I had a really busy day and am ready for bed. I’m surprised that I’m still up to be honest.

I went to a job interview today. It wasn’t so bad. Unfortunately it’s just a part-time job, but that’s ok. I’m not sure if I’ll take the job if they offer it to me. It would probably be good for me to just take it, but there are a lot of negatives to the job. I’ll mull it over.

I’m excited that tomorrow is Friday. Not that anything super exciting is going to happen on the weekend. I will at least get a break from CF for a couple days. Unless I go on Saturday I guess. Then I’ll only get a 1 day break.

So I guess I don’t have that much to say. It was nice to be busy today. It’s been a while since I had a day where I felt I was really busy. I also walked a lot – to the train, back home, to cf, back home. I’m going to meditate and then sleep.

Gratitude List:

Getting to speak with C this afternoon

The job interview

Making it to a meeting

I can’t believe it’s been over a week since I posted an update. I don’t remember the last time I went this long. Every time I would think about it I just didn’t feel like it. And not that I was just too lazy, I was actively avoiding writing anything. I don’t feel like there’s much to say and I’m not happy with things as they are now. It’s almost like since I don’t have anything good to say or things I can be proud of right now I don’t even want to see you KP. I’m sorry.

Tomorrow I have a job interview for a part time gig at a large financial company. I’d be a contract worker working through a temp agency – basically so the actual company wouldn’t have to pay me benefits and whatnot. I’m not super excited about the interview, but it would be nice to have some money coming in again and a part-time job might be tolerable. It would only be about 20 hours/week. The pay isn’t great, but it’s also not terrible. I am in no way excited about this position at all. It sounds totally soul-crushing. I also hope they offer me the job. I imagine I’ll be able to suffer through it for at least a while. Plus, some money is better than none and only working part-time would give me loads of free time to investigate other things (or just draw).

I drew yesterday for the first time in months. I sat down and decided I was just going to throw something on paper and not worry too much about how it turns out. Well, it turned out really well and as I continued drawing I liked it more and more. I also had this moment of profound clarity surrounding drawing and how much I’d like to be doing it more. I have read writers who talk about writing and that it’s like tantamount to breathing for them – something they must be doing in order to survive. I don’t feel that way about writing. I like writing and normally enjoy doing it -especially when it comes to being clever and humorous, but I don’t feel that passion and need as much. I do feel that when it comes to drawing, though. Like my soul needs to be doing it or I simply won’t be happy or able to breath. I’m not doing a great job of expressing this, but yesterday was a really profound moment in regards to all of that. I definitely found a lot of clarity. What I do with that will be another matter. I hope I get over myself and my insecurities and find the strength to follow my dreams and allow myself to be vulnerable as far as the drawing goes. I need to take some risks.

As far as the last week goes, I went to CF 5 times least week. This week I’ll probably do the same. I’m really enjoying it. Everyone is nice and my knees seem to be tolerating it quite well so far. I hope that continues.

I’m off to bed. I was hoping to fall asleep earlier tonight because I’ll have to get up early if I’m going to make it to the interview on time. Well, it’s not really early, but it’s much earlier than I’m used to getting up. I plan to meditate before falling asleep tonight. That is something I’ve been doing much more consistently lately. I’ve basically been hitting 40 minutes a day for the past couple of weeks. I think it’s been really helpful as far as everything is concerned. And it doesn’t even feel like that big of a chore. I just sit right before bed. After I meditate I go into a Reiki before I fully fall asleep. It’s nice.

Gratitude List:

Finally taking the time to write an update

A job interview tomorrow

CF going well

Today was much more productive than yesterday. I woke up this morning with a phone call from someone with an actual job – not one of those financial advisor, 100% commission type jobs. I spoke to her in the afternoon and found out more about the job. The pay isn’t terrible, but it’s only part time. And I’d be a contract worker so I wouldn’t be offered great benefits. The job is also only scheduled to last until June, but I figure if she offers it to me I’ll take it. It won’t be enough money to live on, but I’d be making twice what I’d get paid working some totally entry level type job so only working 20 hours a week should be ok. I hope that she offers me the position because I feel it would give me some breathing room. Some money is better than no money, plus it would get everyone off my back about finding a job.

I also applied for a few other positions. They were full time things at the same company, but there would be benefits and vacation days and all of those things that come with a full time job. I don’t think the jobs would be great, but they’d be better than nothing. I don’t view any of these things as starting a career. I view them as something to get me through the interim while I figure out a career. I still think I’d like to be doing something in the writing/comedy world, but I need some time to develop skills and contacts before that’s likely to happen. In the meantime I need an income so I can feed myself. In addition to speaking to this recruiter today about the position, I also applied for another one renting apartments. I’m going to speak to someone from the company on Friday. I worry that it would be like the commission jobs selling life insurance or whatever. It might not be, though. I’ll get more information on it on Friday and after speaking to the person on the phone I’ll hopefully be able to tell how much smoke they’re blowing up my ass. I don’t want to waste my time on a crappy sales job that is never going to actually pay me anything.

So today was much better than yesterday. I applied for a few jobs, I even spoke to someone who could offer me one. It’s not my dream job, but it’s better than nothing. It feels good to have had some movement on the job front. I feel like I’ve been getting nowhere fast and that’s a hard place to be. I’m still mulling over Chicago and whether I want to give that a try. I never realized how hard it is to support oneself. It’s not easy making money. I feel like I have plenty of talents and skills, but all the jobs I see aren’t willing to pay very much. I know in the end it’ll all work out. It always does.

Gratitude List:

Seeing some movement and some prospects as far as the jobs are concerned

Having a more productive day and feeling better about it

Making it to CF again and feeling like I’m in the zone as far as eating better and working out go

I had one of the least productive days as far as job searching is concerned. It was really gross. And it’s not that I didn’t do anything today. I did. I just didn’t do anything that would get me at all closer to finding a job.

I suppose I’ve only been up for about 12 hours. So, I’m not even having full days. That’s a problem. I got up this morning, wrote morning pages, made eggs for breakfast and then took a shower. Afterwards I went to the post office to mail a package to a friend. Once all that was done I felt tired and meditated and took a brief nap before CF. It’s sad because I was so excited to have a productive day of job searching. I’m going to try really hard to make tomorrow a more productive day. If it isn’t, I’m going to have to scrap the idea I’ll find a job through any traditional means and quit looking online entirely. I’ll have to spend lots of more time in the city going to meetings and talking non stop about how I need a job. I’m not sure I’m up for that. I suppose the other thing I could do is start drawing and creating things everyday. I think it’s unlikely I’d be able to sell any of them for much online, but I could at least start trying. I don’t seem to be making any progress finding a job by applying for things online.

Anyway, I was in a bit of a depressed hole before going to CF while I was meditating. I almost didn’t get up to go because I was feeling like there wasn’t any point in anything anymore. I felt 1000 times better after working out so I’m really grateful for that. I plan to go tomorrow as well.

And with that I’m off to bed again. I’m going to meditate again for a little while and then practice Reiki. Tomorrow I’m going to get up before noon. That’s not setting the bar too high, but considering how things are going it’ll be a miracle if it actually happens.

I almost forgot. While writing morning pages this morning I wrote “If I could study anything right now it would be spirituality.” It just came out without my really thinking about it. I immediately tried to backtrack, but there’s a lot of truth in that statement. I am very interested in art and writing, but I still feel like I want to further my relationship with my higher power. It’s felt fragmented and I’ve felt disconnected these past couple of months. I miss those times when I felt a strong connection and I want them back. The increased meditation has helped, but I feel like I could spend the rest of my life investigating this and not get bored. I also can’t imagine not continuing with my daily spiritual practices. I don’t know where this line of inquiry will take me. I would love to find some kind of community where I could just sit and learn. Anyway, everything in that regard is very jumbled right now. It’ll hopefully become clear at some point.

Gratitude List:

Making it to CF

Maintaining the hope tomorrow will be a more productive day

A moment of clarity during morning pages

I don’t feel like writing an update, but it’s been a couple days again and I don’t totally want to quit this so here goes.

Today was enjoyable, but not a day I want to repeat anytime soon. I woke up early and got out of bed because I was done sleeping by 8 am. I then stayed up for a while, drank some coffee, made some eggs and read before trying to take a nap in the early afternoon. I wasn’t able to nap well so I got up and watched some tv. M, A and I then decided to run some errands and go shopping. After a round of showers we left the house at 4 pm. We didn’t get back until after midnight. We went to Costco, then Marshall’s and TJ Maxx, followed by TGIFridays and Wal-Mart. Although I enjoyed hanging out with M and A, I got pretty bored spending what felt like all day in stores (and boring stores at that!). I don’t think anyone really anticipated the adventure today was going to become, but next time I’ll know better and hopefully just choose to stay at home. It was a lot.

I’ve been drinking excessive amounts of caffeine lately. I drink coffee in the morning and continue drinking diet soda the rest of the day. This has really just come about in the last 2 weeks or so. It needs to stop. I feel like I’m on a roller coaster. I drink caffeine, feel hyper and optimistic about life, only to crash a while later and either want to nap wherever I happen to be or drink more caffeine. It definitely is a valuable tool on days I sleep way too much and can’t seem to get out of my funk, but now it’s just gotten way out of control. Tomorrow I’m going to start weaning myself down. I probably can’t go cold turkey, but I could definitely limit myself to a couple cans of soda instead of drinking a zillion of them on top of coffee. I know it’s for the best. I don’t like the ups and downs that have been associated with all the caffeine. I feel edgy and at times like I can’t stand being or doing whatever it is I happen to be doing at any given moment. I’m definitely going to be done with it soon. I hope anyway. It can be tricky to get myself off it again once I’ve gone a while abusing it. I’ll hope for the best and try to take some baby steps these next few days.

I have no plans for tomorrow and I really like that. It’s going to be an awesome day. Hopefully one that includes much sitting around the house and relaxing. I finished a book today and have another I want to start tomorrow.

Gratitude List:
Taking the time to update KP
Sleeping in tomorrow
Meditating

My day wasn’t terrible. I didn’t do anything that could even remotely be construed as productive in terms of job searching. I’m ok with that. I did send an email to a friend in Istanbul and I called another in Minneapolis. I’m just having a hard time with this current transition I seem to be in. It’ll work itself out. Somehow it always does.

I finished my intro class at the CF gym I joined. Now I can start going to regular classes. I’m looking forward to some really challenging workouts. Some of them in the intro classes were really challenging, but other ones were not. I still don’t think I’ve lost any weight which is kind of a bummer. I know I’ve gained some muscle and my body has changed, but it’s super frustrating not to be able to just lose weight on command like I used to. I suppose it’s better this way. It’s also certainly much healthier. I’ll get there, I just have to be patient and give it time – definitely something I should be better at given how much practice I’ve gotten lately.

Gratitude List:
A day of nothing
Final day of the intro classes
Finding the time to meditate

I haven’t felt like coming on here and writing an update. I guess that’s why it’s now been several days since I did. I just don’t like where so many things are in my life right now. I hate that I don’t have a job and don’t seem to be making much progress in that regard. I am bored and want to be busier and doing more with my time, but I don’t feel like I’m getting closer to finding a job or getting closer to figuring out what kind of job I want to pursue. I look at finance jobs because it’s the job language I know how to speak and there’s comfort in the familiar, but I’m reluctant to fully go for one because ultimately I don’t think it’s where I should end up. I know that if I start something I wouldn’t have to stay there forever. There’s just a lot right now and I don’t feel like I’m doing a great job with any of it.

I watched a lot of tv today. Most of the time it was just on in the background as wasted time online. I looked at jobs for a while, but it was really just looking. I didn’t apply to any of them. Tomorrow I’m going to start applying for actual jobs. That will be good. I can’t just keep looking and thinking “well that might work” and then moving on to the next listing. Tomorrow I’m going to apply for 5 jobs. I don’t care what kind of jobs they are – finance, a restaurant job or housekeeping, I’m going to apply for 5 of them. I need to break myself out of this rut.

I ate a lot of sugar today. I slept in late and then got up and did morning pages before going downstairs. By the time I did go downstairs I was pretty hungry and this massive cookie bar M made a few days ago was just sitting on the counter, staring at me. I ate a whole bunch of it right then and there. It felt like I’d given in and failed on my no sugar campaign. I wish I didn’t feel that way. Sure, I ate some sugar today, but I almost went about 2 weeks without any at all. That’s got to count for something. I also started thinking about how some people who work out have ‘cheat days’ where they can eat whatever they want. Maybe today was just a cheat day. And maybe it’s a good thing I had it. I mean really, one cheat day every two weeks is probably fine. I have been really good (well at least in regards to sugar). I plan to stay away from sugary things tomorrow and hopefully the next few days to come. I always worry when I have a day that I eat sugar that I’ll just be back to eating copious amounts of ice cream and chocolate for days to come. Really though, the truth is for the last few days I’ve been craving something sweet or different from what I’ve been eating and probably eating more than I need to because I’m not satisfied. I don’t know. I’m just trying not to get too down on myself for doing what feels like breaking down. I know that I need to be kind to myself. Unfortunately, it’s easier said than done.

I seem to have a fair amount to say – probably because I haven’t been on here in 5 days. I don’t remember the last time I went that long without writing an update. I need to reconnect to that part of me that loves to create soon. I have not been allowing my creativity to express itself and I’d really like to be. I talk about how I’m not drawing or doing anything so often these days. Maybe tomorrow will be the day I finally start another drawing. It would be fun. I should also figure out putting the other ones up. I could probably hang them somewhere in this room. At least that way I’d see them from time to time.

Ok, time to go to bed. I’m going to meditate before falling asleep. I didn’t do that last night or for the last few nights, although I did meditate on Friday during the day and it was nice.

Gratitude List:

A relaxing weekend hanging around the house in NJ

An increase in activity surrounding the job search, even if it’s still not ideal

Not beating myself up for eating loads and loads of sugar today

I shaved today which was a great idea. I just hate beards. At least when one is one my face I hate it. On other people they’re fine.

I hit the snooze button for 2.5 hours today and got up at 2:30 pm. I just bout some melatonin at the store. I took some which I hope will help me get my sleep back on track. I don’t want to be up until 5 am and sleeping all day. I need a more normal schedule so I can be more productive as far as job searching goes. Plus, if I have an interview at some time and need to be somewhere in the morning I’ll majorly benefit from being used to getting up before noon.

I think I’m coming around on looking for a cubicle finance type job. Maybe it won’t be so bad. And, if nothing else, if I find something that wants someone with experience I can hopefully get a job that pays much more than I otherwise would. It would be great to get my finances in order and some of the debt paid down from when I decided to run away from life. I could also take a lot of classes of all kinds with the extra money I was paying. I know that a finance job is probably not something I’m going to want to do for years and years and years, but for now it could be ok. I also don’t think I’ll get stuck like I did last time. I don’t have the tolerance for suffering through things like I used to. I’ll be forced to bail quickly if it’s not something I can do. I also plan to use the routine and structure to work towards something else. I think it’ll be good. It is possible employers will look at the last two years and view me as someone they don’t want to hire because of my time away working in finance. If that’s the case I’ll deal with it as I go. My guess is one of the temp places I plan to apply to will let me know if they think it’ll be a problem.

Gratitude List:

Another day at CF and feeling better about my current diet (8 days no sugar!)

A shaved face

Hope that tomorrow will be an earlier, more productive day

I went to an OA meeting today. There were not that many people there. One guy spoke and then everyone got a chance to share, but the shares were limited to 3 minutes. I waited to share and was the last person to do so. I basically blurted out as much as possible in the 3 minutes I had to share. It felt good. I want to do that again soon.

I’m going to bed in a few minutes. It’s not even midnight yet, but I feel tired and like I’ll sleep well. I’m going to sleep in the other bedroom again because I like the mattress more. I might move the mattress into this room tomorrow. I’m really glad that I’m both tired and going to bed early. Staying up so late and then sleeping so late really doesn’t agree with me. With any luck I’ll be up at a decent hour tomorrow morning. I’m starting CF tomorrow so I’m excited about that. M might try to get in the class and join me. I hope she does. It would be fun to go over there with her. I think she’d like it, too.

I’m glad I don’t have to go into the city tomorrow. I’ll actually not be going in a for a few days I imagine because of these CF classes. It’s been nice going to different meetings this weekend. I’d really like to do that more in the coming weeks and months. I’d really like to move into the city. I also feel ready to pursue something and to have a job that is meaningful to me that I can work hard at. Hopefully I’ll fall into something soon. I can be incredibly lucky.

I miss my family. I talked to my mom and dad today so that was really nice. I’m hoping to work on my resume tomorrow. I’d also like to spend some time drawing or reading this new book I just bought yesterday. I’ve been craving taking some time to draw lately, I just haven’t made it actually happen. Maybe tomorrow or one of the coming days I’ll do that.

I’ve had J on my mind today. I don’t really want to message him. Partly because I don’t feel like I can have a sexual relationship with someone right now. I also have this voice in the back of my head telling me he’s really not that interested in me. I hate that voice. He always messages me back pretty quickly, but I keep saying things like “we should hang out sometime soon” without actually trying to pin down any plans. I noticed that he removed the picture from the profile on one of the apps I use. I’m not sure if that means he’s fed up with the app and taking a break, or possibly that he’s found a guy and started dating someone. Maybe tomorrow I’ll send him a message. It would be great to hang out with him again. He’s cute and a genuinely nice guy.

Gratitude List:

Finally getting the jacket taken care of

Speaking my truth at an OA meeting

An early bed time and the prospect of a productive day tomorrow

It’s so strange that it’s 2015. I think this will be a good year. I hope so anyway.

I went to a meeting last night and again tonight. Andrew went with and after both we went to fellowship. Yesterday was difficult because I slept really late (par for the course these days) and didn’t drink any pop to snap me out of the funk I was in. I sat at the table at fellowship feeling disengaged with the group and conversation and like I was the most boring person who ever lived. This went better tonight. I’ve just been so out of it lately. I’d consider going on an antidepressant to help me get through this rut, but I don’t have insurance to see anyone and I imagine the wait would be forever, too. I seem to feel better once I drink some caffeine and with any luck starting CF again will help.

I didn’t write morning pages this morning. I don’t think there has been a morning that I haven’t done morning pages since I started well over a year ago. I thought I was going to make it back to NJ last night, but after going out with Andrew realized the trains the were no longer running so I stayed at his place. It was nice because we then hung out in the city all day. We went and saw a movie and visited a used bookstore where I bought a couple books. I enjoyed today.

I really don’t have that much to say. I enjoyed the people I met today. I have to get more serious about job searching and figuring out an income. I talked with M about it tonight and she brought up a few good ideas and even looked online for jobs I could apply for which gave me some great ideas I hadn’t thought about. I’m really not as doomed as I sometimes feel, but I’m also concerned I won’t be able to dig myself out of the funk I’m in on my own without some kind of medical intervention (of the pill variety). We’ll see. Things are anything but settled and with any luck I could turn this around.

It’s past 4 am and I must go to bed now. I’m super tired and ready to sleep for the night. I got up early(ish) today and I hope to do the same tomorrow. I don’t want to sleep all day like I’ve been doing.

Gratitude List:

Checking out new meetings and making some new friends

A new book by an author I’ve been wanting to read for a while

Solution oriented people who see things from a different, more approachable angle