It is late and I must get to bed soon, but I felt a burning desire to post, not unlike the desperate need to pee when I’m about one hour into my shift and have been drinking Diet Coke all morning.
I am working pretty much full-time at the home improvement store and have been for the past two weeks and will again this week. It will be nice to have the money and it is nice to feel functional again. I truly think I will be able to keep it up over the winter, even though winters can be difficult for me. This job is just so much less stress and it’s actually FUN for the most part.
Granted, it doesn’t pay well, but will start paying better here within the next six months. I will receive a fifty cent raise at the end of my 90 days and then will be trained on returns and then be promoted to head cashier. At least that is what I have been told. If that’s not how it works out, I will find something else. Something that is flexible that I can enjoy. But I am cautiously optimistic that it will work out. I really think it will, and I hope so, because I love this job, even if it is not exactly what I choose to do for the rest of my life. I am enjoying it while it lasts.
I have been learning a lot of new things about myself and my relationships lately with other people. I have learned that you can’t change your mother, that she is who she is and you have to take the good with the annoying. She does all of this Internet research and has an opinion on everything. I just must choose which advice to take and what to take with a grain of salt and do what I think is best instead. I appreciate what you do, Mom, even though you drive me crazy sometimes.
I have been learning how to communicate more effectively my needs and wants in other relationships. I think that has made things so much easier with friends and people I date. I am not willing to settle for something I am not happy with, and instead look for happiness and seek it out, rather than hoping it will come to me. That’s what living is all about, right?
It is strange to me to be increasingly independent (even if it is in my own head). I have a strong desire to, but it is scary all at the same time. For my whole life, I have depended upon others in many different ways…mostly financially, but also emotionally and psychologically. I have come to the conclusion that I am ready and able to diminish some of that a bit and try things on my own. It is scary, but is a part of growing up. I am not saying that I don’t need any help, but am just saying that I am wanting (and able) to do more on my own. Scary, bothersome, but exciting all at the same time. I kinda want to say sometimes, “hey, hey, HEY…look what I can do now!”
All in all, I am trying not to take life too seriously and let things roll off my back that would have caused me an anxiety attack just a short time ago. Life is too short to be anything but ridiculously happy, and I am moving forward to that goal and will continue to do so to the best of my ability. Because I can and because I want to. I am finding myself saying “I can” now much more rather than “I can’t.” It is a good feeling.
Hey Tom, WORD, man!
Tom Petty, Learning to Fly
Every now and then you get that brief sense of clarity about life. I say brief because for me it never seems to last. But then perhaps those brief moments are meant to be reference points for us.
You seem to be enjoying the cashier position. I am curious if it because you only have to deal with people in a limited way. What I mean by that is that people come to the counter throughout the day, but you do not have to deal with lives. The one problem with people orientated jobs is that you then start to be pulled into people’s lives. That takes something out of you and you also find yourself carrying some of their emotional residual. By not being involved in other peoples’ lives you can now look at and deal with your own.
Pasha