In Dreams

I live more in dreams these days, dreams where I am employed, valued and at peace. More and more I spend my waking hours pouring over my past, examining the moments in a vain attempt to find the exact moment when my fate was sealed. And now that I know how it ends, I wish again for the moment when speaking would have made no difference but would have made me feel better. This happens because have again been rejected,  this time for a job that I believe I could have filled perfectly. And I wish I knew what it was that lead to someone else getting that job. The past is always bearable of there is a future, or, at least, a future I would have wanted for myself. Enforced retirement isn't it. I think the time between is ending, the time when I believed I was employable. I'll try some freelance, I'll try finding some contentment in what my life has become. Maybe, I will forgive myself.

What doesn't kill you will leave you writhing in pain

Yesterday's to-do list went quite well, other than the frustrating conversation about my 401/Pension Fund account. But eventually even that will work out. I filed for unemployment benefits online, and according to them I have 45 skills. An automatic message suggested I look into adding to my skills to make me more marketable. It didn't say more marketable as what. And five, count 'em five boxes of personal belongings arrived. Now, I know of two, and I know I took what I wanted with me, so those five boxes should be interesting. On today's list: me and the trash barrel going through those five boxes. Or maybe I should just dump them unopened.

It occurs to me that I worked in the same place for 17 years and three months and came away without one friend. Not one. I think that says a lot about me--a lot I'd rather not explore at the moment. Yesterday, someone I knew suggested I take in a room mate post haste. She wouldn't want a room mate, but she suggested I get one. Can you imagine anyone who would want to share anything with me? Neither can I. The hospital bill came, so this will not be a day without spending money.

Yesterday's conversation about my pension fund was frustrating. I wanted to get everything done before the blackout, which I was told was on the 30th--but they moved it up to yesterday. Convenient, don't you think? But the guy in charge told me to call this administrator and that administrator and they told me to call him. Then I get a snotty note about how I can't do anything until Nov. 11, which he did say, right before he told me to call someone else. I end up feeling jacked around and they end up feeling I am a pain and all of it means I cannot roll that money over until November. Somehow, I think this does not bode well for me.

I've explored the employment opportunities available to me and think maybe the Eskimos have it right when they put the elderly on ice floes. Something will come up, I will survive, and everything happens for a reason. At least I did not wake up with a panic attack. I count that as a minor victory.

17 years working in one place and all I have to show for it are five boxes of crap and a sense of foreboding. I suppose it could be worse.

Keeping busy

I spent the better part of Saturday assembling the exercise bike I ordered when I was employed and could afford such things. Pleased to report that I only sustained one nasty cut, and that from a scissors while opening the box. OK, so I did realized a little late in the game that the enclosed "spanner" had uses. Although initially stumped by the missing bolts to affix the seat, I did eventually find them, on the bottom of the seat. I did not, as it happens, figure out about the computer, which still remains in the box, nor was I successful with that final seat bolt, but it works and I am now in danger of becoming a physically sit senior citizen. I did my 15 minutes, yesterday AND today, but on the lowest setting (without the computer attached apparently I cannot change settings--another good reason for it to remain in the box).

I had a knee replaced in July. Returned after 10 weeks, and was fired. I don't think the two events are related, but who knows. It is still something of a shock that I cannot easily begin riding (even on the lowest setting), but eventually the new knee does what it's suppose to. I have the rest of the knee rehab ahead of me, but I have yards of time and nothing to do.

I assume that other people in this circumstance somehow retire. I don't know how they do that, so I am really concerned. Oh, hell, I had a full blown panic attack this morning--and it's only 9:50 a.m. A number of people, younger and with more energy, believe I should build a freelance business, as if I have the energy to start from scratch what I should have been doing from the beginning. Someone suggested I write a book, but I can think of no subject that might interest anyone.

None of this would have happened had I not been me, had I been another, better person. But it did happen and there is nothing for it but to move along, nothing more to see here. I'm not even angry, just scared.