When has there not been something rotten in Denver? It was two years ago since my depression subsided, but even then I knew full well I'd go right back there if things didn't change. I began writing, adressed my medical problems, came out from under my girlfriend's bed and figured out what it feels like to be 'happy.' I kept the dead-end graveyard job for the security and the freedom... And why not? It's a scary world out there and I'm one of the few I know who actually has health insurance.
So for the past year, at least, I've been attempting to do my creative projects while working a job with no potential for satisfaction while dating casually. It's clear to me that my schedule is really putting a damper on my creative energies, and no matter how good the sex is, my relationships are (very) far from satisfying, and socially, I've only succeeded in alienating the interesting people I've met.
I did have one failed attempt as the bold entrepreneur, one that gave me a taste for working with my hands at something artistic, that ended when my partner ripped me off. I've even been in and out of school in that time.
But last weekend, after much soul searching, defining what I want out of life, and consulting the oracles (presided over by my most favoritest Moon Goddess...) I finally internalized a notion that came to me when I first snapped out of my depression: I have quit my job.
If I'm trying to maximize my energy, then I need to be sleeping at night and getting up in the morning. I have to move with the energy and not against it. As it turns out, I've an excellent opportunity for learning a real trade with artistic overtones and unlimited potential for expression. I'm going to apprentice in my roommate's shop (which is about 50 feet from my bedroom door) and do all I can to make myself indispensable to her. When they roll out the latest round of lay-offs in what I expect will be the next year or so, I'll volunteer. I'll get a couple grand in severance and will drop into my new work full time.
That's the plan, anyway.
My writing projects are still there in my mind, of course. I work on them when I can - which is all I've been able to ever do anyway.
Part of this realization came a few weeks ago when I became entranced in the gaze of Big, Green-Eyed Trouble... If you've never had the experience of looking into a girl's eyes and suddenly figuring out what's important to you, I recommend it highly. It put the image in my mind of my last LTR, all the closeness of shared goals and a shared bed, doing nice things and nice things done for me. ...And a real 'bed' too, and not some afternoon nap together because I have to be at work by 10pm... a relationship not weighed down by years of depression. All that sounds like home after the last two years...
It would definitely be what I'd call a leap of faith, but I'm certain that my health, mood and energy will do nothing but improve. I've just never had the courage before.
It's been my experience that nobody really knows what will make them happy, and this realization is speculative, just like any other. And if it is that the rest of my life is to be spent flailing about trying to find something that fits... so be it. But if the last two years have been any indication, I'm on the right track and only getting closer.
The last few months have been the happiest I've ever known. I emerge from my little shack and see the purple-orange sky and I'm filled with such gratitude that I can't contain it. The moon overhead stirs my soul and opens my mind to accept a world I've so long rejected. I entered this life with all the advantages, got mangled, mutilated and spat out the bottom with virtually nothing, but still I can't believe my luck. At my age, with my past, it's almost as if I've been granted a new life completely.
I'm healthy, happy, and have spread before me many fat, succulent opportunities at which I can succeed or fail spectacularly with minimal interference from all the old, bad things.
So it is true... wonders will never cease.
curiouser and curiouser
ReplyDeleteThat's what you always say.
ReplyDeleteIf you were really 'Betty' your comment would have been vitriol constructed out of profanity.
I might write and say 'hi' but for fear of 'toying.'