Boy have I seriously neglected this blog.
It’d take too long to explain where I’ve been or what I’ve done since May 3. Other than having a real job with benefits and a busy social calendar, my life actually isn’t all that different from what it was two months ago. I’m still obsessive. Still lonely. Still unhappy. And yes, I’m still good at whining.
After being rejected by a man I was obsessively pining for, I took up organizing meet^ups (local social networking events) as a hobby. It became a sort of outlet for my obsessive-compulsive tendencies, a way to channel my overzealous energies into something productive.
Naturally instead of deriving pleasure from the experience as other organizers do, I’ve obsessed over the whole thing a bit much, bringing upon myself more stress than is necessary. I know I’m the only one to blame for that. I’ve always had a knack for making things more difficult than they really are. I always want too much, do too much, push too much, worry too much.
Only a month into it and I’m already reaching the burnout stage. I’m sick of organizing meet^ups. It’s gotten to be too much. Unless I calm the fuck down and take it EASY, I doubt I could keep it going much longer. Sadly that goes for everything in my life. Work, relationships, blogging, trifles… You name it I obsess over it.
Unless I learn to chill out and stop taking everything so seriously, unless I learn not to make a MONUMENTAL deal out of everything, unless I learn to accept anything less than perfect, unless I learn to give myself a pat on the back for the good that I do and forgive myself for the not so good I do, unless I learn to loosen the grasp on every aspect of my life I am so fiercely adamant on exercising control over, then happiness will continue eluding me.
Always Too Much July 14, 2008
Unemployed January 10, 2008
Well, I quit the nightmare customer service-oriented job after just one day on it. The decision brought me HUGE relief, but it’s also left me unemployed, which in turn has made me feel pretty shitty (i.e., depressed).
The uncertainty of the future has been overwhelming. I can’t bear not knowing when my next paycheck will come. I can’t bear the possibility that all the hard work I spent making sure my finances were in order may unravel sooner or later. I feel like a bomb is ticking and it’s only a matter of time before I lose control over everything.
I feel so powerless, so worthless. The world keeps on turning, life keeps on going, yet I feel so hopelessly unprepared for it. I desperately wish I could stop time or bring it back so I could get everything together just right before it started running again.
Every day I apply for jobs and no one ever bothers to reply. My self-esteem takes a hit each day that goes by without an answer. I know I’m incompetent, but this total lack of response makes me feel ten times more incompetent. What a way to remind me of the waste of 28 years.
I anxiously wait for the phone to ring. My temp agencies are most likely my only hope of ever finding a job. And they are the only ones who can give me short-term assignments, which will help buy me more time. My whole life depends on them.
During this period of purgatory waiting, I organize my apartment to keep myself distracted and give myself some semblance of control. While I can’t directly affect the outcome of my job search, I can improve the appearance of my closets and the efficiency with which I can find things in them. Of course, there’s also the other, less practical, alternative, which has become more inviting as of late: to stay in bed all day, aimlessly mulling over my desire to cease to live this hopeless failure of an existence.
Goodbye, Good Old Job January 4, 2008
Today has been emotional. It was my last day on the job. I worked there for over 3 years and although I hated it almost the whole time, I miss it now – and it hasn’t even been 6 hours since I locked my little office for the very last time.
I’m going to miss my office, my own private space. I’m going to miss spending hours on the computer, on the internet specifically, checking up on my bank accounts and my credit card balances, hitting the reload button every five minutes to see if any new emails have come, reading useless, random stuff… I’m going to miss the independence, doing my own thing, working with little guidance, having the office to myself most of the time. I’m going to miss my boss. He was by far the BEST boss ever and I know I am NEVER going to be lucky to get another boss as great as he was.
Oh, I really had it good at my old job. I was really comfortable with what I was doing. I felt like I was in my element – on my own mostly, no pressure, few deadlines, just taking it easy. Every week I had a day off, Mondays usually. For the amount of work I did, the pay was decent. Save for the long, oppressive bouts of boredom, which drove me insane (and sometimes even triggered suicidal impulses), it was pretty much paradise at work.
Now it’s all over and I can’t believe I took it all for granted. I can’t believe I whined so much about how bored and miserable I was with it. On Tuesday I’m starting another job, a temp-to-perm one this time, with an American company (I was blessed to have worked at a European organization), and I can already see how drastically different things are going to be. I’ll have to be at work every single day, 1 1/2 hours earlier and ON TIME, for longer hours, and I will actually be BUSY, running around doing all kinds of things, I imagine, rather than quietly, comfortably sitting at my computer all day long waiting for time to pass. I can say goodbye to dallying around on the internet or on the phone, sneaking out of work early to go to the movies, or enjoying a siesta while the boss is away. I will finally know the meaning of work as those bloody workaholic Americans know it. (Will somebody, something, a hate mail, a snow storm, a non-functioning traffic light, an accidental lethal combination of vitamins and allergy pills pleeeeeease kill me before Tuesday?)
I’m dreadfully scared. And sad, too. I don’t like change. I want my good old job back. I need security, familiarity. I’m going to this new job, which I really don’t know much about, and I’m so terrified at the prospect of being around new people, doing new, challenging things, and having no place there to hide or find comfort. At the new job I will have to deal with people, something which dead people are probably better at than I am. The new boss will most likely not be as cool, laid-back, patient, and understanding as my old one. Sooner or later everyone will realize they made a big booboo in picking me.
I don’t know why they did that. What a grave mistake. Did I do that well on the phone interview yesterday that they didn’t think anyone else fared better than I had? I find that impossible to believe. I shouldn’t have taken that Xanax one hour before the interview. I shouldn’t have been that relaxed, that friendly, that unusually verbally articulate. Who the hell was speaking on the phone? For Christ’s sake, I am a socially anxious, stuck up, awkward, reticent wallflower. I am not cut out to be an executive assistant in a customer-service oriented environment. I belong in a hole. This cannot be real.
I shouldn’t have prepared interview questions and answers in advance and consulted them as I spoke to the interviewer. I shouldn’t have had my resume, my current job description, and everything relevant to my current position all laid out in front of me either. It’s all a cheat. A fraud. A big scam. A HUGE mistake. And it will all blow up sooner or later.
I should have failed; that’s what I am used to. That’s what I do best. Success is so foreign to me. I’m a failure. Where did this sudden, unexpected burst of success come from? What did I do to deserve it? I expected to go days, weeks without a job. This is so terrifyingly bizarre that I would have something lined up so soon.
If I somehow convince myself not to listen to the voices that are telling me as we speak not to show up at my new job on Tuesday, I am certain the people there will quickly realize I’m not the right person for the job. I’m ready for it, crossing my fingers for it, but what a humiliation it will be to show up there and disappoint like that. I so hate disappointing people; it disappoints me tenfold.
I wish I could turn back time and make sure this never happened. All I’d like to do right now, other than bawl my eyes out in panic, is to crawl into a tree hole and hide there for milleniums until this has all passed and my memory, and the memories of all the people involved, have been wiped clean of every trace of this unfortunate occurrence.
Am I out of my mind for not congratulating myself at having been accepted for a job, for not being thrilled at the idea of getting a paycheck soon, for wishing I had failed? How can one possibly be in a celebratory mood under the circumstances? I feel like the end of the world has come and Judgment Day will be here on Tuesday and I will fail and I will be punished and I will go to hell and I … could go on and on in that doomsday trajectory because I don’t know what else to do so I’ll just shut up and pray for the worst…
Unlucky November 28, 2007
These past couple of days have been distressing. I seem to be running through a streak of bad luck.
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Misfortune #1:
On Saturday I was shopping at Ulta, a beauty supply store similar to Sephora. I carried with me a blue bag, containing my purse, random papers and some new shoes I had just purchased, a notebook where I had written a very thorough list of beauty products to look for, and a shopping basket. I had such difficulty carrying everything in my hands while conducting my search that I put down my bag and my basket next to me. I was in the store for at least an hour when two short Hispanic men started walking up and down the aisles around me. I didn’t pay too much attention to them; I thought they were looking for makeup for their wives.
Unsuspectingly, I stepped away from my bag, which was sitting in the corner of the aisle with my basket. By the time I turned around to grab my stuff, probably a minute later, my bag was gone. Only the basket remained.
Instantly I knew. I had no doubt in my mind that they had taken it. Those two men who looked so out of place in the makeup section of a beauty store, it had to be them. Frantically I looked around. My eyes quickly landed on the store window where I could see the two ladrones walking away with MY bag. As if it were theirs. Fucking assholes.
Immediately I stormed out of the store, huffing and puffing, red as a tomato, and determined to get my bag back. I ran after them; they must have been no more than a hundred meters away. Like a quiet predator, I made sure they didn’t hear me approaching from behind. Much to their astonishment, I forcefully ripped the bag away out of the thief’s clutch. And then I stared the man down in the eye and firmly said in a loud voice: “THIS is MY bag you took!”
The two men were so stunned that they just stood there in silence with wide open eyes. Without another word, I decisively swung the other way and walked back to the store muttering curses under my breath. It was a long while before I stopped shaking like a leaf as waves of overwhelming fear, indignation, and guilt were swirling through me.
Though I was upset at what those men did, I also blamed myself for what happened. If I had been more careful, none of this would have happened. But never again. Never again will I lose control of the situation as I did. From now on I am not going to trust anyone and I’m going to guard my belongings as if they were my very last possessions on Earth.
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Misfortune #2
On Monday I lost my driver’s license in a thrift store. My purse, which is really a wallet with a purse string attached to it, accidentally opened on its own and my license slipped out without my noticing it. I was filled with panic when I realized it wasn’t there anymore. I thought, oh no, this can’t be happening again.
I looked, looked, and looked; I retraced every single one of my steps, but my license was nowhere to be found. I was on the verge of tears when I heard a very faint voice on the speakerphone butchering my last name. Joy! Relief! For once I didn’t care how they pronounced my name. My license was safe! I ran to the office and one of the employers handed it to me. If I wasn’t trying so hard to contain my emotions in public, I would have thrown my arms at her in jubilant gratitude. Saved once again!
Never again am I putting important items in those wallet pockets. They now go in the zippered section. You can never be too safe.
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Misfortune #3:
Today (actually it happened yesterday, but I only found out about it today), my paycheck bounced (the horror!!!) and threw my bank account in severe overdraft (just kill me already!). Current balance: minus $450 after the bank made its kill off those exorbitant fees they wasted not a second to hit me with. And as icing on the cake, autopay payments are processing AS WE SPEAK. I’m crossing my fingers and biting my nails that I won’t charged any more return fees. (Lord have mercy on me.)
The rage, oh, the rage. Again, if I wasn’t so fiercely adamant on losing control of myself in public, I would have allowed myself to break into tears at work and lash out at the culprit of this mess on the telephone. There is nothing that drives me to the edge more than losing control of my finances. I’d rather lose my driver’s license a hundred times, I’d rather lose my temper and make a fool out of myself than lose control of my money.
None of this is my fault, so I shouldn’t blame myself (but I do because that’s what I do, get mad at myself every time something goes wrong). Yes, I should have had $500 sitting in my checking account for safety, but as a lowly secretary, I really don’t make that kind of money. If I were smarter, more competent, more confident, not to mention more sociable, I’d be working for a better company.
But no, I work for the WORST temp agency ever. They pay me late; they make mistakes; they lie to me; they screw me over; they make my life a living hell; but this, this has got to be the ultimate fuck up this one-person run company has ever done to me. Oh, I can’t wait for the end of my contract at the end of December. No more paycheck woes -though possibly no paychecks for a while either, ugh. Maybe one fine day, when the stars are aligned properly, I’ll get a job that pays me on time without any fuss. Is it too much to ask for?
Anyway, the temp lady made up excuses (man, she’s good at that) and then advised me to ask the bank to resubmit the check for payment. So I went to the bank and they told me I had to wait for the returned check in the mail before they could reprocess it. Only trouble is I may not receive it till next week. Dang!
Fortunately, a good samaritan so dear to my heart, was kind enough to lend me some money today. With the late paycheck that was supposed to arrive last Friday, but won’t arrive till tomorrow (another fine example of the temp agency’s incompetence), I should be able to cover the big gaping hole in my account and pay for the urgent bills that all seem to be due in the next few days. As long as I deposit everything together, that is. Bank can’t charge me an overdraft fee again if I’m already in the negative, but they can if I put in some money and it’s enough to put me back in the positive yet not enough to cover any incoming payments.
Though the situation will get resolved sooner or later, I doubt I’ll sleep in peace until it is. I never thought I’d live to see the day when my balance would be three digits in the hole. If only this were just a nightmare I’d wake up from tomorrow… sigh.
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Bedtime prayer of the day:
Dear God, please, God, I’m sorry I said you didn’t exist, but will you please forgive me for all the bad I’ve done and stop throwing misfortunes at me? I promise to be good (at least through the end of the year).
Morning Despair October 9, 2007
Every morning before the crack of dawn, well before I am due to rise, I wake up with a sharp pang of loneliness, dread, and despair. The pain is deep and searing. It will not allow me to go back to sleep.
It’s futile to try to get rid of it, for it has a mind of its own. Sometimes it goes away within a few minutes and comes back when I wake up again; sometimes it stays until it is time for me to get up.
FAQ #1: Comments December 9, 2007
Tags: Blogging, comments, criticism, Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
Frequently Asked Question #1:
Q. Are you ever going to open comments?
A. Probably not, unless by some kind of miracle I am cured of my comment phobia and whatever is causing it. Believe it or not, but just the thought of the comment option being open keeps me up at night.
A more appropriate question would be why I am scared of comments.
These things bring about a whole array of unhealthy emotions I just don’t want to deal with (life is already stressful enough as it is, thank you), emotions like:
All in all, I think that allowing comments on my blog causes a lot more stress in my life than I can handle.