April Fool's Day

Despite being written on the day that is infamous for jokes, the following truly is not a joke.

Life could always be worse. ALWAYS. I learned that on April Fool's Day.

I think it's fair to say that the last few months for me have been beyond rough. In December, the double loss of my Mother and Grandmother was a shocking and terrible blow. A childhood friend passed soon after, right at the start of the year. So because of things out of my control, holidays that are meant to be happy and celebrated took a quick and bitter turn into miserable and tragic. Since then, I have had other friends in the hospital, and my Father was hospitalized with a nasty case of pneumonia that sent me into pure panic mode.

All of these things seem to have been enhanced by the fact that I work a job I am truly not happy working. The logical suggestion would be to flat out quit and find something else. Why this sounds incredibly tempting, it is something I have severely had to consider over and over again. The job market is crap for everybody, and I can't afford to simply up and quit without a backup plan.

Lately, quitting is starting to look like a more realistic possibility. Sadly, it might be a few more weeks and the place is driving me nuts. Beggars can't be choosers, though, and the fact that the option to leave something that has contributed to my misery even exists should be enough to keep me going. Or so you would think.

The latest thing to knock me down came in the form of my computer hard drive crashing. Out of nowhere a few mornings ago, while trying to check my email, my computer randomly tried to restart itself and never powered up properly again. It has been in the hands of a computer tech for days. The first diagnosis? A viral issue. Easily solved, right? No. He found more wrong. Long story short, I was told that all of my data, including pictures of my late Mother, had been successfully backed up. I was relieved and things looked up again.

But the next day, I received a call which dashed my hopes and left me crying outside of my workplace. The hard drive had been corrupted, and so was the back up. Therefore, the only option was to run a scan on the system that could risk wiping the entire hard drive. After the physical loss of my mother, the first thing I could do was cry to the technician about how pictures are the main things I have left and losing those would be beyond tragic. But what could he do? It was up to me. The choice was to leave the hard drive as it is, and have the pictures truly be gone, OR have him run a scan that had a chance of either saving the data, or erasing it forever. Yesterday, I was on the edge. I felt like I had not only hit the bottom, but I had crashed into every horrible jagged rock on the way down.

This morning, I woke up after sleeping hard. It was not good sleep, it was numb sleep. It was "I'm Done" sleep. I woke up and didn't care about work, was dreading the call from the computer tech, and couldn't make myself perk up for the life of me. I numbly got dressed for work and out the door with enough time to go grab a donut from the store, because I would do anything to avoid most of the nasty work food that is available to me and I was heading into a fairly long shift. Well, my day took a change for the better when I cut through a parking lot instead of taking the sidewalk I normally take.

There was a homeless man in the parking lot, and he had a golf ball he was kicking around, just minding his own business. I can't fully explain it other than to say that he seemed to truly be enjoying his form of entertainment. As he noticed me, he grinned politely, then after a moment of consideration, playfully kicked the ball my way. Considering I needed the pick me up and he was being nice, I gladly accepted and kicked the ball back. He was friendly and appreciated someone stopping to talk for a moment. It was interesting to talk to him. He seemed truly at peace with his situation. He had a rundown bike with all of his belongings strapped to it and wrapped in plastic bags. He wasn't begging for money on a street corner, but he was playing a game in a parking lot with a golf ball. I came along and he simply invited me in and chatted with me for a short while before I had to go on my way. As I talked with him, he didn't once pity himself or act as if he was any different from me. I had to give myself a reality check. Here was a man who made the most of a moment, and seemed to be getting himself through it. It was admirable, to say the least.

So sure, I've been through a lot, but if I may say so, I've done a hell of a job keeping it together. I've been professional about going to work and despite disliking it, or being miserable at it, I've been responsible, earned a paycheck, and for the most part, sucked up any petty issues, despite all of the other things I have going on in my head. Am I a trooper of sorts? I don't mean to toot my own horn, but definitely. I am struggling, but I haven't given up on anything yet. It gets tempting, but I make it through each day the best I can. What else can I do? Days are going to be hard, jobs are going to suck, unfortunate things happen in life, and while there's no way to control any of it, there are ways to control yourself.

The man this morning taught me that life can always be worse. It's as bad as you let it be. He may have been destitute, but he didn't choose to act like it. He chose to be optimistic. He completely changed my day. I got my donut and continued on my way to work, and instead of focusing on how much I dislike the job, I just got through the day and tried to leave it all at work when I clocked out. I also got a voicemail from the computer tech saying that a proper back up had been made on my computer, and the main thing I need to do now is install a new hard drive. My photos seem to be safe, and I have been able to come home and relax a little bit. So yes, while things have been bad, life in general could always get worse. The loss of my loved ones was understandably bad, but I haven't been properly separating my grief from my every day stresses, and in turn, I've made things far more difficult for myself. So while I've done a fairly admirable job keeping it together, I could try not to let the unimportant things (like job stress) take over the truly important things I need to deal with (proper grieving, etc).

I'm still a work in progress, but my reality check today made me realize just how much I've got on my plate and how I need to better handle it all. So now it's just one thing at a time. It's safe to say that the crap job is on the list to be checked off after I get everything back to normal with my computer. I'll get everything together in time. :)

Now,a good April Fool's joke would be to rave about how much I love the job after my little epiphany today.....but that's simply a lie. But am I being a little more rational about how to leave professionally? Definitely.