A little down time

I am low. Sad. Slightly depressed. I'm told I am tense, stressed and don't I know it! YES! Thank you! But what to do? Just have a firm talk with myself. Snap out of it! Suck it up and deal. Well, it's not working. I swear I can visualize the ulcer forming. Not sleeping well. Look here, posting in the middle of the night because god forbid I should get more than 3 hours sleep! I wake up to pee and my brain starts working and I can't turn it off. It's been a long time since I've been in this condition. I look for distractions but that's all they are, putting off the inevitable. "You should try meditating, " I'm told. Geez, if I could pull that off I wouldn't be here. Maybe, hell, I don't know! I need to unplug. I feel like I'm wrapped so tight inside. I come close to tears and tamp them down until a more opportune moment. I put in "Titanic" last night just because I remembered I really liked it and the message at the end always spoke to me.

To live your life to the fullest and make it count. I don't feel I'm doing well in that regard these days.

My inner voice is telling me to make a change but those around me get alarmed when I bring it up. The thing is, I know I have a solid well-paying job but it's sucking the life out of me. It wasn't always this way. I used to love my job. Now, it's just a lame shell of its former existence. Or maybe, I'm talking about me. New management has methodically eliminated the best and brightest talent in the place and has embraced mediocrity and incompetence. I bear the bruises from beating my head against the proverbial brick wall. And this is only the half of it. Of what led me to this point of distress and disillusionment. But it's helped to lay it out here. To vent and rant has made me feel so much better. Now I can focus on trying to find a path to where I want to go next. There's something freeing about the idea. I slowly feel the grip of anxiety slipping away. I can do this. If you believe in yourself, you can do anything.

People who need people

Have you ever thought about why we're attracted to the opposite sex? Is it just to propagate the species? I wonder if maybe we're drawn to each other to try to overcome our baser instinct to be selfish. To drive us to need each other despite the difficulties of being together. Ultimately, maybe we are being encouraged to learn to accept each other in all our human frailties and find a common thread to build on. To see each other as more alike than different. Maybe the tradition of marriage and lifelong partnership is to present us with opportunities to work out our issues with another in an up close and personal situation that most other relationships don't provide. We gravitate to those that are like us. Differences make us uncomfortable. It requires us to overcome our fears and look beyond the surface of a person. Think how hard it is to live with someone. Family or not, it's never easy as you make your way through life. My friends and I have realized that we are presented again and again in our lives with the same circumstance or situation. We feel it's a lesson we must learn but often are mystified by what exactly it is we are supposed to do differently this time. Sometimes I feel like I am just being thick-headed.

Somewhere God is laughing at me.

I listen, I look, I wait for an answer. Then I decide the heck with it! I'll just wait for that kick in the butt. We've come to agree that if we coast and don't follow a path in the right direction: service to others, love in action, tolerance, etc, that we'll always get a firm message to get us back on track. So many distractions keep us from listening well. To ourselves, and to others. We miss out on some important things and we fail to act even when it occurs to us that we need to. I try to use that as my guide. If it crosses my mind, I try to do it right away before the notion gets lost. Maybe we just need to keep trying. Moving forward even if it seems like we're not making much progress. Just try. I like it. Not as daunting as that command to "just do it". I can try. Most of us can manage that. Such a small word that means so much. Try. Has a nice ring to it, huh?