So after moving into the apartment with a vision of what it was going to be like, I found very quickly that the saying "some things are better in theory than in practice" is a truth. The place I was living was wonderful...Great area, great view, great landlords.... But it just wasn't home! I will give credit where credit is due, that's for sure...
In the mornings, I had a flock of wild turkeys that would come out of the roost just across the street from me and put on a show of struts and gobbles as I drank my morning coffee. Hummingbirds coming to my feeder, and BIRDS... Most of the time, this was just one of the shows as the wild birds were so plentiful, they would generally wake me up in the mornings before the alarm clock would go off. My day started with breakfast on the front porch, a cup of coffee and the show of nature to start my day....It was always a wonderful start but the thoughts of home and missing Donna were always what filled my head when I would stare off and away from the play of nature in front of me.
I would take my time to wake up, getting myself ready and then off to work....I will cover the work aspect of this in a few as this kind of work is something I have never experienced before and it really needs a thread all of its own to capture the complexities of what takes place in this type of work... A world all in, and of itself for sure!
After going to work, I would make my way back to my little apartment, usually by 5:00pm and would quickly get my shoes and dress clothes off, get into my comfortable clothes and take my seat back on my front porch.
My front porch faced river road and just beyond that, a field that led up to two large rolling hills...Really a beautiful spot! The wild birds were amazing and it really was very peaceful here. However, it was very lonely!
I don't know anyone in the area, the people I work with are primarily younger, drinkers and "partier" people....A group I would have easily fit in with 15 years ago or so but now really work to avoid socially as it seems i tend to find "trouble" in these situations.
I didn't have cable at my apartment as I couldn't see the reason to have an expense like that so generally, all I would do would be get home, change, sit on my porch, maybe listen to music, make me something to eat at about 7:00pm, sit back on the porch, iron my clothes for the next day at about 9:00pm, go back to the porch and then make my way to bed by about 10:00-11:00pm... In that time frame, I would generally talk to Donna on the phone once or twice but other than that, I would just sit on that front porch in my wicker chair and just THINK and "wallow." Sometimes I would make my way to the little movie store and rent some movie but that was rare... I was starting to really understand what "alone" was like and the feeling of being lonely.
I have always been a very social person and any other time in my life, I would have found a bar or a restaurant or some stomping ground somewhere and just started meeting people but I am finding as I get older, those types of connections just aren't as important s they use to be... I just really had no desire to get out and BE social but I was also generally so exhausted from work and so tense from the day, I was spending my time on the front porch just to unwind from the day....When I blog about the job, you will understand more.
Donna and I were seeing each other at least once a week, generally only for a day or two, but the goodbyes when those days were over were so horrible for us both. Even though we knew we would be seeing each other in a week or so, we just really hated the being apart, sleeping apart, eating apart, just spending our everyday time apart... I think its a good thing myself.... 18 years together and we still cant stand to be apart... We are blessed!
Each time we would say goodbye, it just seemed to be getting worse, not better....I was getting to the point where I didn't want to spend the time together because the leaving was just too much... Such a strange experience that was!
I had alot of time to really consider my actions, what my next step was, if this job was going to be something for me, if this move was something best for US....I had A LOT of time! I tried to pick up books and start reading again but couldn't seem to stay focused on the story.
I even thought about Thoreau and many of the other writers who went into seclusion and wrote their stories... Guess I just don't want to know myself that good!! LOL!!
The Job??? Well, it was just a job... It was not only that, it was a GRIND, it was the RAT RACE and it was intense, fast paced, demanding and NOT what I moved away from Houston and to the Hill Country to do with my life... Of this I was clear very fast but the attraction of the fast money was still driving me forward.
I really did enjoy the apartment and the place....It was cozy, comfortable and would have been such a great place to have as a weekend getaway for me and Donna but this living apart thing was slowly eating at my soul and really started me thinking about what I was doing apart from the woman I had given my word to all those years ago as a husband and a partner... My life is just not complete without Donna in it... At this point in our life, we aren't spending as much time together as we have in the past but for us to be living apart, well, this just was NOT working for either of us.
About 3 weeks into this adventure, I decided to quit the job and just call it quits.... It was a VERY hard decision for me as I generally like to see whatever I do through to completion and we agreed to give this 2 months to see how it goes.... I was three weeks in and decided that was enough... That was on a Sunday...
I tried to call my friend from years back who encouraged me to take the job and left him a message as well as a text message asking him to contact me that "I needed some advice." That message went unanswered and I never heard from him....As a matter of fact, to this day, I still haven't heard from that old friend about anything, to check on me, the job, nothing....Guess he decided it wasn't worth it to get back in touch with me.... Shortly after moving there and taking this on, he did send me a text message saying "You don't know me anymore" and I guess there is some truth to that.... Not a bad thing in any way.... Change sems to be an absolute in this life....No need to get upset with absolutes!
I went back to the apartment, Donna was there visiting, and I told her I had called it quits. We talked and came to the conclusion that if I could go back under some specific circumstances, I would go ask for another shot....After discussing it, we decided to go get some dinner at a place called "Lucky's" down on the lake.
We walk into the restaurant and there sat my boss with four of the top salesmen from the company. I politely introduced Donna to everyone and we sat and had some food. The salesmen were having drinks and eventually we all started to chat....the boss left to go back to the office (9:00pm now) and the salesmen came over to encourage me to go back to the job.
They explained some of the ins and outs of how the whole game works, showed me some really great tips, showed me some learning curve stuff, ensured me that due to me having a family living in another town, the boss would probably give me consecutive days off, so after all of this talk and instruction, Donna and I talked and decided to give it another shot....So I did! I went back to work the next Tuesday and spoke to the boss about my concerns and got things arranged and went back to work (again, I will cover more in another blog).
Donna and I said our goodbyes again, I went back to my daily practice of "porch sittin" and contemplating my life and the routine of work and coming home and just couldn't shake the misery of being alone and away from home....The pain in how my life was not (in that moment) what I had planned or imagined.
I have some friends that are single and live alone and often times they have expressed to me the loneliness they feel when going home at night.... I never could comprehend what that feels like until this experience... Now I was really starting to get a grip on what this feels, tastes and smells like....I have a new understanding now of what they are talking about... IT SUCKS!!
Each day I got up and went through the process, I was just waiting for something to "snap" where this experience would become less painful, less of a struggle, less of a GRIND and it just never came. The place I was working was becoming less tolerable with how it worked....I was getting there at 8:30am (required) and then had to sit many times until 11:00-11:30am, unable to leave the property, expected to just sit and wait until I was called....Once I was called, it was ballz to the wall until 5, 6, 7:00 at night...No breaks, no lunch and expected to keep the "act" up throughout the day....In all reality, the time working was really OK, the downtime just allowed me to focus on what I was doing, to see people who had been doing this for years and listening to their lives away from family, no vacations, no time for themselves, 12-15 hour days, the constant grind of this kind of sales and me continuously questioning why the hell I am here!
The weekends, well, they were longer....in at 9:00am and sometimes there until 10,11,12:00am....No breaks, no lunches and even chastised for trying to grab a bite between "ups" was growing more and more tiresome.... I would get off at 8-9pm on Sundays and then drive an hour and a half back to Kerrville to go home... Get home, tense, cramps in my back, stressed out and then sleep most of my time home....But oh man, was it good to be home!
May 1st, after some differences in understanding at the job, I went home.... I was still locked into a months rent at the apartment but I was done with this job and ready to go home... Money is just money and to me, a months rent loss was worth getting back to my house, my bed, my life I had created in the Hill Country.... I realized I would be back home where I was before I left to New Braunfels but also came to the realization that although I might have been miserable at home trying to find a job, at least I was home! I would rather be miserable at home than miserable and away from home.... I also realized that my relationship with Donna was stronger than I had imagined and just being able to have her in my everyday life (as limited as it is sometimes) is better than NO Donna in my life!
So, May 1st, after leaving the Hill Country Resort, I cheerfully went back to my apartment and loaded up a truckload of belongings and headed home. I had made my decision, took my licks with this lesson and went home....A bittersweet kind of feeling....
I rarely devote myself to something and it NOT work....I devoted myself to this and clearly, it didn't work! I was happy to be home but I was really beating myself up because I felt like I had failed.... I had some saving grace because I am also very aware that if I had not gone and tried it, I would have questioned myself forever, wondering what I might have missed.... Like they say in the sales field....
"Fuck it....NEXT!!"
I have had a rough go of it these last 6-7 months.... I really NEVER thought that I would have a hard time finding a job after attaining my Masters degree....In all reality, one of the driving factors in getting that degree was for job security....I remember confidently saying "With my Masters degree, I will never have to worry about a job" but I have found that the only thing certain in this life is that nothing is certain!
I will say that AT THIS MOMENT in my life, I really don't care.... I am not going to go deliver pizzas yet or go dig ditches, but my view of "working" has shifted....I really had to go back to some of my journaling when I moved to the Hill Country and re-connect with why I came to this area.
I remember when we left Houston and our perspective fields we were in....We so loved this area that we stated many times.... "I don't care if we have to wash dishes, as long as we can live in the Hill Country" Now granted, this was before going back to school and attaining 100k in student loans between us but the reality is still there....We moved here to live a more simple life, a life without the hustle and bustle of big city life or the drive to have to "prove ourselves"...We have done that.... Now we just want to live simply and maybe because of my self worth conversations, I was ready to give up simplicity to go and try and find something different.... I found "different" and decided that it took from the simplicity that we so enjoy in our life.
I took about two days of being home and then went with Nathan (a friend of the family) back to New Braunfels, picked up the rest of my stuff, Lucy and cleaned the apartment to leave it forever... Truth is found in experience and the truth I found was the life I live here and with Donna was more important than trying to go create a life without her by my side... Its GOOD to be home!
Its funny how life works.... I made a statement 15-18 years ago how I would love to live on river road in New Braunfels and then it happened....I loved the place and the area but as I have told Donna before throughout our life and trying new things.... "I wouldn't want to experience this with anyone else but you" and although there was some really great stuff to experience in my time there, it just wasn't as much fun experiencing it alone!
So, here it is, May 9th, 2011 and I am back home, unemployed, hoping that life will continue as it has to this point and an opportunity will present itself. Simplicity (with duties... LOL!!) is where I seem to find more peace in my life now and something simple has to be out there just waiting on me... I am wondering if I can find me a Forrest Gump job and just go mow a lawn somewhere and find contentment.... It seems that "contentment" is a distinction that is like jello to me....You can get it in your hands but its hell to hold on to!
Back to the blog, back to the hunt, back to the deferment of loans....But I am back!! and that is whats important! Besides, I have alot of blogging to do so stay vigilant, I have alot to cover!
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