A year ago, when I fell into this horrible hole, I got myself out through a lot of meditation and distractions. When I realized that nothing had changed since then, I fell back in. Waking up this morning, I am filled with the drive to change my outlook once again. Although I am stuck in an dreary dead end position, I know in my head it isn’t productive to sulk and make everyone around me miserable as well. I haven’t been doing so on purpose, but I admit that these last few weeks I had given up putting up a fight.
Why must I be so hung up on my wage and status at work? Should I let that define me and defeat me? So what if I encountered gender bias and there are people who do not value me. So what if I am stuck in a dead end job with a greedy chief administrator who refuses to advance me? Why must I let all those things keep me down? How is being down going to help my situation? If anything, I am hurting the people around me, which actually hurts me even more. Right now there are loved ones who are dealing with illness, I guess I need to be strong for them as well. I need to get out of this place, and by this place I mean not just work but this place in my head.
I’m not sure how this fight will turn out, but at least I’m back in the ring. There’s so much I want to do that has nothing to do with my job. A voice inside me is telling me to start painting again. Start wargaming again. Get back into meditation. Believe in the good relationships you have. Believe in what you love. Design and Build then when you’re through, Re-Design and Re-Build. But first, get up!
Changing outlooks is hard, especially when someone has lost all hope, but maybe that hope was just misplaced. Maybe I placed all that hope in my job and not in myself.
I really need to listen to my own advice in regards to staying grounded and keeping perspective. Why must it be so difficult?
Some years ago, a cousin of mine committed suicide, barely in his twenties. I thought about what I might have told him before he had done it. What could have I said to change his mind? I wrote him this:
Dear Francis
Time.
We are just a short circuit, in this long board.
Electric current.
As this shock enters my system and I slowly fall into overload.
I flash through my memory bank of disconnected time,
Trying conceive an image
With your tags.
Your Smile.
Anythings yours.
Time is virtual.
It lives inside my mind.
And there you were, and here you are again,
as I hold you in my mind,
in heart,
connected through DNA and matter,
What does it matter?
I’ll find the connection as we are all linked, anyway.
We are just souls lost in this circuitry,
A current of electricity,
and beyond this city what does there lie?
If only you waited.
If only we talked.
What could I have said to this cousin-child
Loner?
If only this flash in a pan
came sooner,
I would have remembered you…
And then would I explain,
Please, from death
should you refrain?
As I was in your shoes, once,
a traveler,
Also lost in stardust
Now settled.
I could have told you to wait, it’s worth it.
And it is worth it.
Life and time.
Me and You.
Please, rest, dear cousin,
until we meet and get to know each other again.