I had high hopes for myself in this new year. But really that's another way of saying I put a great deal of pressure on myself to do amazing things suddenly and without build-up.
You know, just be awesome and let the rest of the shit work itself out magically.
Being awesome and getting awesome results aren't always the same thing. To get awesome results, you need to work hard for them, and often for a long time. I'll admit I haven't done shit.
Not a goddamned thing.
Today's Grand Accomplishment has been putting on pants and updating this blog. That's it. Oh, and I totally fucked up a pie crust.
I love to cook when I'm under stress. It's a thing with me. I throw some dough around, make a mess in the kitchen, and come up with something wonderful. Most of the time I pawn it off on my poor neighbors as a sort of consolation prize for having to put up with me.
Let's just say I don't close my drapes as often as I should and as many of you know, I'm very much adverse to wearing pants. I figure, if watching an old fat guy in his fudgies (if you're lucky) is what does it for you, then God bless you! Throw me a few bucks and I'll strike some poses while I'm at it. You know, a few provocative stances, showing off my unique physique.
And then there's the random curses shouted at hours just before dawn, the insane things that come out of my mouth randomly, and how I always seem to know exactly the wrong things to say at the right times.
Living even near me is an adventure. Next door? There had better be something in it for them.
So, I cook. I bake. I make all kinds of delicious goodies and I share.
I've been under a lot of stress so far this year. My car died two days before Christmas (blown head gasket). And then my job fucked me. I was working for a mail-order company and I was looking forward to some OT hours during the busy holiday shopping season. Instead, I was lucky to get half my scheduled hours. It's a long, stupid story to explain that one.
I say "was" because the day after Christmas, we were all fired by a group email.
So I'm now unemployed. I filed for unemployment but the State of Illinois hasn't started sending my checks yet. According to one website the checks are supposed to start 1-3 business days after I certify, which is their term for calling in, or logging into the website, and refreshing the claim while telling them I've been looking for work. I certified on the day they told me to and that was 6 days ago. Still no check.
I'm trying not to freak out here. I'm trying to just admit that Illinois is slow because the state employees have been scuttled down to a skeleton crew and now the average state worker does the job of a dozen people. I get it.
I'm trying not to freak out.
But the anxiety is thick. The anxiety has been building daily.
So, I bake.
Times like these, I turn to friends. But each and every one of them have been going through the same thing. Each one has something in their lives that's got them going through all kinds of stress.
Healthy framing means I acknowledge what's going on in their lives and show some empathy. Instead, it's triggering my abandonment issues. I feel like everybody is leaving me behind.
I'll admit I'm a handful. I tend to dump some horrendous stuff on people by the truckload. And dealing with somebody who is as close to the edge as I am can be stressful. Plus, most of my friends are women, and there is always the danger I'll get too close. That's happened a couple of times.
That is the worst kind of unrequited love, too. You burn. Inside, you are on fire, tormented by emotions you cannot express while they talk about how lonely they are or how they have needs. You want to be "the one" and you know you never will. So you keep quiet and silently burn.
It's a terrible feeling when a friend pulls away. You feel like you're a broken engine in an old car. Or a machine that suddenly started making defective parts, and you want to try to fix them, because if you can only go back and fix them, they'll come back and things will be as they were. If you could only go back and undo whatever it was you did, even if you didn't know what you did, then they would come back and stop ignoring you.
But life isn't like that.
None of us have a time machine to go back and fix whatever we did wrong. Plus, sometimes people move on and it's not even about us--it's about them and what they need. Or no longer need.
It doesn't make things feel any better. With all of the stress I'm under and how uncertain my future is, I would love to not feel like somebody who used up all of their talk time with a friend, and now they're on their own.
I should be writing. That's the truth of it. Instead of baking and farting around online, I should be writing. But for some reason, it's been an incredibly difficult thing for me to do, almost painful.
The mental version of bone-on-bone grinding.
I'm going to say something here that is as close to the truth as I can come: Writing is the only solution to most of my problems in life. Job, career, money, self-worth, emotional contentment, self-improvement, and spiritual healing.
The only way I will ever move forward is through writing.
So why is writing so difficult for me?
That's a question I've been asking myself for a long time. I've been beating myself over the head with it, actually, trying to find an answer. When I figure it out, I'll let you all know.
Until then, I'm going to continue baking amazing crap I shouldn't eat to give away to people I annoy the shit out of because I'm terrified they'll leave me. Wow, that sounds healthy.
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