem, nature’s perfect representation of the cycle of life, started something. Sure, those fairy white flowers would have found a gust of wind soon enough to come along and help them spread their seeds. (In the scheme of things, a bigger picture is always in play.) But all you knew, in your youth’s mind, was that your wish, a sweet, solitary whisper into the wind, was just your prayer.
Then, as you got older and you took worry onto your back, and you started to weigh the sum of things, you didn’t wish any more. Instead, you started to fret. You stopped trusting and you began questioning. Is this, my Now, the crux of me? Why don’t life’s moments seem small anymore? Am I the one making everything seem so large, sometimes insurmountable?
Sigh… Youth has taken a back seat and life has gotten heavy. Gone, baby, gone are the days of dandelion wishes and mom’s kisses on boo boos. It’s on you now; all of it. You’re older.
I know. It’s a lot. Trust me. I get it. Sometimes it’s hard to breath. Welcome to life.
In my case, I guess I should be saying: Welcome to changing your life. No. That doesn’t seem like enough to say. How about: Welcome to turning your life upside down so you can see what shakes out of the pockets you’ve been to afraid to look into.
Change is still change, though, isn’t it? Whether the change is big or small, and whether you are five or fifty years old, when a metamorphous becomes necessary, I don’t think we are any different than a dandelion or a weed. We have the same needs. Like a weed, we will push through a crack in sidewalk to find a way to live and to find the best way to Be. We will kick ass to persevere.
Who are we kidding? This blog post, from the beginning, has so been about the physically long haul I just took moving from California to Colorado, but, equally, and just as, if not more, importantly, about the emotional haul I have ahead of me to get to where I am going.
I know I am going to find myself in some emotionally uncomfortable moments where I feel like I’m getting swallowed up by the journey my soul has yearned to take in order for me to follow my dreams, but I am okay with that. I’ve been asking all along: Are life’s challenges not here to teach us, to remind us, that nothing is bigger than our connection, bigger than us?
And, one rarely gets to where they want to be without effort. I have always known that I wasn’t going to find that place in life, where I am living from my passion instead of my fear, until I faced and conquered some of my biggest fears.
If only pulling a 5’ x 8’ U-Haul Cargo trailer behind my silver, 6 cylinder Nissan Xterra, as I went up and down several winding roads, was what scared me the most about changing my life. Yes. For me, pulling a trailer was really fucking stressful, but easy-peasy compared to what I know I have ahead of me emotionally.
I know me. I am already challenging myself in ways I never have so I will be facing things I’ve never faced. My demons will come out and my hope is that I will slay them.
More importantly: Will I ever pull a trailer again? Yeah…not unless the truck I’m driving has a powerful engine and I’ve got someone with me who will do all the backing up. You should know, I’m still marveling at the fact that I was able to drive over a thousand miles, from California to Colorado, and, by my design, I only had to back up two times.
What now scares me more than hauling a trailer is how much faith and trust I have found to step into my wish. While I am a very spiritual person, and always see the connectivity in things, there is just as much of my nature that fights against me and that doesn’t always know how to believe or to accept that things will all work out.
And, for an independent girl who has always done it on her own, it’s a big deal to put myself in the position of counting on someone’s generosity. It’s a gift that Jen has let me move in rent free so I can just get a part time job, which will be enough to cover my personal basic bills, and will have the time to finish my book. But, now, barely a week into this shift, it’s a gift I still don’t know how to completely accept.
Not being the one to always do it all for me and instead rely on others, really, that is one of my biggest fears. This is something I need to face. I need to fight off every last residue of resistance and embrace what Jen has done for me by believing in my dream even more than I do.
Plus, I’ve read Stephen R. Covey's book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and I know that in order to be interdependent, in order to achieve that which cannot be achieved alone, I must learn to work within the paradigm of cooperation. I can get my book done on my own. But, something I have not been able to do on my own is believe in myself enough to do what it takes.
This move to Colorado, this allowing of interdependence in my life, this is forcing me into doing what it takes and into believing that I have what it takes. Soon enough I will have my editor, my fact checker, and my found-that-jacked and wayward grammar checker.
Until then, I can no longer escape the reality that every human being is an interdependent creature. I have to accept what I’ve known all along. People need each other. At this time in my life, and because of where my life has been going, I can now admit without reservation that I needed not to be alone anymore. I have needed my friends to believe in me more than I have believed in myself.
I can also admit that this is the scariest thing I have ever done, and I don’t mean the moving part. A city, is a city, is a city. You can change your city any time you want. I’ve done it many times. Not lately. Not in 13 years. But I did move plenty when I was younger.
No… what terrifies me more is following my dream of being a writer, especially of being the kind of writer I am and want to be. Everything I write has me on the page. And here I am again, exposing myself, asking myself if I have the talent, or if I just have the guts and I am also a little bit nuts.
But the reality I’ve come to is that I’d rather fail at trying then fail to try. I’d rather fall on my ass in front of everyone than face myself alone at night knowing I have never given myself a chance.
I think I’ve known all along that if I didn’t attempt this leap of faith, if I didn’t put myself into the position of having nowhere to turn but to my writing, to my dream, I would have kept my dream as a place to escape rather than as a place to live.
I want to live my dreams not dream about another way to live.
But, again, being this daring, this brave, or this fucking stupid, has a price. I will have my moments. I’ve already had several of them including the first night I got to Jen’s house.
I arrived to an empty house. Jen was picking up the girls at their day care. I knew I was drained, but I’d made it. That’s when, even with wobbly legs and a new altitude high, I couldn’t wait until 6:30 pm, for Jen’s boyfriend Dirk to get off work and for him to help me unload my U-Haul.
It was 4:ll pm and I wanted it done. So, with the exception of unloading my bed, which Dirk did do for me around 7:00 pm, I got all of my shit out of my truck and trailer in slightly less than an hour. I was already feeling that thing I feel where I need things just so. (In other words, I needed to set down my ways.)
Once Jen got home, and Dirk got off of work and set my bed up for me, that’s when it hit, what I’d just done. I had just up-ended my life. I felt like I was going to have a panic attack.
Attack averted. It was time for Summer and Sparrow to go to bed. The story was read. The girls were tucked in. The good-night kisses were exchanged. I was about to combust, but, instead, a 5 year old girl, Summer, broke through the frantic fear that almost over took me.
As I lay next to her on her pink patch-work quilt, and just after I told her “Goodnight, my love,” she brought her petite little hand up to my right cheek, cupped it, and said, “Aunt Lev? I love you staying here.”
So now I ask you: No matter how afraid we are, doesn’t divinity always give us what we need in each moment? That little girl saw through to me and knew what to say. So why shouldn’t we trust a little more and worry a little less?
I’ll try to be fabulous at it if you will…
Ready?
Thursday, April 28, 2011
I won't let you fall
Today I had an appointment for U-haul to wire me up. Translation? I needed to get the Remote Power Vehicle Towing installation taken care of so I’ve got me some legal stop-and-go lights on the 5’-8” U-Haul trailer my little SUV will be pulling to Colorado. While I was waiting to get wired, I decided to hop over to the storage place where I am going to be leaving 95% of my possessions. I wanted to settle up my reservation.
Thankfully I am a follow up girl. My reservation had been lost. Eh, no big deal. I’m moving in on a day where the office won’t be open. I almost didn’t get the original quote/price they gave me. I was never informed about how the monthly rent will hike after the intro offer. The girl trying to re-do my reservation botched up my information three times. And, they doubled the penalty if I end my storage unit lease early. But, hey, this is just my life I’m putting in storage. No worries here. They fixed the charges, all ended up well, and that part of my day, getting wires and settling my storage, only took me close to three unsettling hours to settle. Who says packing up your life is stressful. This is a cinch. (Sigh.)
I didn’t feel any stress after that when I went home and continued with my private health insurance shopping. Why should it bother me that, because of my existing conditions, the High blood pressure and the hypothyroidism, I could be denied or be charged out the wazoo? If I wasn’t so afraid of the semantics of health insurance I would have ditched my job a long time ago. Again, easy. (Sigh.)
I guess what I am trying to say is that I may have gotten some balls back in deciding to write my life in pen, but I never said dragging around these new big balls would be easy breezy all the time and today was a toughy.
It’s all still worth it, though, and I will tell you why. When you call up the best friend you are about to move in with and tell her about your difficult day, while she gets interrupted on the phone by one of her daughters, but still, minutes later, texts you and says, “Don’t worry too much. I know you have always been on your own, but you have to remember that I’ve got your back, always. I won’t let you fall,” that's when you know you are doing the right thing.
Guess how Jen signed the text? She signed it Gayle. If that doesn’t make sense, let me explain. Jen and I both record the Oprah show. We had also both started to watch the episode about best friends, about Gayle and Oprah’s friendship, when Jen decided to text me and see if I’d seen it. I was watching it at that moment and that’s when I called her to tell her about my day.
There’s really nothing more I need to say about that.
Thankfully I am a follow up girl. My reservation had been lost. Eh, no big deal. I’m moving in on a day where the office won’t be open. I almost didn’t get the original quote/price they gave me. I was never informed about how the monthly rent will hike after the intro offer. The girl trying to re-do my reservation botched up my information three times. And, they doubled the penalty if I end my storage unit lease early. But, hey, this is just my life I’m putting in storage. No worries here. They fixed the charges, all ended up well, and that part of my day, getting wires and settling my storage, only took me close to three unsettling hours to settle. Who says packing up your life is stressful. This is a cinch. (Sigh.)
I didn’t feel any stress after that when I went home and continued with my private health insurance shopping. Why should it bother me that, because of my existing conditions, the High blood pressure and the hypothyroidism, I could be denied or be charged out the wazoo? If I wasn’t so afraid of the semantics of health insurance I would have ditched my job a long time ago. Again, easy. (Sigh.)
I guess what I am trying to say is that I may have gotten some balls back in deciding to write my life in pen, but I never said dragging around these new big balls would be easy breezy all the time and today was a toughy.
It’s all still worth it, though, and I will tell you why. When you call up the best friend you are about to move in with and tell her about your difficult day, while she gets interrupted on the phone by one of her daughters, but still, minutes later, texts you and says, “Don’t worry too much. I know you have always been on your own, but you have to remember that I’ve got your back, always. I won’t let you fall,” that's when you know you are doing the right thing.
Guess how Jen signed the text? She signed it Gayle. If that doesn’t make sense, let me explain. Jen and I both record the Oprah show. We had also both started to watch the episode about best friends, about Gayle and Oprah’s friendship, when Jen decided to text me and see if I’d seen it. I was watching it at that moment and that’s when I called her to tell her about my day.
There’s really nothing more I need to say about that.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Get Out of Jail Free card
Wikipedia defines “A Get Out of Jail Free card” as an element of the board game Monopoly which has become a popular metaphor for something that will get one out of an undesired situation.
Heard that!
Backing up, but only every so slightly, what I didn't say in my last post is that I’ve quit my job. They don’t know it yet, and I was afraid to come straight out with it in the previous “…write my life in pen..” blog post, because the responsible me thought if I wrote it outright, and somehow "the man" (my work) figured it out, that at the end of my medical leave I’ll be resigning my position, I'd be screwed.
Jo, my neighbor, helped me change my mind. She said something like, “Nah, they can’t touch you. You’re doing it by the book. Relax. Enjoy this.”
So, here is the correction: I’ve been screwed in that job. Now, that I’ve quit? Not so much. And that, my friends, is how you reshuffle life’s Monopoly deck and put the Get Out of Jail Free card on top.
There hasn’t been one day since I’ve made this decision, to store the life I’ve been living and start living another way, that I thought it was the wrong decision to make. Now, the packing, the getting together all the administrative details that are involved with moving one’s life from one state to another, oh that can take a flying flip.
Everything else involved with this decision, where this bold move feels like my own, cool, 1980s movie moment, is gelling quit nicely in my psyche. Err, wait... is it a Jerry Maguire moment that every one has now? Am I the crazy guy, like Jerry Maguire, who walks off his job with a new mission and takes the fish with him? (Go crazy! Get the fish!)
Whatever this is, I'm it. I’m picking me, sane or crazy. I have to admit, though, while there have been a lot of shitty jobs leading up to this last one, which have stacked themselves on top of life circumstances that have been culminating over the years, a more acute chain of events lead to my snapping point the day I quietly walked off the job.
The Wednesday after my father’s quadruple bypass surgery, shortly after I got called into that aforementioned, berating and impromptu meeting with Bitch #1 and the New Boss Man, is when I made my exit.
Minutes after that meeting, I had gone outside to call my sister, Lyn. I wanted to know how my father was doing. I wanted to know if they’d removed his breathing tube yet and if he was well enough to be transported out of the intensive critical care unit and into a regular room.
My sister, not comfortable with the sound of my voice asked, “You okay?” “Not really,” I said.
“Are you worried about dad?” “Yes,” I said, “But it’s not just that.”
“Is it your job again?” she asked. I didn’t answer, I just started crying.
“You need to get the hell out of there,” my sister ordered me. “Call your doctor. Get the medical leave note. Just get out of there. I can’t watch what this place is doing to you anymore. You need to move in with Jen like you’ve been talking about and finish your book and become your old self again.”
Up until that point, my sister has been standing back, watching and accepting my choices as I have continued to live the life of my making that hasn’t made me happy. Then, that Wednesday, when I was ready not to live that life any more, but, because I’d been so beaten down by my work, and had so much fear piled up in my life, and my sister knew I’d essentially become paralyzed, my big sister did what a big sister does. She basically ordered me to change my life. I’d needed that.
Immediately after I got off the phone with Lyn I called my doctor and got an appointment for 5:15 pm later that day. Then, I went back in for round 1 of my desk clearing. As I sat there in my uncomfortable office chair, surrounded by stacked paper and project binder piles, I asked myself What do I really need? I didn’t need anything, but I didn’t want any personal part of me to be left behind in that cube, so I took down the few pictures I had: The picture of me with my sister Lyn and all my friends on my 40th birthday and the shot of the Eiffel tower I took while I was on a European tour with my mom.
Then I went outside to call one of the few co-workers I’d become close with, a co-worker I’d made a promise to. She answered her cell after two rings. “Remember I told you that if I was ever to leave this place you’d be the first to know?” I asked. “Yes,” she said, tentatively.
“Well, you are the first to know. I’m leaving at lunch and I am not coming back.”
She wasn’t shocked. She’d known how they’d been treating everyone in the current budget climate. None of us could prove we were being used, abused, and harassed, or that some of us were slated for possible lay offs and being documented out. But, whether a theory is in play or is not, if all the components of that theory are in practice, and you are in a shitty situation, it doesn’t matter what the origin is. Shit is still shit no matter where the shit comes from, right?
Next I called my dear Ava, the one who has truly been a savior to me at work. Were it not for all of our walks under our trees, and all of our talks blowing off steam, I might not have kept what little sanity has remained. I can’t even remember my conversation with Ava. I just remember hanging up the phone and feeling a sense of calm, knowing Ava would always be in my life, she would always be a part of my spiritual sanity, reminding me that everything happens for a reason, and she would always be a friend, a true one.
What I hadn’t noticed, while I was outside on the phone with Ava, is that, because of a peaceable protest that was about to start, the entire building I worked in had gone on lock-down to keep the staff inside safe. Poetic I thought. Every entry/exit is now gated with bars and manned with a policeman. I feel like I am trying to break into Jail to get the remainder of my belongings from my desk and to get myself out of hell.
Turns out, clearing the rest of my desk was easy. I took one last look around, grabbed my personal work file, which had all my benefits information, performance reviews, and offer letters from both divisions in it, and I didn’t want anything else. I didn’t want that file, either, but I knew it would be necessary. Then, I left my desk exactly as it would be if I were returning after lunch, with the computer on and the work piles stacked about.
The same policeman, who questioned my employee status, just 20 minutes before to let me back into the building, informed me that I would need to show my staff ID if I wanted to re-enter the building. While he unlocked the barred gate to let me out, I said, “I won’t need my ID. I’m never coming back to this place again.”
Then, I thought: Damn. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. They might think I’ve set off a bomb or something related to the protest and radio a cop to stop me in the parking lot.
But, aside from the one other person I told I was leaving, the guy in the office across from my cube, someone who is one of the most mild mannered and incredibly decent human beings on the face of the earth, no one seemed to care that the girl who was brought to tears from work 2-3 nights a week was leaving the building. Nope. With the exception of Ava, and a precious few other co-workers I’ve cherished, all the people who cared about me were on the other side of those bars.
All along all the people who have cared about me have been there, on the other end of phone lines, across restaurant dining tables, and in my living room or in theirs. So I called one of my ‘cares about me’ friends, Lyta. (You may recall Lyta, who, along with Jo, was a big part of getting me through the panic attack I wrote about in the post “Surrender” dated: Thursday, December 16, 2010.)
Don’t worry. Leaving the job didn’t spur another panic attack, quite the opposite. But, I did need to share my decision with someone. For two hours Lyta and I discussed how necessary the life adjustments I was beginning to make have been.
After my doctor’s appointment, I went to my neighbor Jo’s place to also share my news. Jo’s response was: “Good for you!” Jo has been there on so many days I’ve come home from work totally affected by the day and by the people.
(BTW, if you are trying to figure out who the hell Jo is, Jo is Jean, also from the December 16th “Surrender” post. Jo, however, thought the name Jean sucked. So, “Jo” it is. She’s right. Jo does fit her better. If I am going to choose a name that protects a friend’s identify/privacy, I’m all for them having a hand in it.
Anyway, since leaving work that Wednesday, I haven’t been back. I have had some stressed days, but not because I am questioning my decision. I don’t. Not one bit. But, responsible me, who knows that at the end of this medical leave I will need health insurance and a new less-stressful source of income, does need to have her voice heard. She needs to call attention to the fact that the stars need to continue to line up.
This is what I have to say to responsible me: The stars will align. Have faith. I’m already living more fully in my Now. Isn’t that as it should be?
I like Now. It’s a great place. The other day, when Jo was helping me with the mechanic drop off/pick up, to get my car road-ready for my long-haul move, we did a lot of asking: What would be fun Now?
First, getting a beer and splitting a burger at the 49er, a local dive bar famous for its legendary burgers, was fun. Next, hitting up another local institution, that was going to be fun.
So, we hopped over to Jo Josts, one of Long Beach’s oldest bars which used to be a barber shop. While we didn’t have one of the special pickled eggs Jo Josts is known for, we each did have a beer. Jo bought me a Jo Josts T-shirt. Now, I can take a little bit of the city I’ve lived in for the last 14 years with me. I’ll tell people Jo Josts is famous for serving up the coldest beer in Long Beach.
As you can see, and as it turns out, were this blog is concerned, I am not gone and I won’t be. I think I am going to need to keep up on posting this adventure I’ve started.
I will also need to keep up on this writing venue, this blog, a venue which has given me the freedom to not need to be perfect. This blog has taught me that I have something to share and until I get an editor, the occasional repeated word, where I start a sentence then rearrange my thought, that’s okay. When I get my editor for my book, the intermittent inscrutable series of words will disappear. Until then, I am just going to continue to do what I know how to do: Share my self and my voice.
Oh, since I am throwing all my shit in storage, and just bringing my bed, ¼ of my clothes, and my painting and writing supplies, I’m also bringing my beach cruiser. I don’t care if that’s impractical or if the side of my bike has a logo that reads: Point Beach when I am headed to the mountains. I am not moving to Colorado forever. I am starting my adventure there.
My bike is my Jerry Maguire office fish. I am starting a new life and the damn bike is coming with me. (I’m taking the fish.) I’m already imagining myself on my bike, ringing my bike bell, and getting looks from the neighbors wondering who the damn blondie is with the ridiculous California beach cruiser.
When I come back to get my stuff out of Long Beach storage, my plan is that it will be because my book is being published, or I am getting married, or I can afford to buy real estate (or all three).
If all of those plans work out, great. If other plans take me somewhere else, great, too. My only real plan is to never work so hard at doing something that I don’t love for people who don’t care about me again.
Life shouldn’t feel like a jail cell. It should feel fabulous, free, and without fear, and right now it does.
Heard that!
Backing up, but only every so slightly, what I didn't say in my last post is that I’ve quit my job. They don’t know it yet, and I was afraid to come straight out with it in the previous “…write my life in pen..” blog post, because the responsible me thought if I wrote it outright, and somehow "the man" (my work) figured it out, that at the end of my medical leave I’ll be resigning my position, I'd be screwed.
Jo, my neighbor, helped me change my mind. She said something like, “Nah, they can’t touch you. You’re doing it by the book. Relax. Enjoy this.”
So, here is the correction: I’ve been screwed in that job. Now, that I’ve quit? Not so much. And that, my friends, is how you reshuffle life’s Monopoly deck and put the Get Out of Jail Free card on top.
There hasn’t been one day since I’ve made this decision, to store the life I’ve been living and start living another way, that I thought it was the wrong decision to make. Now, the packing, the getting together all the administrative details that are involved with moving one’s life from one state to another, oh that can take a flying flip.
Everything else involved with this decision, where this bold move feels like my own, cool, 1980s movie moment, is gelling quit nicely in my psyche. Err, wait... is it a Jerry Maguire moment that every one has now? Am I the crazy guy, like Jerry Maguire, who walks off his job with a new mission and takes the fish with him? (Go crazy! Get the fish!)
Whatever this is, I'm it. I’m picking me, sane or crazy. I have to admit, though, while there have been a lot of shitty jobs leading up to this last one, which have stacked themselves on top of life circumstances that have been culminating over the years, a more acute chain of events lead to my snapping point the day I quietly walked off the job.
The Wednesday after my father’s quadruple bypass surgery, shortly after I got called into that aforementioned, berating and impromptu meeting with Bitch #1 and the New Boss Man, is when I made my exit.
Minutes after that meeting, I had gone outside to call my sister, Lyn. I wanted to know how my father was doing. I wanted to know if they’d removed his breathing tube yet and if he was well enough to be transported out of the intensive critical care unit and into a regular room.
My sister, not comfortable with the sound of my voice asked, “You okay?” “Not really,” I said.
“Are you worried about dad?” “Yes,” I said, “But it’s not just that.”
“Is it your job again?” she asked. I didn’t answer, I just started crying.
“You need to get the hell out of there,” my sister ordered me. “Call your doctor. Get the medical leave note. Just get out of there. I can’t watch what this place is doing to you anymore. You need to move in with Jen like you’ve been talking about and finish your book and become your old self again.”
Up until that point, my sister has been standing back, watching and accepting my choices as I have continued to live the life of my making that hasn’t made me happy. Then, that Wednesday, when I was ready not to live that life any more, but, because I’d been so beaten down by my work, and had so much fear piled up in my life, and my sister knew I’d essentially become paralyzed, my big sister did what a big sister does. She basically ordered me to change my life. I’d needed that.
Immediately after I got off the phone with Lyn I called my doctor and got an appointment for 5:15 pm later that day. Then, I went back in for round 1 of my desk clearing. As I sat there in my uncomfortable office chair, surrounded by stacked paper and project binder piles, I asked myself What do I really need? I didn’t need anything, but I didn’t want any personal part of me to be left behind in that cube, so I took down the few pictures I had: The picture of me with my sister Lyn and all my friends on my 40th birthday and the shot of the Eiffel tower I took while I was on a European tour with my mom.
Then I went outside to call one of the few co-workers I’d become close with, a co-worker I’d made a promise to. She answered her cell after two rings. “Remember I told you that if I was ever to leave this place you’d be the first to know?” I asked. “Yes,” she said, tentatively.
“Well, you are the first to know. I’m leaving at lunch and I am not coming back.”
She wasn’t shocked. She’d known how they’d been treating everyone in the current budget climate. None of us could prove we were being used, abused, and harassed, or that some of us were slated for possible lay offs and being documented out. But, whether a theory is in play or is not, if all the components of that theory are in practice, and you are in a shitty situation, it doesn’t matter what the origin is. Shit is still shit no matter where the shit comes from, right?
Next I called my dear Ava, the one who has truly been a savior to me at work. Were it not for all of our walks under our trees, and all of our talks blowing off steam, I might not have kept what little sanity has remained. I can’t even remember my conversation with Ava. I just remember hanging up the phone and feeling a sense of calm, knowing Ava would always be in my life, she would always be a part of my spiritual sanity, reminding me that everything happens for a reason, and she would always be a friend, a true one.
What I hadn’t noticed, while I was outside on the phone with Ava, is that, because of a peaceable protest that was about to start, the entire building I worked in had gone on lock-down to keep the staff inside safe. Poetic I thought. Every entry/exit is now gated with bars and manned with a policeman. I feel like I am trying to break into Jail to get the remainder of my belongings from my desk and to get myself out of hell.
Turns out, clearing the rest of my desk was easy. I took one last look around, grabbed my personal work file, which had all my benefits information, performance reviews, and offer letters from both divisions in it, and I didn’t want anything else. I didn’t want that file, either, but I knew it would be necessary. Then, I left my desk exactly as it would be if I were returning after lunch, with the computer on and the work piles stacked about.
The same policeman, who questioned my employee status, just 20 minutes before to let me back into the building, informed me that I would need to show my staff ID if I wanted to re-enter the building. While he unlocked the barred gate to let me out, I said, “I won’t need my ID. I’m never coming back to this place again.”
Then, I thought: Damn. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. They might think I’ve set off a bomb or something related to the protest and radio a cop to stop me in the parking lot.
But, aside from the one other person I told I was leaving, the guy in the office across from my cube, someone who is one of the most mild mannered and incredibly decent human beings on the face of the earth, no one seemed to care that the girl who was brought to tears from work 2-3 nights a week was leaving the building. Nope. With the exception of Ava, and a precious few other co-workers I’ve cherished, all the people who cared about me were on the other side of those bars.
All along all the people who have cared about me have been there, on the other end of phone lines, across restaurant dining tables, and in my living room or in theirs. So I called one of my ‘cares about me’ friends, Lyta. (You may recall Lyta, who, along with Jo, was a big part of getting me through the panic attack I wrote about in the post “Surrender” dated: Thursday, December 16, 2010.)
Don’t worry. Leaving the job didn’t spur another panic attack, quite the opposite. But, I did need to share my decision with someone. For two hours Lyta and I discussed how necessary the life adjustments I was beginning to make have been.
After my doctor’s appointment, I went to my neighbor Jo’s place to also share my news. Jo’s response was: “Good for you!” Jo has been there on so many days I’ve come home from work totally affected by the day and by the people.
(BTW, if you are trying to figure out who the hell Jo is, Jo is Jean, also from the December 16th “Surrender” post. Jo, however, thought the name Jean sucked. So, “Jo” it is. She’s right. Jo does fit her better. If I am going to choose a name that protects a friend’s identify/privacy, I’m all for them having a hand in it.
Anyway, since leaving work that Wednesday, I haven’t been back. I have had some stressed days, but not because I am questioning my decision. I don’t. Not one bit. But, responsible me, who knows that at the end of this medical leave I will need health insurance and a new less-stressful source of income, does need to have her voice heard. She needs to call attention to the fact that the stars need to continue to line up.
This is what I have to say to responsible me: The stars will align. Have faith. I’m already living more fully in my Now. Isn’t that as it should be?
I like Now. It’s a great place. The other day, when Jo was helping me with the mechanic drop off/pick up, to get my car road-ready for my long-haul move, we did a lot of asking: What would be fun Now?
First, getting a beer and splitting a burger at the 49er, a local dive bar famous for its legendary burgers, was fun. Next, hitting up another local institution, that was going to be fun.
So, we hopped over to Jo Josts, one of Long Beach’s oldest bars which used to be a barber shop. While we didn’t have one of the special pickled eggs Jo Josts is known for, we each did have a beer. Jo bought me a Jo Josts T-shirt. Now, I can take a little bit of the city I’ve lived in for the last 14 years with me. I’ll tell people Jo Josts is famous for serving up the coldest beer in Long Beach.
As you can see, and as it turns out, were this blog is concerned, I am not gone and I won’t be. I think I am going to need to keep up on posting this adventure I’ve started.
I will also need to keep up on this writing venue, this blog, a venue which has given me the freedom to not need to be perfect. This blog has taught me that I have something to share and until I get an editor, the occasional repeated word, where I start a sentence then rearrange my thought, that’s okay. When I get my editor for my book, the intermittent inscrutable series of words will disappear. Until then, I am just going to continue to do what I know how to do: Share my self and my voice.
Oh, since I am throwing all my shit in storage, and just bringing my bed, ¼ of my clothes, and my painting and writing supplies, I’m also bringing my beach cruiser. I don’t care if that’s impractical or if the side of my bike has a logo that reads: Point Beach when I am headed to the mountains. I am not moving to Colorado forever. I am starting my adventure there.
My bike is my Jerry Maguire office fish. I am starting a new life and the damn bike is coming with me. (I’m taking the fish.) I’m already imagining myself on my bike, ringing my bike bell, and getting looks from the neighbors wondering who the damn blondie is with the ridiculous California beach cruiser.
When I come back to get my stuff out of Long Beach storage, my plan is that it will be because my book is being published, or I am getting married, or I can afford to buy real estate (or all three).
If all of those plans work out, great. If other plans take me somewhere else, great, too. My only real plan is to never work so hard at doing something that I don’t love for people who don’t care about me again.
Life shouldn’t feel like a jail cell. It should feel fabulous, free, and without fear, and right now it does.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
I am going to write my life in pen from now on!
When I started my undergraduate education (I think I was about 22 years old), I kicked it all off with taking classes at the Jr. College in the city where I grew up. In one of the first art classes I’ve ever taken there was an assignment given that I never forgot. “Draw this still life,” the professor instructed us. “Oh, I am sorry,” she went on. “Did I not mention that you are not to use your pencils? You will be using pen for this drawing. There is no erasing with this assignment. If you make a mistake, figure out how to make it work.” That’s what art is all about.”
When I was 18 years old, just two weeks after graduating high school, and about 4-5 years before ever taking that art class with the unforgettable lesson, Jen’s older sister and I moved to Lake Tahoe (I think I’ve mentioned this before). I had two jobs while living in Lake Tahoe.
The first job I held was bagging groceries at a major super market. Yup, I was a courtesy clerk. That job ended when my manager told me that I needed to go next door to the drug store and buy a new white dress shirt, because mine wasn’t clean enough. (There was some dirt on the front of my Oxford from putting my shoulders into it when I was pushing a row of carts in the parking lot the day before.)
“If you haven’t scheduled me for enough shifts to afford to do my laundry, how do you expect me to come up with the money to buy a new shirt?” I asked. My manager, a real piece of work, wasn’t sympathetic. “Figure it out,” she said, “Just come back with a clean shirt.”
So, I left. I rode my bike home, called the super market main phone line, and I asked to speak to the manager. When the piece of sh— , piece of work, said, “Hello, this is the manager,” I said, “This is Leven. I quit.” I hung up the phone. Then, I put my bikini on, got back on my bike, and I went to the lake—King’s beach—for the rest of the day. In three days, I got a new job waiting tables at one of the major family dining restaurant chains which was located even closer to my apartment. Thus, waiting tables for the grave yard shift was my second job in Lake Tahoe.
But then, after a year taking orders, even though I’d moved to getting bossed around by customers on regular day and night shifts, I needed a break. I asked the restaurant manager for time off so I could go to Mazatlan, Mexico with a friend for Spring Break vacation. His answer was no. He said, “Absolutely not,” to be exact. So, I quit. I went to Mexico, and I had a blast. I even went parasailing, except that was scary as hell.
Now, let’s cut to how I am doing now. As you already know, I’ve been pretty miserable at work. For me, it has been a very stressful thing to be under the management of one of the most wretched and unconscious individuals I have ever met in my life (Bull #2).
As much as I understand that the pain and misery Bull # 2 inflicts on others has everything to do with the internal pain Bull # 2 must personally posses deep inside, I do not excuse a person’s pain as a good enough reason to become such a generally feared and hated supervisor. I’ve said it before, wielding one’s position of power over others, and thereby making them feel bullied, powerless, constantly threatened, and stressed, is not acceptable behavior from a being.
Sure, as you know, recently I got a new boss. However, if that New Boss Man ultimately reports to the same Bull #2 I’ve been dealing with for the last year, than how does that change what and who I’ve been dealing with? It doesn’t. It makes it so I have two people I have to answer to. No, wait. There have been three people I’ve been answering to since New Boss Man started. Have I ever mentioned Bitch #1?
Bitch #1 is one of those know-it-all, but-knows-nothing, loves-the-sound-of-her-own-voice (even though everyone else can’t stand it—really can’t stand it), yammering, annoying bitches who also happens to be one of the higher up bosses where I work. But, I’ve never reported to the bitch, and, up until recently, rarely had to deal with her. My New Boss Man recently started to report to her, so that has put me into the position of answering to three people who don’t know how to do what I do for a living but think I should be doing it better.
Put succinctly, in this position, in this place, every expectation put forth, every deadline set, and all scrutiny of the process that my job requires, has been unrealistic. Aside from some of the amazing people I’ve come to know, and get to know better (my dear Ava among the select and wonderful few), every second of every moment I’ve spent working for this place (I’m still not mentioning the name), has been pretty close to tortuous.
Do you know what it is like, when, as a professional trainer, putting together the documentation for, and conducting the training of, various policies, procedures, and softwares, nothing about what it takes to accomplish this is understood by the people asking you to do it?
They know nothing of taking just the right screen shot of a software page, drop-down menu, pop-up screen, login navigational reference, etc. They don’t get positioning the cursor, cropping the image just so, circling or pointing to the aspect of the image which correlates to the steps or directions listed just below that representational picture. They don’t know how to rearrange or cut out certain information so as not to give out any personal or proprietary data in a visual reference. They don’t get how much of the afore-mentioned effort, and more, it takes to get and/or create just the right image that will match up with the language which the image is supposed to represent.
They’ve also got no idea what it takes in creating a consistency in language throughout bulleted lists which may span over 50 pages of a manual or 25+ pages of a presentation. Oh, and could they maintain a similar type of action verbiage throughout their step-by-step direction/instructional sets, including which words to quote and/or put in bold? Would they remember every step that needs to be changed if something in the software or the policy changes? No.
Do any of them have half of my personality in order to be able to train others, to be deft at working a room, and to be comfortable enough in one’s self to be in front of a crowd so that the crowd, the trainees, can be put to ease while they, as learners, are given the task of taking on something new which, inevitably, makes everyone feel stupid? Do they care about how much change devastates people and how threatening them with change in their job is what makes change still more frightening yet? Will they take any of that into consideration in each way that they present new information? Let’s go with “no” again.
Oh shit. I’m sorry. I just realized this is one of the most boring complaints I’ve ever outlined. I’m stopping now, but I think, without mentioning even one more aspect of what it takes to learn, put together documentation for, then teach anything, you get the point that it takes a lot. Thus, I’ve been working at a job, giving my best, which was not good enough, and killing myself for people who want more blood out of me.
That’s why, the day after my dad had quadruple bypass surgery, which was a little over a week ago, I started to question my own hand in my misery. When my father goes in for a stress test for one surgery, then his doctors realize there is a 70% blockage in all but one of the veins leading to and from my father’s heart, and he ends up having another surgery, a quadruple bypass, and they discover the blockages were closer to 90%, the two questions in my mind are 1) Is my father going to be okay? And, 2) Because of the stress in my life, am I going to end up like my father?
I’d already gone home sick the Monday before, because of a B.S. stressful meeting I was in with Bull #2, Bitch # 1, New Boss Man, and two other Managers. Then, adding to my stress, and worried about my dad, I’d called in sick the next day.
What happened when I went back in on Wednesday, the day after the day I called in sick and had explained that my father had just undergone quadruple bypass surgery? I got called into an impromptu meeting with Bitch # 1 and my New Boss man where they proceeded to berate my work and re-dictate the deadlines for my projects.
Did anyone ask me how my father was doing? No. New Boss man, who tries to come off as the Deepak Chopra of managers, but has proven himself to be nothing more than a lip-service fraud, just sat there with Bitch #1 as they pointed out the various changes my 63 page technical how-to manual needed. Really? There are mistakes, corrections, or necessary changes on a manual I spent how many hours/weeks working on? Fuck. Isn’t that what proofing is for? Seriously, thanks for finding the mistakes. That’s how it is supposed to work on a team, you idiots!
Ah, shit. I forgot again. I am not supposed to require the assistance of others to proof my work. I am supposed to do it all on my own. No. Wrong again. I need to exert more initiative and fix my own mistakes and find my own answers. Still wrong. If I need help on anything I have to go through the bureaucratic channels before using anyone else as a resource. No, no, no. I’ve just got it all wrong and I am not up to par.
Oh, and then there is that fact where the replication and data validation of 25+ financial reports hasn’t been completed by me yet, even though that’s not work a production trainer usually does, but generally speaking what a team comprised of a business analysts, a developer, and an accountant would accomplish, so I shouldn’t forget that I still suck on that account, too.
BTW, it is worth mentioning that the entire division I have been working in has been under similar stress, working with just as tight of deadlines, and all equally detest the management, but they are not me so I cannot begin to account for how they want to handle how they are affected.
I am now truly sorry. I did it again. If just writing the last “how many?” paragraphs made you want to stick a drill in you left ear, like me, I shouldn’t have driven you there.
What’s been my point? It’s not worth it, doing work that doesn’t fulfill you for people who are basically killing you. And, while I previously mentioned two jobs that I gave up over a dirty shirt and a Spring break, I would like you to understand that I have never quit anything in my life. I have chosen.
Sometimes life asks you to choose between slowly dieing or consciously living. I choose to live, to turn a corner, make a change, and take a chance. It’s taken me a year of misery, a lot of crying, and even more stress to realize that I’ve never regretted any leap of faith I have ever taken.
That’s why I know I won’t regret putting my entire life in storage so I can minimize my stress. I am giving up this bat-cave condo and I am going to start living just as fearlessly as I did in my youth. I am not going to give all the details now, because I don’t know what route I will take with work to make sure I have continued health insurance to deal with my existing medical conditions, the damn thyroid thing and the blood pressure, but I am saying enough for you to figure it out.
What’s paramount, is that my dad is okay. He was up and walking within a day and a half of his surgery, and when I was talking to him on the phone the other day, he was slowly ascending the stairs (something the doctors told him not to do unless my mom was home, and she wasn’t). But I know in my heart if I keep going at this pace, keep working for this place, if I keep coming home and giving up my dreams to tears, tuning out, and television, I am not going to be okay.
Am I afraid of the changes I am planning ahead? What do you think? But, again, I am more afraid of living the way I have been. I’ve am growing back the back the balls of the 20 year old in me who took off to Mexico.
My truth is now this: I don’t want to live so tentatively that I’m always living in pencil, afraid to make a mistake, afraid to take any chance that won’t give me the room to erase. I may have more furniture, and may need a little more health insurance, now that I am older, but I’m going back to drawing in pen.
Isn’t that what life is about?
(To my big sister: I love you. Thank you for being so fabulous and for helping me find my strength again! There are leaps in life I would not have been able to make were it not for you!)
When I was 18 years old, just two weeks after graduating high school, and about 4-5 years before ever taking that art class with the unforgettable lesson, Jen’s older sister and I moved to Lake Tahoe (I think I’ve mentioned this before). I had two jobs while living in Lake Tahoe.
The first job I held was bagging groceries at a major super market. Yup, I was a courtesy clerk. That job ended when my manager told me that I needed to go next door to the drug store and buy a new white dress shirt, because mine wasn’t clean enough. (There was some dirt on the front of my Oxford from putting my shoulders into it when I was pushing a row of carts in the parking lot the day before.)
“If you haven’t scheduled me for enough shifts to afford to do my laundry, how do you expect me to come up with the money to buy a new shirt?” I asked. My manager, a real piece of work, wasn’t sympathetic. “Figure it out,” she said, “Just come back with a clean shirt.”
So, I left. I rode my bike home, called the super market main phone line, and I asked to speak to the manager. When the piece of sh— , piece of work, said, “Hello, this is the manager,” I said, “This is Leven. I quit.” I hung up the phone. Then, I put my bikini on, got back on my bike, and I went to the lake—King’s beach—for the rest of the day. In three days, I got a new job waiting tables at one of the major family dining restaurant chains which was located even closer to my apartment. Thus, waiting tables for the grave yard shift was my second job in Lake Tahoe.
But then, after a year taking orders, even though I’d moved to getting bossed around by customers on regular day and night shifts, I needed a break. I asked the restaurant manager for time off so I could go to Mazatlan, Mexico with a friend for Spring Break vacation. His answer was no. He said, “Absolutely not,” to be exact. So, I quit. I went to Mexico, and I had a blast. I even went parasailing, except that was scary as hell.
Now, let’s cut to how I am doing now. As you already know, I’ve been pretty miserable at work. For me, it has been a very stressful thing to be under the management of one of the most wretched and unconscious individuals I have ever met in my life (Bull #2).
As much as I understand that the pain and misery Bull # 2 inflicts on others has everything to do with the internal pain Bull # 2 must personally posses deep inside, I do not excuse a person’s pain as a good enough reason to become such a generally feared and hated supervisor. I’ve said it before, wielding one’s position of power over others, and thereby making them feel bullied, powerless, constantly threatened, and stressed, is not acceptable behavior from a being.
Sure, as you know, recently I got a new boss. However, if that New Boss Man ultimately reports to the same Bull #2 I’ve been dealing with for the last year, than how does that change what and who I’ve been dealing with? It doesn’t. It makes it so I have two people I have to answer to. No, wait. There have been three people I’ve been answering to since New Boss Man started. Have I ever mentioned Bitch #1?
Bitch #1 is one of those know-it-all, but-knows-nothing, loves-the-sound-of-her-own-voice (even though everyone else can’t stand it—really can’t stand it), yammering, annoying bitches who also happens to be one of the higher up bosses where I work. But, I’ve never reported to the bitch, and, up until recently, rarely had to deal with her. My New Boss Man recently started to report to her, so that has put me into the position of answering to three people who don’t know how to do what I do for a living but think I should be doing it better.
Put succinctly, in this position, in this place, every expectation put forth, every deadline set, and all scrutiny of the process that my job requires, has been unrealistic. Aside from some of the amazing people I’ve come to know, and get to know better (my dear Ava among the select and wonderful few), every second of every moment I’ve spent working for this place (I’m still not mentioning the name), has been pretty close to tortuous.
Do you know what it is like, when, as a professional trainer, putting together the documentation for, and conducting the training of, various policies, procedures, and softwares, nothing about what it takes to accomplish this is understood by the people asking you to do it?
They know nothing of taking just the right screen shot of a software page, drop-down menu, pop-up screen, login navigational reference, etc. They don’t get positioning the cursor, cropping the image just so, circling or pointing to the aspect of the image which correlates to the steps or directions listed just below that representational picture. They don’t know how to rearrange or cut out certain information so as not to give out any personal or proprietary data in a visual reference. They don’t get how much of the afore-mentioned effort, and more, it takes to get and/or create just the right image that will match up with the language which the image is supposed to represent.
They’ve also got no idea what it takes in creating a consistency in language throughout bulleted lists which may span over 50 pages of a manual or 25+ pages of a presentation. Oh, and could they maintain a similar type of action verbiage throughout their step-by-step direction/instructional sets, including which words to quote and/or put in bold? Would they remember every step that needs to be changed if something in the software or the policy changes? No.
Do any of them have half of my personality in order to be able to train others, to be deft at working a room, and to be comfortable enough in one’s self to be in front of a crowd so that the crowd, the trainees, can be put to ease while they, as learners, are given the task of taking on something new which, inevitably, makes everyone feel stupid? Do they care about how much change devastates people and how threatening them with change in their job is what makes change still more frightening yet? Will they take any of that into consideration in each way that they present new information? Let’s go with “no” again.
Oh shit. I’m sorry. I just realized this is one of the most boring complaints I’ve ever outlined. I’m stopping now, but I think, without mentioning even one more aspect of what it takes to learn, put together documentation for, then teach anything, you get the point that it takes a lot. Thus, I’ve been working at a job, giving my best, which was not good enough, and killing myself for people who want more blood out of me.
That’s why, the day after my dad had quadruple bypass surgery, which was a little over a week ago, I started to question my own hand in my misery. When my father goes in for a stress test for one surgery, then his doctors realize there is a 70% blockage in all but one of the veins leading to and from my father’s heart, and he ends up having another surgery, a quadruple bypass, and they discover the blockages were closer to 90%, the two questions in my mind are 1) Is my father going to be okay? And, 2) Because of the stress in my life, am I going to end up like my father?
I’d already gone home sick the Monday before, because of a B.S. stressful meeting I was in with Bull #2, Bitch # 1, New Boss Man, and two other Managers. Then, adding to my stress, and worried about my dad, I’d called in sick the next day.
What happened when I went back in on Wednesday, the day after the day I called in sick and had explained that my father had just undergone quadruple bypass surgery? I got called into an impromptu meeting with Bitch # 1 and my New Boss man where they proceeded to berate my work and re-dictate the deadlines for my projects.
Did anyone ask me how my father was doing? No. New Boss man, who tries to come off as the Deepak Chopra of managers, but has proven himself to be nothing more than a lip-service fraud, just sat there with Bitch #1 as they pointed out the various changes my 63 page technical how-to manual needed. Really? There are mistakes, corrections, or necessary changes on a manual I spent how many hours/weeks working on? Fuck. Isn’t that what proofing is for? Seriously, thanks for finding the mistakes. That’s how it is supposed to work on a team, you idiots!
Ah, shit. I forgot again. I am not supposed to require the assistance of others to proof my work. I am supposed to do it all on my own. No. Wrong again. I need to exert more initiative and fix my own mistakes and find my own answers. Still wrong. If I need help on anything I have to go through the bureaucratic channels before using anyone else as a resource. No, no, no. I’ve just got it all wrong and I am not up to par.
Oh, and then there is that fact where the replication and data validation of 25+ financial reports hasn’t been completed by me yet, even though that’s not work a production trainer usually does, but generally speaking what a team comprised of a business analysts, a developer, and an accountant would accomplish, so I shouldn’t forget that I still suck on that account, too.
BTW, it is worth mentioning that the entire division I have been working in has been under similar stress, working with just as tight of deadlines, and all equally detest the management, but they are not me so I cannot begin to account for how they want to handle how they are affected.
I am now truly sorry. I did it again. If just writing the last “how many?” paragraphs made you want to stick a drill in you left ear, like me, I shouldn’t have driven you there.
What’s been my point? It’s not worth it, doing work that doesn’t fulfill you for people who are basically killing you. And, while I previously mentioned two jobs that I gave up over a dirty shirt and a Spring break, I would like you to understand that I have never quit anything in my life. I have chosen.
Sometimes life asks you to choose between slowly dieing or consciously living. I choose to live, to turn a corner, make a change, and take a chance. It’s taken me a year of misery, a lot of crying, and even more stress to realize that I’ve never regretted any leap of faith I have ever taken.
That’s why I know I won’t regret putting my entire life in storage so I can minimize my stress. I am giving up this bat-cave condo and I am going to start living just as fearlessly as I did in my youth. I am not going to give all the details now, because I don’t know what route I will take with work to make sure I have continued health insurance to deal with my existing medical conditions, the damn thyroid thing and the blood pressure, but I am saying enough for you to figure it out.
What’s paramount, is that my dad is okay. He was up and walking within a day and a half of his surgery, and when I was talking to him on the phone the other day, he was slowly ascending the stairs (something the doctors told him not to do unless my mom was home, and she wasn’t). But I know in my heart if I keep going at this pace, keep working for this place, if I keep coming home and giving up my dreams to tears, tuning out, and television, I am not going to be okay.
Am I afraid of the changes I am planning ahead? What do you think? But, again, I am more afraid of living the way I have been. I’ve am growing back the back the balls of the 20 year old in me who took off to Mexico.
My truth is now this: I don’t want to live so tentatively that I’m always living in pencil, afraid to make a mistake, afraid to take any chance that won’t give me the room to erase. I may have more furniture, and may need a little more health insurance, now that I am older, but I’m going back to drawing in pen.
Isn’t that what life is about?
(To my big sister: I love you. Thank you for being so fabulous and for helping me find my strength again! There are leaps in life I would not have been able to make were it not for you!)
Saturday, April 9, 2011
I am dating my new bike...
Yeah, I know I said I wasn't going to be back until I finished my book, but, apparently, it looks like I will show up for short little tid bits.
This is what is new in my life: I bought a bike, a beach cruiser. It's purdy, all white with mint/aqua blue details.
I am now dating my bike. Since I picked it up, site-to-store, a couple of days ago, I haven't really had a chance to ride it. I took it for a short spin, but it wasn't enough. I've been staring at my bike, in my living room, and I even get up and sit on it, smile, and think about the nice rides I am going to have on it, but haven't had that ride yet.
Now I have. My first ride just happened. This is is how...
This morning I fully intended to ride my bike, then work on my book. The opposite happened. I woke up, ran some errands, worked on my book until past 9:00 pm, and then, even though settling in for a couple of hours of trash TV seemed to be my agenda, I thought no.
I decided to install my new bike bell (ring-ring) and my new night-time bike light (shine-shine). Then, um, yeah... had a bell, had a light, had to go for a ride.
So, even though I might be admitting that I broke the law (and if so, I am lying about this part), I filled up yesterday's to-go water cup, from Chipotle, with wine, and I went me for a little night-time bike ride. Yes I did.
How'd it go? Great. Rung-rung my bell at some jacuzzi-ers I could hear in their back yard on the bike path near the place I am living. Rung-rung my bell again at some cigar smoking poker playing men I could hear and smell on the same bike path.
The cuzzi/cigaries didn't respond, but who cares. I got to ring my bell, ride my bike, shine my light, and now, I know, without a doubt, that I need a cup holder. Fuck my wine flopping around in my bike basket and trying to balance as I reach for it to take a sip.
Wait. It wasn't wine. It was punch. I'd never break any laws!
Oh my fabulous new bike. I love you Schwinn! Let's cruz! But, we do need that cup holder. Don't we?
This is what is new in my life: I bought a bike, a beach cruiser. It's purdy, all white with mint/aqua blue details.
I am now dating my bike. Since I picked it up, site-to-store, a couple of days ago, I haven't really had a chance to ride it. I took it for a short spin, but it wasn't enough. I've been staring at my bike, in my living room, and I even get up and sit on it, smile, and think about the nice rides I am going to have on it, but haven't had that ride yet.
Now I have. My first ride just happened. This is is how...
This morning I fully intended to ride my bike, then work on my book. The opposite happened. I woke up, ran some errands, worked on my book until past 9:00 pm, and then, even though settling in for a couple of hours of trash TV seemed to be my agenda, I thought no.
I decided to install my new bike bell (ring-ring) and my new night-time bike light (shine-shine). Then, um, yeah... had a bell, had a light, had to go for a ride.
So, even though I might be admitting that I broke the law (and if so, I am lying about this part), I filled up yesterday's to-go water cup, from Chipotle, with wine, and I went me for a little night-time bike ride. Yes I did.
How'd it go? Great. Rung-rung my bell at some jacuzzi-ers I could hear in their back yard on the bike path near the place I am living. Rung-rung my bell again at some cigar smoking poker playing men I could hear and smell on the same bike path.
The cuzzi/cigaries didn't respond, but who cares. I got to ring my bell, ride my bike, shine my light, and now, I know, without a doubt, that I need a cup holder. Fuck my wine flopping around in my bike basket and trying to balance as I reach for it to take a sip.
Wait. It wasn't wine. It was punch. I'd never break any laws!
Oh my fabulous new bike. I love you Schwinn! Let's cruz! But, we do need that cup holder. Don't we?
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Gone...Back...Gone again...I'll be back
I have been away from my blog for a while now. I am back, but only for one post to say that I won’t be back again until my book is done, however long that takes.
My book, my writing, my need to express myself, they have all been the casualties of the work stress I have been under and the home environment I can’t seem to get over. And, as you may have noticed in the posts leading up to my silence, I’d become consumed, so much so that I didn’t have anything nice to say anymore. That’s not the person or the writer I’ve ever wanted to be.
Has the toxic environment at work taken a turn? Gawd no. It’s gotten worse. Has the sun decided to make a special appearance in my living room? Sadly, no, again. There are some things that have changed, though. For one, Spring is here. The daylight is lasting longer, and that helps.
The other thing that has happened is that I had a game changing day in my life last Saturday. I went to a psychic and I got the answers to the questions I have been asking: How the hell is it that I have found myself in the worst job I have ever had? How did I choose to move to the darkest place I’ve ever lived? What have I done to myself?
What I’ve done is that I, unknowingly, created the worst possible conditions for myself so that I could come to the conclusion I have needed to come to for a long time. I am not a 9-5-er. I don’t want this life. This is not who I am, who I was meant to be, and this kind of life is not what I have always wanted for myself. The psychic didn’t spell that part out. I figured that out on my own. He did tell me that I have never given myself a chance to live the life I have wanted to live.
That’s when I had to ask myself why that is. Perhaps I have been afraid that my dreams, of making it as writer, were only to remain dreams. I am still afraid I may not be able to make money doing thing things I am most passionate about, communicating through words or color. I am, however, more terrified of living the way I have been living for the rest of my life. The psychic did tell me I had a choice to make in life and getting a new job would be choosing this kind of life, a life of 9-5. (I didn’t tell him I’d been searching for a new job.)
I can’t do 20 more years of this shit, sitting in a gray box, a cube, without windows, having my retinas burned out by florescent light, listening to a frog man clip his nails in the cube next to me, being woken up an hour and a half before my alarm every morning because the dainty bitch above walks like a friggen hippopotamus, and waking up to show up to a hell I never wanted to get a fire suit for.
I don’t want to live in a place that someone else owns. I don’t want to share walls with people who aren’t my family. I don’t want to be put in the position where my rent can change. I don’t want to be the person who creates an enemy out of someone who gave me a place to live, even if they pulled a last minute lease switch on me and broke my trust.
I don’t want to wear collared shirts and poly-blend pants so I can look appropriate for people who could care less about me. I don’t want to worry that if I get a tattoo I might be looked at as less than professional. I am less than professional, damn it! I am a friggen creative. I should have blue hair, or at least a fuchsia pink streak.
You know what else? I am sick of comfortable work shoes. I only want to own two types of shoes in my life. I want the totally uncomfortable kind that make you look hot, but you can only manage the distance to and from the car to the table you will be dining at. And, I want the best comfortable kind. Shoes that say to others you are going to the beach or going for a run.
I don’t want to put make up on every day, either. I don’t want my days to be governed by toxic bosses. I don’t want to sit through another meeting where people are talking about shit that doesn’t matter to me, at all. I don’t want the new things in life I learn to be “how to play their game” or “how to get through the day.”
So, I am giving my dreams a chance. I am going to finish my book and put it out there and shop it to as many publishers as it takes until the right one puts it in print. I am going to see if the life I want for myself can be actualized. If I don’t give my dreams an honest effort, a place to go where my passion has wings, whose fault is it?
Ta Ta for now…
My book, my writing, my need to express myself, they have all been the casualties of the work stress I have been under and the home environment I can’t seem to get over. And, as you may have noticed in the posts leading up to my silence, I’d become consumed, so much so that I didn’t have anything nice to say anymore. That’s not the person or the writer I’ve ever wanted to be.
Has the toxic environment at work taken a turn? Gawd no. It’s gotten worse. Has the sun decided to make a special appearance in my living room? Sadly, no, again. There are some things that have changed, though. For one, Spring is here. The daylight is lasting longer, and that helps.
The other thing that has happened is that I had a game changing day in my life last Saturday. I went to a psychic and I got the answers to the questions I have been asking: How the hell is it that I have found myself in the worst job I have ever had? How did I choose to move to the darkest place I’ve ever lived? What have I done to myself?
What I’ve done is that I, unknowingly, created the worst possible conditions for myself so that I could come to the conclusion I have needed to come to for a long time. I am not a 9-5-er. I don’t want this life. This is not who I am, who I was meant to be, and this kind of life is not what I have always wanted for myself. The psychic didn’t spell that part out. I figured that out on my own. He did tell me that I have never given myself a chance to live the life I have wanted to live.
That’s when I had to ask myself why that is. Perhaps I have been afraid that my dreams, of making it as writer, were only to remain dreams. I am still afraid I may not be able to make money doing thing things I am most passionate about, communicating through words or color. I am, however, more terrified of living the way I have been living for the rest of my life. The psychic did tell me I had a choice to make in life and getting a new job would be choosing this kind of life, a life of 9-5. (I didn’t tell him I’d been searching for a new job.)
I can’t do 20 more years of this shit, sitting in a gray box, a cube, without windows, having my retinas burned out by florescent light, listening to a frog man clip his nails in the cube next to me, being woken up an hour and a half before my alarm every morning because the dainty bitch above walks like a friggen hippopotamus, and waking up to show up to a hell I never wanted to get a fire suit for.
I don’t want to live in a place that someone else owns. I don’t want to share walls with people who aren’t my family. I don’t want to be put in the position where my rent can change. I don’t want to be the person who creates an enemy out of someone who gave me a place to live, even if they pulled a last minute lease switch on me and broke my trust.
I don’t want to wear collared shirts and poly-blend pants so I can look appropriate for people who could care less about me. I don’t want to worry that if I get a tattoo I might be looked at as less than professional. I am less than professional, damn it! I am a friggen creative. I should have blue hair, or at least a fuchsia pink streak.
You know what else? I am sick of comfortable work shoes. I only want to own two types of shoes in my life. I want the totally uncomfortable kind that make you look hot, but you can only manage the distance to and from the car to the table you will be dining at. And, I want the best comfortable kind. Shoes that say to others you are going to the beach or going for a run.
I don’t want to put make up on every day, either. I don’t want my days to be governed by toxic bosses. I don’t want to sit through another meeting where people are talking about shit that doesn’t matter to me, at all. I don’t want the new things in life I learn to be “how to play their game” or “how to get through the day.”
So, I am giving my dreams a chance. I am going to finish my book and put it out there and shop it to as many publishers as it takes until the right one puts it in print. I am going to see if the life I want for myself can be actualized. If I don’t give my dreams an honest effort, a place to go where my passion has wings, whose fault is it?
Ta Ta for now…
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