Blue-Footed Musings

As a young twenty-something I was convinced that a traditional 9-to-5 job would kill me. Perhaps I was being a bit dramatic, but I do believe I’ve managed to tolerate my job for so long only because it’s been fun and flexible. Two weeks at the new version of my job, which is dull and provides no creative outlet, has only reinforced that belief. This new work is making me profoundly unhappy.

There was one thing I hadn’t anticipated, though: that I would come to not merely tolerate my job, but to depend on it, and not just for paychecks. A large part of my identity is tied up in it. If I am not the person who does that job, then who am I? I have always taken pride in my work, but if it’s no longer rewarding in that way, then what even is the point of it? Or of me? Without work that requires skill and creativity, what is my purpose? And without it to ground me, how will I avoid spinning out of control when other life changes threaten to throw me for a loop?

Several people have already suggested that I start looking for a new job, not because I’m unhappy and facing an existential crisis, but to avoid the possibility of being laid off. They have a point, but looking for a new job would be super stressful. Plus, maybe being laid-off wouldn’t be all bad. After 30+ years of work, I’m due a decent severance package, which would allow me to take some paid time off. That would actually be pretty nice.

All things considered, I’d rather stay put for now. Recent comments from my boss suggest that my job is safe for at least six months. So I guess I’m going to test the theory of my twenty-something self and see if the dull work kills me.

Just kidding, I hope. If the work becomes absolutely intolerable, I’ll quit. In fact, I can already feel myself starting down the path of quiet quitting. “F@#$ that!” and “Not my problem!” have become my new mantras. I’m simply too old to put up with a lot of shit.

Sometimes when I’m improvising on the piano I manage to play something that resonates with me emotionally, and in that moment I feel deep in my bones that composition is something I was meant to do. The feeling is ephemeral, but I hold the idea close and repeat it to myself often, like a mantra. I only wish the revelation had come sooner, before the arthritis and shoulder pains, the tinnitus, the vision problems, and the brain fog. Everything is harder now. But we cherish most that which we have to work hardest for, or so they say.

Last week was not so great. I spent a lot of it pathetically moping around because I was so unhappy about my work situation. I also accidentally dropped a drinking glass on the induction plate. The glass did not break, but the far more pricey induction plate shattered and had to be replaced. And then yesterday I found out that someone in my family has a life-threatening illness.

There are few things more destructive than self-pity, and I refuse to give in to it. I remind myself that the week was not all bad. Here are some of the happier occurrences.

• The kids finished the school year. Hooray! Just one more year for Marshall and three for Livia.
• My husband called me downstairs to see something in the back yard. It was a mama turkey with a slew of tiny baby turkeys. We could only track the babies’ progress by the movement of the grass around them. Occasionally one would pop up high enough that we could actually see it, but only for a second. They were moving too fast to count, but there might have been as many as a dozen.
• I learned a new word: Panglossian. It is similar in meaning to “Pollyannaish” and, like that word, comes from a literary source (in this case, a character in Voltaire’s Candide named Dr. Pangloss who is an overly optimistic chap). It’s a good word to have at the ready. If we are going to stubbornly cling to optimism, we will need the right words to describe ourselves.

My husband brought home a big daisy for me yesterday. A couple of weeks ago he brought me some roses. I seem to have lost my midsize vase, so I’ve had to put the flowers in a small vase. Were it an ordinary small vase, the large blooms would have looked silly in it. But this is no ordinary vase. It’s roughly the size and shape of a large orange. It has no neck, but it does have lots of little spikes. The spikes act as legs, and you can change the angle at which the flowers emerge from the vase, but they can never go straight up. Arranging the flowers so that they don’t droop can be challenging, but when it works, it’s a unique and dramatic look.

I hate my “new” job.

It’s making me unhappy.

But it’s not just the job bringing me down. It’s a lot of things, and there’s not much I can do about that. I can only hope to find some good things to help balance out the bad things a little better.

So what’s been good lately?

• A tiny bit of justness crept back into the world when a certain someone suffered a “takedown of monumental proportions” (ha-ha).
• I’m reading David Sedaris’s new book and parts of it are laugh-out-loud funny.
• My husband and I went outside the other night to check for the Northern Lights. It’s unlikely we’d ever see them here, even when the sun’s been hyperactive and the sky miraculously happens to be clear, because trees block the horizon all around us. Still, it never hurts to look, and though the aurora was absent, we saw a falling star!
• I recently finished a musical composition, my first since quitting lessons. The night I finished it, I played it for my husband, and then I played it for Livia the next day. I’m shocked at my own willingness to play the piano in front of people who are actively listening, especially when it’s a piece that I composed. Could it be that I’ve grown as a person?

I saw the shoulder surgeon last week. Given that my range of motion is improved and that the pain is both less frequent and less extreme, he recommends that I give my shoulder a few more months to settle down. He says that usually in a situation such as mine the shoulder either continues to get better or it relapses. Should it relapse, surgery would most likely fix the problem. Should it continue to get better, then probably nothing needs to be done, as the tear is not severe (but, being an excellent doctor, he told me repeatedly that only I can judge how much the injury is affecting my life).

Though I had resolved beforehand to get the surgery, I see the wisdom of his advice. Certainly my shoulder has been improving. Just the other day I realized that I’d gotten back the ability to raise my arm to the side. It hurts to move it that way, but at least I can. So, I’ll see how things go and revisit the surgery option in September/October. In the meantime, I feel like I ought to start exercising the shoulder again, and he says that’s fine to do, but that I should keep all exercises at chest level or below, because it’s the overhead motions that are most likely to aggravate the injury. Good to know.

From a CNBC article: “More than half, 56%, of full-time workers in their early 50s get pushed out of their jobs due to circumstances like a layoff before they’re ready to retire, according to a 2018 paper published by the Urban Institute, a think tank. The researchers analyzed data spanning 1998 to 2014.” Those would be unpleasant odds to hear at any time, but they sound especially bad considering my current situation.

I recently read an article about a woman who says she faithfully writes down every nice thing that happens to her. Every one. And she says that as a result more nice things tend to happen to her. This makes sense to me. I believe that noticing the good things not only makes them more noticeable, but it also “draws” more nice things to you (i.e., positive energy begets positive energy).

This is not some crazy woo-woo concept. It’s cause and effect. When you deliberately note the positive things in your life, you put yourself in a positive mindset. You are more likely then to act in a positive manner. If you are positive toward other people, they are more likely to be positive toward you, and some of them may have the power to bring good things into your life. And if you do positive things, then you are more likely to be rewarded with positive outcomes.

I have come to realize, though, that being at home all the time limits the number of nice things that can happen to me. Here at home, it’s almost impossible to find new favorite places or meet new friends, for example. The odds of random nice things happening are also lower. Out there in the world, where there are all these other people and different energies swirling around and interacting in various ways, so many more things are going to happen. I’m not sorry to miss out on the random bad ones–traffic jams and such–but wonder how many good ones I’m losing out on.

To be clear, I don’t mind being a homebody. It’s my vibe. But I think it would be good to leave the house a little more often, if only for the sake of inviting more serendipity into my life.