Funda"mentally" Broken

I am fundamentally broken. I know this. I have known this since I was 5 years old. The event s that happened that year changed me as a human being and have altered my perception form that moment on. I fell I am not like everyone else, but that maybe mistaken, maybe everyone is as fucked up as I am and they are just better at dealing with it.
Don't get me wrong, I have my moments of clarity and strength but tonight I feel small, insignificant and ultimately alone. I hate that feeling, - I know it isn't true, I know I have friends and family but right now, I feel lost - I have been experiencing the involuntary crying episodes, I feel lost at work, and I feel like I am simply going through the motions of life. Not living, not experiencing, but carrying through in this numb version of myself. It is funny - this was sort of how the anti-depressants used to make me feel... now I just feel it as an everyday emotion.
There is a lot I have going for me right now, a good job, a great marriage, and yet there is this giant hole where I would normally feel things like joy, confidence, strength and all of those other traits that other people have often attributed to me. But all I feel is tired, uncertain, and lonely and I don't know what may be required to fix it. Given the physical reaction I had to the anti-depressants the last time around, I am loathe to try that route again - the swelling of my legs and the way they turned blue and gave me such difficulty walking- and the chest pain that came along with it all means I am a little bit afraid of pursuing that avenue.
The only people I can really talk to about this are far away - one back home, and the other on the other side of the world.
I have not written in a long time - mostly because I have lost the ability to express what it is I am going through. Mostly because I have been trying to focus on the positive, but not really finding it.
There is a hole - deep inside, perhaps it has been there all my life,  but it is definitely more pronounced since Dad died last February. I haven't written about that because I don't know what to say - I miss him. And I worry about my Mom, I especially worry about Mom this Xmas as I am flying to BC on the 23rd. I am floundering a little - I kind of don't know where to turn. I know that the mental health system in Ontario is so very overwhelmed that the chances of getting in to see someone for medication is not going to happen anytime soon. I know that I should probably get myself back on the medication to ease the hollowness and emptiness.
There has been a lot of craziness, a lot of change, and a lot of sorrow in this past year, friends partners dying,  friends parents dying, my dad dying, friends with cancer, friends with severe depression, and so on and so on.... Work has lost all of the stability it provided. The public thinks we are all useless public servants, the government thinks we are all useless public servants, and everyone is afraid for their jobs. Every process that I knew or learned has now been changed, or is int he process of being changed, and no one is stepping up to provide the senior leadership or direction required.
 We have another wingnut in the states who kills 28 people - 20 of them kids. We have another wingnut in China who stabs more than 20 kids. We have governments who are so scared of maintaining their power that they are unwilling to take steps to step this kind of bullshit.
All of me hurts - physically - my back, my legs, my neck, my arms, my chest - all of me. I can't seem to shake it. I keep gaining weight, which ism't helping my self-confidence in anyway. and I am exhausted all the time. It takes everything I have to get myself out of bed each morning, and then make it to work or to do what must needs doing.
Xmas is helping somewhat - the pretty lights in the darkness make me smile, and buying people presents makes me feel better, and donating to charity makes me feel better - but for the most part, I have lost a crucial piece of my self - and I don't know how to get it back....

Dogs of February

Winter gets me down, there is no doubt about it, and February is the worst of it, but this year, it is worse yet again. My back is acting up, the old hurt combined with new hurt, a new injury in a new area, and that is fucking with my mojo in a major way. The depression is as strong as it was what.. almost 14 years ago now? I knew there was a correlation, but I never realized just how strong that correlation was, but bang, back pain, hello depression. I feel weak, tired, cranky, and have lost my self-confidence, and it hard, so very hard to keep my head above water. As before, when I was running through the possibilities of what my new life would be without the theatre, I am faced with a time of great uncertainty, work is a tumultuous place to be right now. The threat of lay-offs is very real, and scares the hell out me. After all, I chose this path specifically for the stability it was supposed to afford. The major re-organization that is taking place, sans plan, is making it very difficult to great each day with a smile. My new job is so much like my old job in theatre, it is scary (an irony that is not lost on me, believe me - who knew that I would come all this way only to become a production stage manager once more... without a stage...).

My sleep patterns are fucked - an hour here, an hour there, and then when I finally drop into it, it is almost impossible to wake up when the alarm goes off, it takes me 45 minutes to get out of bed. I do so with a dread about the day ahead, mostly because I feel out of my comfort zone in so many ways, and at the same time, like I am living through a hell I had already survived. Except this time, there is not time for proper healing, and sure as hell, not enough time for introspection... and yet, here I lie, typing all my introspection into the computer to post in a semi-anonymous forum... except this time, I am not sure that there is a readership otu there, because I haven't really told anyone that I have this site...

So, what's a forty something fella with a chronic bad back and a severe case of situational depression to do? I sure as hell don't want to go back on the pills, the pills fuck with me too much and more often than not, by the time my chemistry has been sorted with the meds, the situation part that causes the depression has passed.

February Faultlines

Everything is changing around me again and I feel once more completely at sea with no means of propulsion. I feel the winter closing in on me, trap[ping me into a well of self-doubt and self-pity. I feel everything I loved about my job slipping out of my grasp as my responsibilities change. I feel the darkness of the day heavy on my shoulders. I feel the pain where the metal meets my bones, and for no reason at all... I feel alone. I feel distant from everyone and everything. I don't feel grounded in my surroundings or my job or my home or my life. And there really isn't a damn thing I can do but suck it up and take it.

almost 10 years later and...

So, this time ten years ago, I was getting ready to move to Calgary. I was moving towards the love of my life, everything I had ever hoped for, etc etc. She was in California and I was in Newfoundland. Calgary was closer and there was a chance of a job, even with the bursting of the tech bubble. Plus my sister lived there, so I had a place to stay.

I hated Calgary. I hated it more than I hated anywhere else I have ever lived. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that I was just stopping buy until we got the cross border thing sorted out so I could continue on to Calgary.

A lot of shit happened in Calgary, my sister's asshole boyfriend physically assaulted me, after having called my parents in a drunken rage to bitch about their loser son, after having called the girl in California to bitch about her loser boyfriend, etc.

The only work I had managed to find was as tier II telephone tech support for cable modem users. I did not really have any friends in Calgary, just my friend Andy, whom I got to see exactly twice in all my time there, my sister, and some cousins I was not close to. Work was not indicative of making friends... I made it to one social event, the Lord of the Rings premiere with some folks from work, but that was the extent of it.

All I really had was the promise that things would be better once I made it to California.

It didn't really work out that way at all.

Sometime around the time that I got assaulted , the Californian girl decided that "for my own good", we needed to slow it down so I could get settled. I didn't get a say in this, it was one of many decisions about our relationship that were made for me. What I found out later was that what she really was wanting was a guilt-free way of starting a new relationship with a guy that she thought was "normal" as opposed to someone like me, I guess. She told me she had made a new friend, but I was too blind to figure out what that meant.

She and I had met because we did internet journals, we started a torrid and intense long distance relationship. She had started blogging under another name... and finally sent me the link just before Christmas... like days before Christmas... in it she talked about how happy she was in this new relationship with her normal guy. This was how I found out... needless to say, I fell apart. I was inside my tiny one-bedroom apartment with non furniture, a crappy little tv, my computer and an internet connection... oh and a bed... I had actually bought a good bed when I got my job.

I had no one to talk to. By this point, my sister had chosen the asshole boyfriend over me, and I was alone, scared, broken-hearted and angry as fuck. I cried for days. I would go to work at 6am, and then come home by 2:30 each day... I would get into my lonely apartment and I would cry, for hours until I fell asleep. I felt betrayed, and told her so... she didn't see it that way, she saw it as her having told me all about her new guy and that we were on a break anyway so I could sort myself out, so what she did was just a natural and normal consequence of my horrible situation.

I didn't even know how to take that response. All I could do was cry, and hate everything about where I was. I hated my job, I hated my home, I hated the city, I was terrified of my sisters boyfriend, my best friends were in Newfoundland and Winnipeg and another part of California respectively.

I didn't know where to turn, or what to do. After spending Xmas alone, and working, and New Years Eve working and having to work at 6am on New Years Day, as I walked to work in the -40 Celcius temperatures in my business casual clothes, I made the decision to turn tail and run.

I ran home, I had nothing and no idea where to go, all I knew was there was friends at home and I could do the same job I was doing at the call centre there, rather then in the bleak winter world of Alberta.

I hurt inside and out and as soon as Air Tango announced they were flying to NL, I bought a ticket. I moved back to Newfoundland in February, which should tell you something.

The whole reason for this post is I I have never really told anyone the whole story... and I guess I am still not telling anyone, because I haven't updated this in so long, I doubt I actually have any readers.

The other thing I will tell you is - even with all that has happened since, there is not a single day that goes by, that I don't think of her. Some days it still breaks my heart, some days it still makes me crazy, some days it fills me with regret... and some days it just makes me feel kinda meh...but it is every day, every single day. And I both love and hate that.

Rebeginnings from the interior

There is a constant struggle inside of me; it has many faces. The person I am vs the person I think I am; the politics I adhere to vs the job that I work in; the sexuality that embodies me vs the way I get to express it; the longing for a stable home vs the Gypsy's curse that fills me with wanderlust; the missing homeland vs the land where I currently reside; the hedonistic want to escape into pleasure, drugs, alcohol, books, movies, games and all sorts of fantasy vs the reality of my daily life; and so many other dualities that all reside inside me. How is one supposed to reconcile all of this? Is this what being a grown up is all about? Has it really taken me forty-one years to be no further ahead inside of myself than I was when I was a besotted teen?

A lot has happened in these past few years, I am missing using my mind in creative outlets, and yet I am often unable to spark anything creatively outside of work because I am so exhausted by the time I finish work that I am unable to do more than watch something on the TV and then collapse into a zombie-like state before sleep overtakes me. And yet, my brain buzzes through the zombieness, and sleep remains restless and and my need for rest remains unfulfilled.

There is often anger but directed at injustice, there is always lust, and sometimes, when I am lucky, there is peace. Apparently I need to write again, in all factions... blog, fiction, academics, politics, and well I guess some therapy... look out world

circularity

I am most assuredly on the wheel of Samsara, except that the changes are all happening within one lifetime, rather than in subsequent ones. The cycle of life has spun around yet again. I have a full time job, to start any day now, I am in the process of withdrawing from the PhD program, for both logistical and statistical purposes. Because I am have not done three consecutive semesters, I am unable to drop back to part-time status so my options are to either request a leave of absence, or to withdraw from the program. I will only be able to continue with the program if I can attend full-time for one more semester, and I will not acrue enough time in lieu etc - in order to take three months off within the period of time that a leave of absence would be viable, so the only option is to withdraw from the program, and hope to return to it at some point in the distant future.

I am of two minds with regards to this, though I have made my mind up and started the process. Part of me would like to stick with the program, though I have no want to be a prof. Mostly because I do not like to leave things undone. And I am a little sorry that I will not be using my brain in this capacity in the foreseeable future. I am also sorry that I will have to leave some of my new found friends. However, the prospect of having to finish just the one more paper and then not to have to think in those terms again for a very long time is very very attractive. I have to finish one more paper, or take an incomplete or a fail on the course, which would screw my transcipt for the possiblity of return. So I will write this paper over the next little while, and submit it and then be withdrawn from the program.

The new job carries with it the working hours of 7am to 3pm. Not my ideal shift. The site is far from my home (current home - there is a new one, one whichwe own, coming very soon - but that is even further from the new work location). It means that I will probably have to get a car, transit does run but the getting there in the middle of winter in the cold and dark will be an unhappy experience on the bus. If I can find the right used car I will jump at it - but we will ride out the fall without one to see how it goes.

So yes, a home - we bought a house, we take possession in late October. It is truly beautiful and I am very excited about living there. We had planned on buying somehting to flip in five or ten years, but this house is exactly the type of house we would have wanted as our second home - I figure this is 'the' home where we will be happy for 20 years.

The job I am moving into is the job I wanted to get 7 years ago. I tried to get in to the feds back then, when I finished my IT diplomas, but there was no luck - and I went back to school to find a way to survive. In so doing, I discovered I was pretty good at it. In fact, really good at it - up to a point. I do not have the same sort of drive that I see professional academics as carrying, I do not have the want to read academic works, often I find myself screaming at them - wondering what difference it really makes in the world. But on another level, I appreciate the arguements and the philosophy - yet I find it lacking in practical application - that is whyt he IT stuff feels so good to me after 6 years of theory - it is concrete - hands on - even though computer problems can be equally ethereal as any ivory tower gender theory - there is a practical component - and I can always flatten the dirve if it is necessary.

Ultimately I am really looking forward to a job that ends when the shift is over. Being able to come home and not have to spend hours reading or studying, and able to just hang out, play gmaes or just watch TV seems like a brilliant concept. Also, did I mention the thought of a regular, budgetable paycheck? A regular normal life - not too much to wish for, and now it is in my grasp...

luck in looking now!

So, I have a new job. I don't know when I start yet but I am in... DND... full time indeterminate... I will finally be putting those IT diplomas to use... what a funny thing life is =) More details as I know them. Now I just have to figure out what to do about school. but YAY ME!
p.s. I have a new big TV and surround system as my "treat" YAY Big TV! YAY ME!