Personal Journal

Building my referents

I'm not sure where, really, to start with someone who might ask me "Where have you been/what have you been doing all this time" between when my hiatus from Writing.com began and now. Most of it is not important. I suppose most of our lives aren't. That saddens me, I guess.

But most of the time, Monday through Friday, I can get sad really fast. And I definitely do not like how this aspect of my life has developed, in spite of the otherwise good things going on for me.

Since I'm trying to make sense of the two things that are sucking the life out of me, let me start with them:
I'm still at the same job, in Colorado Springs. But I now live in the Denver suburbs, 65 miles away. I moved in with my then fiance (now wife) in August 2008, thinking it wouldn't be difficult to find a job up in Denver. Well, that was August 2008, and the economy didn't exactly stay in great shape shortly thereafter.

Look, fine, I have a job, that's great. The commute isn't even that bad, and in fact, on many mornings (much more so than drives home) the scenery I have is better than most commuters can have. I'm not minding the drive as much as I am the 2-hours per day that I lose for simple travel.

And those factors aren't really much on the soul-sucking leeching that my 'career' entails right now.
I'm just fatigued of this place. I've been here 11 years, and my role was changed last summer/fall, and that change meant less diversity in what I do, and that has made my work tedious. And the attitude here has changed because the primary contractor changed its strategy and now views us subcontractors as unhealthy competition, so they have forced a lot of changes down our throat.

That's really what bothers me about work, and why I need to get out of here so badly.

But if the job is difficult, job hunting is like starving slowly.
Job hunting is the kind of thing that chips away at your bones, like cold weather through badly stitched clothing. It's an enshrouding unwelcomeness.
I guess it reminds me (yet again) of the movie The Road. You're never warm enough, and each little misery is amplified.

I'm tired of job searching, and I've been failing perhaps spectacularly at job searching (but at least I have a job).
I'm comfortable being an introvert, and job hunting involves a great deal of putting yourself out to be judged, weighed, measured, and given a value that simply comes out as "not useful enough."

I do think the world is changing around me. I do think the bloodflow of human civilization has drank up a poison or a parasite that is leaching something intrinsically necessary (not just beautiful) about us. More walls. More predation. More practiced deception, thus more effective.

Yes, the job search is very painful for me. It reminds me of all that I wish I didn't have to be. It reminds me of mistakes made, and the compound interest on them that I have to pay. I've been looking for 15 months or so. Harder more recently. I'm starting to understand what I'm not doing, but I'm also starting to notice the systemic closed-mindedness that has infected the nation, at a minimum.

I'll be back for more later.


It is never too late to be what you might have been. -- George Eliot
Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the requisites for success. -- Alonzo Newton Benn