The Edge of the Abyss

There has been a lot of change taking place in my life lately.  At work, 3 of my closest friends and best department members are gone.  One moved away, one cut back to one day a week and one got promoted and transferred.  The department had been running much better the last few months, routinely making goals, and doing better than it ever has.  This was in large due to the contributions of the 3 mentioned above, one in particular, and now that they are gone it has left me feeling a bit unsettled.  I am now faced with the task of training an almost entirely new staff – my most senior department member at this point has been with the company less than a year.  This, combined with having to really take charge of things myself and try to continue to lead the department in a successful direction has left me feeling a bit apprehensive about the future.  I am sure I can do it, but it will not be as easy as it was the last few months.

In my personal life, one of the biggest changes has been the incorporation of being a graduate student into my schedule.  One class is behind me, and although I did extremely well and am happy with the results, that is only the first of 12 classes, and they will no doubt become increasingly challenging as time moves forward.  The 2^nd class is already a much more hectic pace than the 1^st, with team projects being worth half of the grade.  Never an easy task, and combined with the fact that this team meets only through chat-rooms and team discussion forums, it adds an element of challenge to the mix. 

The seasons are also changing…  Gone are the warm, sunny days of late spring and summer, the days when my mood and my overall well-being seem to be at their peak.  Instead, we are venturing into the dark half of the year, the cold, colorless days of winter.  The brief interlude of fall colors has mostly come to an end, and everything is turning to shades of grey and brown…  With it, I can feel changes taking place inside of me as well…  This has always been a challenging and trying time of year for me, mentally and emotionally, and this year is no different.  My personal life is still very much a work in progress, and although I do feel I have improved over this time last year, I know that I still have a long ways to go.  The challenge will be to strive to continue moving forward until the light and color of new life returns in the spring, and not let the winter blues pull me backwards too far.  The holidays are also rapidly approaching, and with them come increased feelings of stress, both at work and in my personal life, and increased feelings of loneliness.  Being alone is always a hard thing to suffer through, but especially at this time of year it becomes increasingly unbearable.  The days are darker, my mood is darker, and seeing so many people happily sharing special moments with their significant others and in some cases their children leaves me feeling very alone.

I went to a wedding last night, the wedding of a friend and former co-worker.  It was a very nice ceremony, and nice to spend some time with friends from work, but overall it left me wanting and wishing and wondering.  Will a night like last night ever happen for me?  Will I ever find the one to spend my life with?  It was hard being there alone, without a date, making me feel somewhat conspicuous and very awkward.  Yes, I did have some fun, but overall the night went about how I expected it would.  My first “date” was not able to attend due to work schedule, I asked another and she too was unable to attend due to prior obligations…

Will Jeremy get what he wants and hopes for, or will he be forced to decide between a life alone or settling for what nobody else wants…. Will I continue on as I am right now, alone and surrounded by stuff instead of people.  At the moment, my small piece of hell is a damp one, thanks to a broken hot water heater, and that has only helped to dampen my spirits and my mood.  I am surrounded by stuff, much of it having no value whatsoever, and at least at present, the smell of wet carpet pervades throughout.  I have made some strides in the right direction as far as being more out-going goes, but that is still primarily just at work, where I feel a little more comfortable.  Out and about, I still very much keep to myself, afraid of rejection and paralyzed by my continued shyness and feelings of inadequacy.  I know that if things are going to change, I need to be the driver of that change, and not expect it to simply happen, but it seems that no matter what I try, things don’t go the way that I want them to….

I am staring into an abyss, a deep, dark, empty place.  Behind me lies all that I know, and even much that I don’t know.  In front of me is darkness and despair, and the abyss is so wide that it cannot be crossed.  The opposite side of the abyss is clouded in darkness and mist, and cannot clearly be seen.  The only certainty in my life right now is uncertainty, and the only certainty about the abyss is that it represents an end-point, a point of no return.  Should I fall into the abyss, I will be gone, forgotten, lost in the depths of hell.  To the right and to the left, the paths lead into unknown directions, unknown futures.  I turn, and head off to the right, unsure of where it will lead me, but not yet ready to step into the abyss.  For now, at least, I am content to continue to walk along the edge of the abyss, balancing the precarious line between the known and unknown, waiting and wondering where this path will lead me, and whether or not the abyss will ever be gone from view…

Just because I probably won't get what I want does not mean I plan to settle for what nobody else wants...

In a Friday Night Funk

Well, here it is, a Friday night, and I am off tomorrow, and what am I doing?  Sitting here in a funk…  I have been doing a lot of thinking about things lately (I know, I know, I do way too much thinking about things, but when you spend as much time alone as I do, you tend to think a lot), and the results of my thinking have put me in a funk of sorts.  A friend from work is getting married a week from tomorrow, and whenever people I know get married (especially when they are quite a bit younger than me) it makes me wonder if I will ever get my turn…  [How appropriate, the song “Nightmare” by Avenged Sevenfold just started playing on the radio!]  To make matters worse, the person who was supposed to be going as my “date” (a former co-worker who moved out of the area) is not able to get the time off from her job, so she can’t come.  I asked someone else, but it was very short-notice and she already had another obligation, so she can’t go either…  So, that will leave me going alone.  I should be used to it, because I go to most things along, but I hate going to something like a wedding alone- makes me feel very awkward, conspicuous, and “odd man out”….  I hope to still have fun, and it will be nice to spend some time with friends from work outside of work, since I don’t get to do much of that, but I will still feel weird being there by myself.

On top of the wedding, I have been doing my usual “will I ever find someone” thought routine…  There are some girls at work that I would love to go out with, but I know that I can’t, because I am a manager, and that is not allowed.  Plus, they are quite a bit younger than me, and I am sure that would be frowned upon.  And I am sure in a non-work situation they most likely would not even have anything to do with me, because of the age difference.  They only reason we get along the way we do is because we work together.  The only reason I feel comfortable talking to them and joking around with them as much as I do is because we work together, so I feel able to open up a little and not be so shy, and because I know there is no real chance of anything happening with them, so I don’t have to worry as much about what they think or try to impress them.  It may appear that I am more confident because of this, but in reality, I really am still not that confidant in myself.  The Jeremy they see at work is not the Jeremy that people see on the rare occasion when I go out somewhere.  If I don’t know anyone, I won’t approach them to talk to them, because the fear of rejection still paralyzes me.  I am shy, I am self-conscious, and I have very little confidence in myself.  Yes, I am better than I used to be, mostly due to how many people I have to interact with at work on a daily basis, but in a social setting, I still have a long ways to go…

Friends from work are always trying to get me to be more optimistic, to be less down about things, and to not worry so much, but I can’t help it.  Based on my past, and my present situation, I have very little reason for being optimistic.  Yes, I am doing well in school so far, but it was only the first 5 week class.  I still have 11 more to go, so we will see how I do as time progresses.  Other than that, I don’t really have any significant reasons for feeling optimistic at the moment.  I have spent much of my life alone, so what would make me think that is going to suddenly change just because I try to take an optimistic view of things?  I don’t think of it as being pessimistic as much as I think of it as being realistic.  I am not getting any younger, and other than my sense of humor and my on-the-spot sarcasm, I don’t really feel like I have a whole lot to offer.  Yes, I generally try to be a nice guy, but time and time again the saying “nice guys finish last” has proven itself to be amazingly true and spot-on accurate. 

What cracks me up is when people get adamant about changing my outlook, yet they don’t really even know what I am going through.  They are mostly attractive, popular, and several who are always trying to cheer me up have someone, so they don’t really know what it is like to be alone.  I on the other hand do not feel I am any more than average, certainly not “attractive”, I am not really in that great of shape, and I have never been popular.  So, what I am going through and experiencing is not something many of them have really ever had to deal with…  I surround myself with stuff, pets, and plants in exchange for surrounding myself with people, and to be honest, I am not even sure I would feel comfortable having someone over to my apartment, because it is not exactly the coziest or very welcoming.  I have really let things slide a lot when it comes to keeping up with the clutter, housework, etc., mostly because it is just me who has to see it, so why bother making the effort for only myself.  Yes, I know that is somewhat of a poor outlook, but unless I thought things were going to suddenly change, I don’t exactly do much in the way of entertaining, so I don’t bother….

I talk to my therapist about these things, and his main suggestions are to work on my confidence, try to think better about myself, and try to get out and meet people.  That is all well and good, but it is sort of like trying to teach an old dog new tricks.  Yes, it is possible, but it is far easier to teach the tricks to a younger dog.  With working 50 or so hours a week and spending 20 or more hours a week on school, I am very limited in what free time I have, and it would be one thing if I had someone already to go out with and do things with, but to use what little time I have available in the seemingly fruitless quest to meet people just doesn’t seem like a good use of my time for the most part, because it generally just leads to frustration.  If I had some better leads or somehow developed the ability to talk to strange women, then perhaps I would keep trying, but at this point, I am not really sure what I will do….  Like the say, the only sure things in life are death and taxes, which leaves me left to worry about the majority of the unknown.  Has writing this helped?  It has let me vent, but when all is said and done, I am still in a Friday Night Funk…

Randomness...

Just a few random things....

This was yesterday's Buddhist quote that I get on my phone every day:  "DHAMMAPADA Sit alone, sleep alone, be active alone, in loneliness continue the conquest of the self, even in a forest continue the quest."   Hmmmm  sounds about right?!?!

Today I got my grades for my first class in my MBA in Sustainable Business program- I got a 95.7%, which as far as I know is a 4.0 :)  Not bad for my first class in 14 years, and my first ever class using the online format!  One down, eleven to go.....

And in the spirit of Halloween, a picture of me that has been referred to as being somewhat demonic by more than one person ;)