back on track, just like that!

Though sleepy after only several hours of slumber last night, I’m feeling more balanced now, as the day closes, than I did when it began.

More balanced and clear-headed and understanding about the reasons for yesterday’s avalanche of internal turmoil and upset. For me, work (physical or mental, depending on their natures) can be therapeutic. Since I work alone, I get a lotta time to think while rush-rush-rushing to get the rooms done … so it’s not like I’m meditating under the bodhi tree at the workplace!

Things came clear and calm returned as I yanked sheets and comforters off king beds, unstuffed pillows from their cases, applied fresh sheets, restuffed pillows and scrubbed tubs.

My job requires little to no brain power, which not only encourages use of thought but demands it. A job that requires no brain is not a job for me and thus I’ll find a way to utilize it! — in contemplations, musings, analysis and the like.

I just wanted to put that on the record. I got back on track with positivity and staying the course of healing quickly. Impressively quickly. Unusually quickly for me! I didn’t hang around down in the dumps as in the past. I didn’t let myself be held back by a setback. That’s good news. Tonight I’ll continue the course with a hot Epsom salt bath, a book at bedtime and hopefully restful undisturbed slumber.

In short, a day that began not so well ends well. 🙂

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Dreams, disappointment and pour me a double

I’d like to spend the next two days drunk.

Not fall down puke your guts out pass out drunk. Comfortably even-keeled inebriated. Enough to dull the pain and soften the anguish and forget for a while.

I dared to hope. Dared to dream. I dared to be positive and think positive and affirm. I dared to be excited about possibilities for a better life and real potential for one. I dared to reach for a star. Not the brightest one perhaps in all of the universe yet bright, indeed.

What a fucking mistake.

Comfortably drunk is good because it takes the edge off. The raw edge of disappointment. Of optimism and hopes raised then crashed to the floor.

I felt the tears rise when he told me the answer was no, I am not getting the job. Because I was there in person and he too in the hallway of the radio station, I could not hide behind the veil of a telephone call. I did not want to be teary-eyed in front of him. So I dried them by will, shut them down for then.

I came close so close. Had a former employee not returned early from a leave, and thus the job going to him, I might very likely be shedding my current job and on my way to work that excites me. Is a passion and a calling and purposeful.

I’d like to be drunk for the next two days. Because today, after several days of being high on hope and the potential for happiness and a REAL POSITIVE CHANGE in my life and work, today I resume a job that means nothing to me, save for a means of survival and barely that at a part-time minimum-wage status.

Today, after days of being fueled by a dream, I resume slogging through my day, doing a job of a 22-year-old at 57, hurting my injured shoulder, aggravating my misaligned and stress-filled back, pushing myself past natural limits into exhaustion for the sake of the clock and management dictates that room cleans are to be completed in x-minutes.

Today I resume how things have been for the past 10 years, excepting three darkest years of unemployment and six months of a writing job at a small-town paper. Doing nothing I care about outside of my work ethics, getting paid crumbs to do it and inside crying, screaming, begging, pleading, yearning and reaching for release.

Praying and affirming and hoping and praying and affirming and hoping again through my days and evenings for a chance. For someone to give me an opportunity, for a door to open that’ll put me back on purpose and path. Years and years like that.

And I’ve done that. Oh yes, I have. The praying, the staying positive and being positive, the writing, the affirming, the reaching for the light and staying focused on the light even as shit surrounds me.

I’ve done that in real ways, committed ways, with dedication and diligence, steadfastly and undeterred by all the elements that bring me down or could bring me down.

And so when the answer was no — again — for the second time with this specific station and the thousandth time in efforts for jobs desired and not-so-much desired. I crashed.

Well, no I didn’t. I went into a ballistic tailspin. A spin fueled by years and years and years of disappointments. Of best intentions and sincere loving intentions met by slammed doors and towering brick walls. By NO. A spin fueled by years and years of reaching for something … better … and closer to my heart.

If it weren’t for the fact that I’ve gotta go now and fall back onto my knees to scrub bathroom floors and toilets and tuck in sheets and comforters … to strip sheets and pillowcases off king-sized beds and empty trashcans and dust every surface and don’t forget inside the fridges and microwaves …

… if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve gotta go now and trot — not walk — here to there and back here in the heat and force force force my shoulder past constrictive pain to accomplish the tasks …

… if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve gotta go be something I’m not and pretend that I’m nobody except a cleaner … if it weren’t for the fact that my dreams, only freshly resurrected from the despicable ashes of Tacoma and Washington state, are wrought in their tender infancy yet again to nothing …

if it weren’t for all that and the all-important overriding fact that I need a job — a job a job it’s a job — I’d spend the next two days drunk. Comfortably inebriated. Just enough to take the edge off, dull the pain and the anguish of another disappointment, a meaningful disappointment, and my fucking mistake of daring to hope and to dream.

waiting, waiting, waiting, it’s the worst!

a life out of balance … and long moments in wait.

a life out of balance:

* not sleeping / not sleeping well / insufficient dreamtime
* body misalignment and injuries
* too much energy output at the job
* little $ in return for output
* housing situation that confines, oppresses, suppresses and suffocates
* dictatorial roommate
* rent/living costs too high for current income
* little to no social interaction (this is function of the job)
* no community involvement (too a function of the job)
* bad bed (upgrade is priority with a move!!!!)

long moments in wait:

* meeting with radio station manager Friday
* Monday or Tuesday he’ll know / have a decision
* Tuesday noon and no word yet. My nerves would be on fire wait were I not actively quelling them with efforts to stay positive
* even still, I’m scared and nervous and afraid of the outcome
* waiting, waiting, waiting on outcome, it’s the worst!

a snapshot of this day, tuesday, july 29. just because.

On Saturdays, slavery and spiritual evolution

The proverbial Monday morning blues. I’ve got somethin’ that can top ’em

The first day of the weekend. Saturdays in conventional workweeks but for me Mondays since weekends are the busiest at the hotel and it’s full staff on. For convenience, I’ll use Saturday to convey the first day of the weekend, even though for me it’s technically Monday.

Saturdays are when I wake up feeling like I’ve been hit by a freight train … a bus … a semi-truck. In other words, a big fucking piece of industrial-sized moving metal!

Too, Saturdays are when I catch up on all the lost sleep from the workdays. Sleep sacrificed to the early-morning alarm clock. Sleep lost to shoulder and back pain and injuries. Sleep unattainable on a not-good mattress that comes in the rental room and a new foam mattress topper that’s hit and miss and unlikely to survive the cut.

Saturdays bring unfitful sleep above and beyond the workweek’s norm. Reason 1 is the body’s habituated to rising early and so awakens early even on the day off.

Reason 2 is house/roommates’ activity is in full swing in the early morn — an’ I hear it all!

Reason 3 is come Saturday, my body and mind awaken to the reality of the feats they’ve been pushed, prodded and pulled through to accomplish job responsibilities. And they are not happy campers!
I’ve got a job that’s age-inappropriate … which is to say that at 57, I’m doing a job of a 22-year-old. All physical. All about brawn and speed speeed speeeeeeeeeeeeeed, wheeeeeeee! Even at 22, I was the tortoise, not the hare! It’s unrealistic to expect me to perform at the same speed as the youngsters. Nonetheless, expected it is.

There’s also the all-important matter of shoulder and back injuries that slow and impede movements. Honestly, I deserve a medal just for my efforts and accomplishments despite real physical obstacles and pain. But what corporate service industry cares about its PEOPLE, really? It’s about numbers.

Anyhow, all told, come Saturdays, I feel like shit. It’s not unheard of me to sleep ’til noon — 5 hours past my workweek alarm. A significant indicator of just how fucking fatigued I am.

Fatigue.

Fatigue of the adrenals and kidneys was revealed in yesterday’s jin shin jyutsu treatment — a modality that’s doing WONDERS in my recovery and healing!! As if I didn’t have enough on my plate with whacked-out liver and gall bladder and spleen and joints and bones! Welcome newcomers adrenals and kidneys!

It’s all connected, I realize. Anyways, central is the awareness that this hotel cleaning job has a short shelf life. The muscular development and toning associated with this physically demanding work have plateaued.

Advancing to Level II of muscle development/toning would require a commiserate ramping-up of activity and that ain’t gonna happen at this job, neither should it. I’m not aiming to make the cover of “Brawny Women.” No one wants to see me oiled up in a bikini flexing my muscles!!

There’s an arc to the positive effects of all this physical movement and output … and that arc is just about reached. Maximum results are achieved. It’s downhill from here.
Again, fatigue. For no good cause. Which can mean only one thing: the end of the job is nearing.

Or is it?

The inner slave and slave-driver don’t know when to stop. More importantly don’t know HOW to stop. Lifetimes, including this one, as a slave and a slave-driver impart the message: “PUSH THROUGH PAIN. YOUR SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

“You may die from overworking — in fact, chances are you will. No one could accuse you of being lazy! PUSH PUSH PUSH THROUGH THE PAIN. Then you die. Life over. Goals accomplished.”

Them’s some powerful lifetimes of hardships and brutalities and equally powerful messages I carry still to this day.

Until I don’t.

Saturdays. They top the Monday morning blues because that’s indeed the day when the body awakens to the realities that must be circumvented, ignored, denied, submerged under the demands of the job. Because if I let my body and mind truly feel and experience, they’d say what?

I know what they’d say. “What the fuck are you doing lifting mattresses by the corners with a seriously injured shoulder?!?

“What the hell are you doing crawling around on your knees scrubbing floors again?!? Haven’t you had enough?!? Enough lifetimes and enough jobs in THIS lifetime in menial service and in serving OTHERS, many of ’em authoritative assholes?!!

“Haven’t you got the message that you’re a writer, not a cleaner (though you love cleaning when it’s your own space!) Haven’t you got the message that you don’t have to do this anymore?!?

“You CAN wake up on Saturdays and enjoy them as they’re meant to be enjoyed: Leisurely. Awaking at a slow relaxed pace. Enjoying the sensations of a body rejuvenated by slumber and dreamtime. Lingering over a cuppa dark roast and a green smoothie and the newspaper. Taking your time saving the simple pleasures.”

Let go of this job so new and better can fill the space. Let go of slave jobs and enslavement so that your voice and light can shine!

And so that Saturdays can be special instead of the scene of a physical & mental train wreck!

That’s all on this your Tuesday, my Sunday. 🙂

the domestic cyclone alters course for a day

I didn’t know it was gonna happen. Didn’t know it was coming. 

If I had, I might’ve come home earlier after work yesterday. 

I might’ve opened the fresh bottle of pinot grigio earlier. Might’ve sat sooner in the side yard with my newspaper and the three dogs and watched the pass. 

Had I known my cyclonic roommate was gonna be away and that I’d have the house nearly to my myself — sharing it only with another roommate who holes up in his garage man cave — I’d-a come home earlier and enjoy the extraordinarily rare space and solitude. Definitely.

Wherever J. went isn’t a concern. Just that she’s gone somewhere — gotten outta the house at all for longer than an errand! — is reason to return home directly after work! Is reason to cut short or eliminate the frequent dilly-dallying that serves as procrastination and avoidance tools. 

Wherever J. went isn’t a concern. Just that she’s gone somewhere for longer than an errand is the reason the house is quiet. The cyclone has ceased and desisted — for  now.

Like the house, I too am at now — for now. I slumbered better — more fitfully and deeper than usual — for the house at rest. There were no loud sounds of doors opening and slamming. No shouts. No yelling for the dogs for their walks. No barking at the third roommate. No sound of the car starting up.

No sound of the cyclone crossing the carpet across the house.

Upon first awaking, I felt different. In that nebulous early state of consciousness when the brain’s slipping the gears into everyday gears. I didn’t know why. Recognized only  that I felt different. Better. More rested. In less physical pain. 

Then, as I came into focus in this world, the cause was revealed. I didn’t even hafta go searching for it! 

The roommate’s gone. The house is stilled.

What’s remarkable is that because of that, that seemingly small and innocuous alteration in daily living, my world improved. For the night.

Because of that small alteration — the temporary absence of a loud and obstructive roommate — my (w)holistic self gained rest.

My injured shoulder received a shot in the arm of healing. Positive indeed!

In case you ever wondered or doubted, let me assure that other people’s energies DO matter and do affect the surroundings. They affect me, especially as a Pisces, aka a walking sponge.

J.’s absence is welcomed. I wish it’d continue for a week. Bet I’d get more sleep and rest and peace and healing effects in that single week than I would in three months in her domain and under her dominion!

Not to be overlooked: Yesterday — Saturday, July 26 — was the new moon in Leo, at 3 degrees. Coming up: creating a new vision board. 

Shhhhh, perhaps I ought not say it too loudly: How ’bout envisioning a residence without the loudmouth J.! — the domestic cyclone across the carpets.

 

 

 

the morning sea drift

About every morning, when I first awaken, as I’m floating in that nebulous and etheric state between fully conscious and slumbering, my mind scans for the events of the day and overall state of affairs. A subterranean survey of the landscape, you could say. The sea drift. Like floating on the vast ocean of one’s mind.

Is there something to look forward to? Any changes or new developments amid the routines? Concerns? Worries? Commitments or engagements or interviews? Is it my last day of my workweek? Things of that nature.

Frequently the answer’s that returned is “same ol’ same ol'” — well, maybe not in those exact words! Would like to think that my life isn’t as drab as all that!

This morning arose that semi-unconscious niggling of something different. Like having a dog’s tail brush you across the face.

Oh yeah. Now I recall. Yesterday was the meeting at the radio station. In a couple days, my life could change radically. Boom! Just like that. A positive change. A new direction. A fresh path. It could happen just that quickly!

We among the living are not immune to changes, neither ones that rapid. People encounter life-changing occurrences every day.

Some are positive or desired. Finding out you’re pregnant. A blessed restoration of health. Being saved by unseen forces from a life-threatening situation like a car accident. Winning the lottery. Getting into the college of one’s dreams. Being awarded scholarships or various honors.

Some are negative or undesired. Finding out you’re pregnant. Taking suddenly ill. Having a stroke. Being in the wrong place in a street bombing. Not being awarded the scholarship that’s your sole ticket outta your town. Losing a loved one — or a child — to forces outside your control.

The joys and successes and the sufferings and tragedies are the stuff of life.

Learning to cope with them — hell, learning just to survive them! — too are the stuff of life.

GROWING through them, now that’s another matter! A challenge and task of a high order unto itself.

I can claim to be an A+ student — indeed a master — at survival. Learning to cope, getting through … I’m at the top of the class there too.

I cannot claim to be an A student in the category of growing. Embracing real growth of the most significant sort — internal growth — is hard for me. This in spite of WHOPPING and often unforeseen or unsought sea changes that’ve marked my life all my life.

I’m stubborn when I don’t have to be, strong-minded when I ought not be and incredibly determined. I get in my own way for 100 different reasons. And oh yeah, a hearty serving up of self-sabotage anyone?

Not sure where I’m going with this. I had no destination in mind when I seated myself Indian-style on the bed with my coffee for my morning post. Gotta roll off to the job now and thus bring this to a close.

The point, I suppose, if there’s a central one to be found here is self-awareness. Gaining self-awareness and attaining inner growth are possible. It’s hard work and slow, to be sure. And in my case harder than it need be … which I bring upon myself.

Sometimes just talking about what you’re learning is reason to write. Adios now.

(monsoon) rain and shine, it was a good day.

So as the sun’s sunk well below the horizon, all in all it was a good day. Even a thunderous day perhaps.

The spells of monsoon rains, ferocious thunder and electrifying lighting that triggered power outages around town, as partly evidenced by the blinking numbers on my clock radio, interspersed with stretches of sunshine and bright blue skies were dramatic and perfectly welcomed on this my day off.

I didn’t have to try to work in the torrential showers. Didn’t have to push a heavy cart loaded with housekeeping supplies, the vacuum cleaner and the large wastebasket along the outdoor corridor from room to room with wind-driven heavy monsoon sheets of rain pelting supplies and me.

No. What I GOT to do was enjoy a leisurely meal, coffees and computer time in the cozy and dry comforts of the Wildflower Bread Co. cafe/restaurant.

And what I got to enjoy, just before the skies unleashed their furious showers, was a meeting with the station manager at the radio station. Wasn’t an interview as much as a reunion since our paths have crossed several times in the last year.

Whether the (PT foot-in-the-door) job will come my way will be known in a few days. Until then, I shall continue doing as I’ve been doing: taking care of myself, mindfully tending to my health and its unique needs in this course of recovery, eating well, sleeping best I can and staying positive in thought.

Whatever the offer looks like should it come my way, the answer is YES! He (the station manager) knows it and I know it. It’s out there in the earth’s wavelengths and beyond, that life-affirming YES!

It’s not that I’m wholly and blissfully calm as I patiently await the process and outcome for this job opening. I’m no Zen master, not in this lifetime anyways. If I overthink it, I’d drive myself nuts with anxiety, worry, fretting. And I don’t want that.

I WANT to stay calm as I await this potentially life-changing, and work-changing, turn. I want to trust that the best that I could do — and that could be done — have occurred. Trust that there’s nothing that could be improved upon. And now this time waiting for the first bloom in the garden tended to meticulously by moi requires but patience. And positive thought. Nothing more and nothing else at this time.

There’s a certain peace in that …

{Was a good day, this day of 777 … that is, in numerology, a 7 day (25th = 2+5=7) in a 7 month (July) in a 7 personal year. 777: jackpot!}

‘night now.

Faith. And the word YES!

It’s not superstition or thought of jinxing something that inhibits me from penning a cheerful post.

It’s fear. Fear of disappointment. Fear of having my hopes raised and then dashed.I’m speaking specifically of opportunities for employment and more precisely opportunities for work that I REALLY care about!

Now’s not the time to dwell on or rehash how life’s beaten me down or the myriad disappointments handed to me by people.

Neither is it the time to beat myself up for mistakes I’ve made, the work-related losses in multitudes through my life.

Now’s not even the time to buck up and plow forward through the mud — a well-developed skill and talent cultivated through hardships.

Now — today — is the time to do differently and be different. Now’s the time for faith and for joy. Joy for potentially a second chance at a dream job. Joy for the opportunity to meet with the man, for the second time in a year, who can help make that happen. Joy for the potentially second chance to be back on my purposeful path doing what I love to do: write and speak!

If this sounds sorta unforthcoming or absent specifics, well, it’s so designed. 🙂 At this moment, I’m called to write not of the specifics, rather the joy and excitement overriding the details.

Thanks to a fresh job posting and my attentiveness in checking the ads daily and prob’ly some luck in timing too, I may have a {second} shot at that dream job at a radio station! With resume in hand and jazz in my heart, I’ll soon be on my way to meet again with the station manager.

YES! is the word. YES! to any offer. YES! to any offer whatever it looks like. YES! to an open door. YES! to rectifying mistakes/missteps of the past. YES! to moving forward in my true work and to my new town and to my new life unfolding. Sometimes in fits and starts, sometimes in giant leaps!

YES! YES! YES! The word is YES! From the heart and the mind and spirit.

{No to “can I think about it?” No to “I need time to think about it or consult with another.” No to “can I let you know in an hour?” No to pausing or hesitating or holding my cards close to the vest.}

There’s only one answer this time. One word.

YES!

Let the passion emerge, the heart speak and the dream unfold.

YES!

High School Redux at Age 57!

Working with women is the worst.

And I’ll take the worst male boss over the worst female boss — and I’ve been on both sides of that fence — any day of the week! 

Men at their worst are cruel and brutal. Women at their worst are vicious. You ever listen to and watch two felines fighting? It’s UGLY. And the sounds are unreal. They don’t call ’em cat fights (between females) for nuthin’.

My job is High School Redux. The entire housekeeping staff is comprised of females ranging in age from early 20s to late 50s — with the vast majority in their 20s. They’re young, immature and self-involved  — can’t really hold that against ’em.

They’re also backstabbing, judgmental and gossipy.

Oh. The. Gossip!

Now, I don’t play. I go to work. I do my job. I go home. I don’t hang around with the core group of girls today any more than I did in high school and for the same reasons: I’m not them.

I don’t like gossiping, backstabbing and petty small-mindedness and the petty sniveling criticisms of others — ESPECIALLY OTHER WOMEN — that females engage in. At any and every age. I steer clear of it. It doesn’t interest me. It doesn’t excite me. Engage my interest or intelligence.

That, however, doesn’t stop others from talking smack about me behind my back. I know they do. I feel it when I walk into the room where core members of the clique are yakking away. I feel it in the way they look at me. I see it in some of their eyes.

Girls have a meanness that’s hurtful. Mean Girls. Just like the movie title.

Anyhow, it’s a very negative and toxic environment, my workplace. Thankfully the supervisor’s a cool chick and has never treated me with anything other than friendliness and respect. Definitely can’t say the same for a good number of the others.

As if the hotel housekeeping work itself weren’t physically demanding and exhausting enough … I’ve also got this assault of negativity directed my way by my workmates (“mates”). Fuck.

It’s hurtful and there’s not a damn thing to be done about it except ignore the judgments and Girl Shit the best I can and continue doing the very best job that I can.

Today I discovered something that illustrates why I go to craigslist and other job sites every day.

For reasons unknown to me, the supervisor writes the average time it takes each girl to clean a room up on the big white board in the common room. We’re timed in our rooms, you see, and 30 for each is the rule. It’s a stupid rule because there are so many variables in each full clean and stayover. (We’re not robots but the Big Hotel Man seems to think we are!)

I’m at the bottom of the list. No surprise because I’m very attentive to detail and methodical. Plus I’ve got about 30 years on most of my coworkers!

Also posted on the board is the number of callbacks — errors or oversights we made that we’re called back to a room to correct. My callbacks number is very low — 2. (In fact, I didn’t even know I had any callbacks since I wasn’t called back to fix anything but what the hell.)

The girls talk smack about me and my slower times behind my back. Today I noticed that someone had added digits to my posted numbers … turning my 48 minutes into 1 hour and 48 minutes … and my callbacks of 2 into 202.

Now, part of me was amused. And another part took it badly, recognizing it as the attack that it was. The Mean Girls’ attack.

I’m ready to quit this job the moment a new one is offered (and again, I am looking big time!!!!!). That it’s so physically taxing plus harmful to some major health issues guarantee a short-lived span.

The Mean Girls are only adding to the impetus and the NEED to go soon as a new door opens.

I Mean It. 🙂 

 

 

Back Home. Uh, Not So Much.

Being back … being back “home” feels like putting on an old shoe that’s too tight.

Or a coat that constricts through the shoulders and back and underarms.

Being back … after being away and not just away but having a good time … feels familiar. Familiar not as in “comfortable” like many folks feel upon returning home after a trip.

Familiar as in old patterns and old ways and and old ways of relating that need to go.

After extending my stay in Flagstaff to the latest minute, partly so I’d arrive “home” after roommate J. had gone to bed, I arrived at night and pretty much went straight to bed.

Today, in the “glare” of the morning — and realities — and with the rest and enjoyments and perspectives gained in my albeit too-brief overnight trip — I see the need to move. 

Whenever a situation needs to be released, I ask myself: Is it them? or me? I mean, what if all that’s required is an attitude adjustment on my part to make this work?

What if it’s my blind spots that are causing distorting, causing me to view the situation through dark eyes?

What if all that’s needed is for me to improve my well-being, emotional and physical, is to change up my point of view?

Tricky stuff. And indicative of my innate cleverness and proclivity to otherthink things.

The heart. The heart holds the answers, they say. The heart never, or rarely, faileth. 

When I consult my heart, which in truth I don’t do nearly as consistently as I did in early years (but then, life’s hardships and disappointments hadn’t accumulated into the mountain of today either) …

… when I consult my heart, she whispers “let go. you need to grow. this {“home” situation] is old hat. a way of the past. like with Kingman (town of former residence) and elsewhere, you’ll find that the longer you stay, the worse it will become for you. {for your roommate, not at all.}”

“Overstaying does not bring benefits. august can be your transformative month,’ says spirit now. “Keep doing the beneficial things you’re doing for your health and well-being. Keep writing — every day. Keep looking for new employment and residence. It’s imperative to keep moving forward — and not use your energy for the usual hunkering down, gritting the teeth and bearing it out. Nothing good comes from that and will in fact only worse matters.”

That’s what I hear this first morning back at the house after travel. Though brief, the getaway was restorative. It was good.