I Hate This Post

I really do. I rarely use this blog, only when I feel I have to write and get something out. But when I made it, I promised myself it wouldn't be only for complaining. Yet, I find myself needing to write to get something out. And it is complaining.

So I am..

So screw off.

Everything is just so....hard right now. My job is a beast. I know that a lot of people get down about their job. It is to be expected. But, I think I have a beef. I have not had off since Christmas Day. I didn't go into the office Monday Dec 26, but I did spend a few hours working my email.

I work EVERYDAY. I am the lowest paid person doing that. I took a paycut for this job. So, it can be understood that I am having a tough time. I am of the understanding that we are supposed to have the option of if we wish to work on Sundays. But no. My boss is making sure that we get to work.

I don't mind working. It is something to do. And we are busy right now. But I need something in life that I can look forward to.

Another big deal - my whole job consists of solving problems caused by others - and I'm good at it. But when I tell them everyday for 2 weeks that we are just grossly understaffed, believe me. There is a reason all these problems are happening.

...................

This is all what makes me angry. But really and truly, I'm not angry. If I were angry, it would be hard to use this blog. My whole outlook is sad right now.

When I took this job, I figured that it would be a good opportunity to see the nation, make a good living, and get my mind right. After the job is over, my options will be expansive - I will have a good amount sitting in my coffers, I will be a better rounded person, as the hard work is a character builder. I will have been able to travel.

After my term, I can go back to school. Or I will have built the foundations of a career, that I really do kind of enjoy. Or I can start a business that I can build. Or I can go overseas and work. Any of these seem possible.

But yesterday, it hit me, one of the things that are really bothering me, and I always kind of knew, but I never conceptualized. My coworker has been deployed to Baltimore. He will be there a week from monday. I am next in line for deployment. I could go a week from now, or 2 weeks, or Wednesday. I knew this was the deal, but until Friday, it never actually hit me.

But I now have something I haven't had in a while (other than my roommate) - fantastic friends.

Last summer I had the best time I had in years. I started hanging out with two of my regulars at Starbucks, and realized that, before I knew it, I was spending most of my time with them.

At the time I brushed it off as nothing, I had made a mental resolve to not ever get close to anyone again - that I was better off without depending on people, or having them depend on me for anything. And I was fine with this outlook.

No go - in the last several months, I have become closer to these people than I can remember in years. I allowed them past all my emotional defenses that I had put up, allowed them to infiltrate the shell I had put up. I was pseudo aware of this, but kept telling myself that I would find a way to sabotage this friendship, a way to get rid of them, make them hate me, find a way to dislike them, anything.

I just couldn't do it. I have come to find that the one thing I do look to is seeing them, talking with them, doing that which I find more valuable than anything else - spending time. It is invigorating and wonderful, to care for people and feel cared for in return.

Thus the pain right now. I remember that the worst thing that ever happened in high school for me was not puberty, or girls, or a trip to Austria, or mediocre grades, etc. It was saying goodbye to those people I had grown up with and learned to rely on the most, ending a 13 year run of comraderie going our separate ways. One day I was in my regular, comfortable classes, the next I was torn out of my nest, finding that I would never see most of these people again.

My only comfort was that I would not have to face that truth again, that although I was leaving, as were they, I would make it. Because I could not possibly ever be close to people like that again, it just wasn't possible. I mean, sure, I would have friends for the rest of my life, but never so close, I would never let someone in like that again.

I am now looking at repeating the same action, and it is crushing my heart. Once I am deployed, there is a good chance I won't make it back home until mid to late summer. By then, they will have gone off to their respective universities. The most contact I may have with my friends will be via this damned contraption that affords only visual conversation without real time. I will not be able to take part in their lives, nor them in mine.

It chokes me up writing these facts - the realization that it's almost over. They say that all good things must come to an end, as if a cliche can make it all better, but it just can't. I don't want it to end - it seems like a cruel joke by some higher power to, after years of keeping people at a comfortable distance, not committing to the give and take required in any relationship past cordial conversation, that I people could come along to wipe that all away. Only to have that wiped away.

I realize that this is cheesy, sentimental. But it's been building for weeks upon weeks now, slowly, as I progress to the time I leave, it feels that my heart beats slightly slower, just a bit heavier. So I will not apologize again for this post - it was either explode or express, and I don't want to explode yet.