I got email from Kimmy yesterday with her new contact info at the new job – a much better gig from the big p-V, it looks like, and for some reason it set me off to Dolly Parton. Go figure. Kimmy is among the coolest people I know, so I’m thrilled she’s gotten away from the vipers’ nest.
It’s kind of crappy and foggy here today, but at least it isn’t hot. And lil’ Stevie loves the fog. It’s his favorite weather.
Some days are coffee days; some days are tea days. Today is a coffee day, so I’ll be good and buzzed in a while. I slept well, though, and felt all peaceful when I woke up. Maybe I’m going to jinx it, but maybe it’s possible that I’m finally starting to come out of the mourning period that started over a year ago. No, I don’t really mean the whole September 11 thing, though I’m sure that plays into it some. I mean the depression that started when I began to realize that lots of things had changed (mostly at work, at the time), and that almost none of them were very good. I went from a period where I worked hard but was extremely happy to a period where I worked hard and was not so happy… then onto the period where I didn’t work particularly hard and was miserable to boot. No fun there. I’ve been in something of a dream-state since I decided (for real) to leave the big p-V. It was in many ways an idyllic time for me. Ironically, it was also a sick and co-dependent time for me, as my work/life relationship was all skewed. Still, I was happy. It was an overachiever’s paradise for awhile there. Then they had to go and screw it up. Well, times change, I guess, and I’m less… what am I less of now? Less angry? Less bitter? Certainly, those are true, but that’s not the crux of it.
Less nostalgic, I guess. What has suddenly caused me to see this differently, I can’t say, but there it is.
I have a friend at work – Karen. Actually, to be fair, I have a lot of “work friends” here, as Xinet is (as Joon once told me) “socially very close.” But Karen has the potential to be a friend-friend on an ongoing basis, not just a work-friend. I’ve had the rare and wonderful treat of making a few “friend-friends” at work in the past – Kimmy, Marianna, Christian, maybe a few others – and it is a lovely thing to find someone you like and feel comfortable with in the place where you spend so much time and energy. At any rate, Karen was thinking about moving due to family considerations, and I think because of this we both kept some serious distance. After all, why risk becoming even moderately attached to someone if they’re just going to be far away soon, right? I already miss so many people so much I don’t have room to start missing another one, if that makes any sense. At any rate, after considering all of their options, Karen and her dear husband James will not be moving away any time soon.
The reason I’m thinking about that is that I’m trying to figure out why I’m suddenly feeling better over the past several days. It’s a remarkable change, too, not just a subtle one. I’m sleeping soundly; I’m hungry again where my appetite had dropped off; I can look at myself in the mirror and feel tenderness instead of loathing. WTF is up with that? Is it just time passing, giving me a distance from the things that saddened me?
Another potential candidate for assisting this change-of-moroseness: the political climate. If I haven’t already recounted the story of Molly and I at Outback in Dallas the week after September 11, I’ll do so at some point. (Oooh, and hey, Molly! I was nearly driven nuts listening to that Cincinnati speech night before last. Shrub and Homer Simpson: “It’s pronounced: new-kew-ler. Nu-CU-ler.” Or “hunnert”? WTF was up with that?) There was a big rally in SF against the war on Sunday. I can say things like, “Gee, I’m not so sure that going to bomb the hell out of Iraq is really going to solve anything” – and not get the crap beat out of me or have to worry about torches and pitchforks at the door. Go figure. So, maybe that’s part of it, too.
It’s probably a bunch of things all wrapped up together, of course. But I like playing forensics on my mood, so there!