, ____, ( 08/09/01 anada430 ,
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\ / "Restless" `. , \ \ / |
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/ by Airman Opus ( ; mEoW!@/| '
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|____________________ Anada is cat-friendly! __) |__\ `.___________|/
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today, I feel unsatisfied and restless. the last time you heard from
me, I was feeling unbearably hopeless. I feel better this time; I have a
good job that I like doing every day. No, Mom, this is what I do for a
living now. I have no plans to be a programmer bitchslave again. get over
it.
you didn't know this until now, but I used to be a programmer at a
hip, trendy dot-com in an old warehouse where the vents showed and the
president of the company had a velvet elvis portrait in his office. the
realization took a while to reach me, that I was simply not happy. I
love computers. I'm a hacker. I've lived my life online for a long
time, so working on web sites seemed such a logical thing to do for a
living. it took me a while (close to a year) to realize that the dream
I was looking for was not to be found in the old warehouse. the dream
was also not present in the next place I worked, as a
consultant*cough*bitchslave*cough* doing stuff I /really/ hated getting
up to do every day.
waking up feeling miserable about getting paid to do what you've been
dreaming about doing for years on end is hard. at a certain point,
reality sets in and something has to give. with me, that something was
my mental health. enter depression. failure. staring at a screen,
motionless, unable to do anything, much less get any work done.
corporate america did not relate to my pain. laid off (fired) two days
before thanksgiving, because good managers know it's always better to
fire someone right before a long weekend. much safer. toss off that
excess weight and punch the throttle full speed ahead.
and so the freefall picked up speed. in the space of a few weeks,
go from being a hip, trendy whoopass computer geek to standing in the
bathroom holding a knife, staring at yourself in the mirror trying to
find a reason not to start slicing. day after day, just happy to get
through the day, and then scared as hell to go to sleep and dream about
it. therapy. adhd evaluation (negative, btw). more therapy. higher
dose of celexa. less money. more bills. more problems.
time goes by. days become weeks, weeks become months. things get
thrown, stuff gets said, the world turns itself inside out and there's
nothing there to help you, nothing to save you. most of that time, the
end of a day would arrive without me knowing what I did all day. surfed
a little, maybe looked at some job listings knowing they'd never call
me, much less hire me. depression is a funny thing; it's impossible to
describe. somehow, probably the celexa, I managed to not let go of the
rope and fall into the darkness.
then the rope begins to fray. unemployment only lasts so long. by
that I don't mean that you eventually get a job, I mean eventually they stop
sending checks while you look for a job. some people throw shovels and
put their fists through walls on a daily basis. I don't. ever. except
that day, when someone tried to help me by pushing me to the breaking
point, trying to get me excited about something. I got excited all
right, I got violent. I threw things to inflict pain. I picked up the
sharp objects and held them against the veins in my wrists. what stopped me
I do not know, nor do I wish to find out.
so I found a place that needed someone like me, a refugee from the
pursuit of the great american dotcom dream that I should have known better
than to get involved in. and now I have to learn not only how to deal with
what I am now (which I'm pretty happy with most of the time), I have to deal
with other people's unfulfilled expectations for what I should be. people
see the long hair, the piercings, and curiosity goes no deeper. judgement
is swift. but I'd rather deal with that than deal with searching through
the house for a sharp enough knife. usually.
now we return to the question, why am I unsatisfied and restless? am
I still not happy? no, I'm not completely happy. too many unpaid bills,
too much stress at home. patience in my house ran out months ago. I
feel I have to run faster, work harder, keep pushing, get out of this hole I
dug myself into. so I'm restless. I feel guilty if I'm sitting still.
unreasonable expectations for one's self are not a healthy thing to have.
maybe unsatisfied and restless, taken in moderation, is not a bad state of
being. I want to get my other foot out of the dark, deep well I've been in
the past year, and get going on some things that I've realized are important
to me.
the demons, the ghosts, and the monsters are still there, waiting
around the corner. I still hear the voices in the darkness. the dreams
still haunt me at night, taking away my sleep. panic still sets in every
morning 30 minutes before I need to be ready for work. somehow, though,
once I get started, I can somehow outrun the demons for a while. they
get to eat some of my dust for a change.
you're asking now, where is this person going with all this?
if you made it this far, you've reached the same point I have. where
to go from here, is a damn good question.
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`-.^.-' (c) 2001 Anada e'zine by Airman Opus `-.^.-'
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