Trying to Reboot

Have you ever felt like you just don't "fit" anymore? Your clothes are too tight. Your friends aren't what you want and need. Your job is just blech. Groups you belong to make you wish you were somewhere else. Your breakfast cereal is tasteless and boring.

I'm looking around and mostly what I see and feel is discontent. I don't know what I want. I just know that what I have isn't working.

I could rearrange the furniture and change the slipcovers. I could drift over to Goodwill and look for a larger size pair of blue jeans. I could dig holes and plant things like I did on Tuesday.

I could go into "therapy" as a friend suggested because she was "worried" about me. I had vented my frustrations to her and instead of listening (and perhaps understanding) she decided I was in need of therapy.

Even my walk with the dog turned into a problem when we were followed by a dog on the loose, larger and more aggressive than my Riley, who nipped and growled and followed us all the way home. A metaphor for how I am feeling. Nipped and growled at by things larger and more aggressive than I am.

For the past eleven and a half years I have held jobs that have frustrated and angered me because I am helpless to change any of the circumstances of those jobs. I exchange my compliance for an hourly wage. I stay because of solidarity with my co workers who, because I have only a husband, two adult children and a dog as my friends and family, are all I have on a daily basis to connect with and talk to and eat lunch with. I had hoped the Art Club would work for me, to help network, but it seemed like panning for a gold nugget in a river of stones. A tremendous effort with no certainty of finding anything. Yes, I know we have to make this effort, but it's been a long time since I made the effort.

I have used pages in my journal with essays on "What Do I Want" and I am no closer to knowing what that is than I was when I began writing. I know that if I stop working, I will have shut myself off from the energy and wit of my co workers, and their youth, to what advantage? To spend more time watching West Wing, walking the dog, doing laundry and changing the slipcovers? Is that all there is?

The recent Master Gardener's potluck cast a spotlight on what it's like to actually be retired and have the entire day to devote to bulb planting, grass cutting, board meetings and discussing ways to recycle grass clippings, banana peels and rain water while creating a self sustaining eco system in our gardens to feed generations to come and not use a drop of fossil fuels. My own eco system is choked with weeds.

The Art Club is making small things from discarded little pieces of wood under the guidance of an artist making large things from little pieces of wood. My friend isn't interested in attending and my daughter said once was enough.

My husband and I are having one of the "not so happy" years of our long marriage. Each of us examining our own belly button lint with a keen eye.

The only Joy in my life is the evening meal. Last night it was reheated meatloaf and mashed potatoes to comfort me and Tomato Basil soup with handmade drop dumplings and cream for G. I was going to put a pot roast in the crock pot for tonight but have decided to have it tomorrow. Comfort after working until after 6 pm and driving home in the dusky light of the end of the day.

I have decided to get dressed and walk the dog (I hope, free of interruption), go to Target for underwear and a glass container for orange juice followed by a quick check of the blue jean section of Goodwill. Then a haircut. It isn't much but it's what I have. I'll make do.

Thanks for listening.