Working towards illumination

Ah, sigh. Complications. The bane of my existence.

It's cloudy this morning, which pleases me. Sun would be incongruous with my mood. Not that I'm bitter or angry or anything, no, just tired and wish I'd have the clarity that sunshine would suggest I'd have, you know? Clarity, well, that I ain't got.

Talked to my boss yesterday and everything, it seems, has been a misunderstanding. She'd have given me more hours if I said I needed them. It's that simple. And I believe her. I need to find a way out that in no way leaves a mark on them, and they need to know the law for the next time around, so the next person doesn't have the tantalizing option of screwing them over for the $3K+ of severence it'd mean receiving.

But me, I've always believed money's not something worth doing certain things for. Ultimately, I need to sleep alone in the dark each night, and regretting my behaviour towards others is one of those things that interferes with beauty sleep. Sigh. Wish it weren't so, but it is.

I'm going to chat with my doctor, I guess, and see if my plethora of recent back problems (basically almost eight weeks solid of pain in varying degrees) and my constant stress when being around that office is enough reason to need to quit.

The bad thing is, I only find out whether I'm approved for (un)employment insurance after three to four weeks of gov-led scrutiny. Patience? Not my cup of tea. In fact, another bane of my existence. I want what I want when I want it. Now, dammit.

There are different levels one needs to consider actions on, I guess, and for this, I need to consider if I'm really right. If I really do decide to go back to work normally, the 9-5, etc, will I, in fact, give up the ambitious goals I have for this year? (Keeping in mind, my goals are about things I wish I do, steps I wish to take, and in no way suggest any particular outcome from my actions -- the end result of my efforts isn't part of the consideration here, it can't be, it's too unknown.)

I know I will. I know I'll be lulled into the complacency of office life. There's always next year. Trouble is, next year, I may have taken a wonderful lover and have new considerations. Maybe I'll luck into a good deal on a house, settle down, find myself permanently attached to a mortgage. Right now, nothing, fuck all -- little debt, no house, no car, no obligations, no dependents, and no large expenditures looming. If this isn't a time tailor-made for taking risks, when is?

And I fucking KNOW that, right? But there's this niggling goddamned whore of a voice taunting me from deep down inside. Psst. You quit, there'll be instability. You quit, and your precious little balance goes right out the fucking window, sister. You quit, and you're dancing in the unknown. It's dark out there, better bring a light. Good luck with that. You silly...

We all have those voices, the nagging self-doubt, the paranoia, the confusion. Mine are simply louder today than they've been of late. It's scary.

But it's also the full moon. I wonder what it is about the whole full moon / weirdness thing that makes times like these so emotionally intense? So much swirling around inside? It's weird. I think it's just something that baffles scientists, they can't figure it out. Imagine being the scientist who devotes his life to trying to figure out how and why the moon's positioning affects our psyches? He'd be laughed out of his lab. Laughingstock.

But I worked in retail far too many years to dismiss the moon phases. People get fucking weird at full moons, and some new moons too. And I know I'm too fidgety and weird.

I wanted to do a bike ride today, but I'm tired and I need to do a seven hour work shift, so I'll just kill that bastard, sleep in, and if I have it in me tomorrow, I may even try to take my bike up to the university, through the trails, down to Kitsilano for a little lunch, and then head back home again. That sounds like a pretty destructive yet restorative day to me. Work out all of this frustration I'm feeling. Sex would be good right about now, but a bike ride will do, and has none of the stupid emotional entanglements. Ha, but that's another story, dear friends.

Anyhow, gonna sort out this conundrum sometime this week. I think it just means quitting. I think it means that, until I sign that line on the quit form, I'll be feeling these jitters. Hell, that place has six years of my life rolled up in it. The person I've changed into in my time at that company, man, I love this girl so much more than the one that started there. They really played a large part in giving me the support and network I needed as I worked through the hardest years of my life. They really, really were a family, for a time. I guess part of this that I'm feeling then isn't just insecurity. It's just sadness. I have a hard time letting go of people I care about, and right now, I'm getting teary just thinking of what walking out that door means this time.

It means I'm all grown up. Holy fucking hell. I've been sitting around and thinking that taking the summer off was such a 21-year-old thing to do, and I've been feeling a bit sheepish and all. Maybe, just maybe, it's the opposite. It's ballsy as hell, and it's what only a confident adult should be doing.

You know, money's been the bane of my family. All those arguments, those fights, they were always about money. My mother died practically bankrupt. Two of the three remaining members of my family have declared bankruptcy (never me). Money is a terrifying thing. If you've got it, you're scared to lose it. If you don't got it, you're terrified it'll remain outside your reach.

My past six months has taught me that, yes, it's really fucking hard, but when I need to be industrious and find the money that eludes me, I always manage to do so. I'm proud of how I've managed. And there's a lot of men out there thinking, "Yeah, but I've done that," etc, but it's different for a woman. We can't get hired on at manual labour jobs -- it's waitressing and shit like that that we can always find, and the pay is drastically lower. Getting by on sheer whimsy's easier as a man, just because of the nature of the jobs available, and THAT'S why I'm proud of myself. I grew balls. ;)

This is one of those rare times when writing really resolves an issue. I hadn't been thinking of my sadness of leaving, and I hadn't considered the industriousness with which I've overcome some of the problems that have come my way. It's still really hard to say, "Yes, I'm done," and sign the line, but geez, at least I have some better reasoning.

Now, to drastically improve my day: Strawberry pancakes. Yeah, you know your mouth is watering. Ha. This is one of those off-the-cuff self-obsessed writings, ergo, fuck editing. Tomorrow, I'll post pictures I took of the cops and fire department clogging up my alley as they busted a meth lab across from my building yesterday. HEY, thanks, fuckheads, for mentioning the explosion potential. Nice.