Looking Forward

The weekend was lovely. Relaxed. Beautiful weather. We stayed home. We read. We played with the dog. We watched movies. We ate simple meals.

Weekends are nice because, even though I don't have a job, I feel like it's a break. There's no pressure on me to do anything meaningful or useful all day long. I can pretend to be like normal people, like people with jobs.

Today is Monday. I feel completely ugh. I woke up this morning and I thought, no wonder I feel this way...I don't have anything to look forward to. On top of that, I have a few unpleasant things to face. I have to call the car dealership again and try to squeeze some money out of them because they told me my car had never been in an accident and, according to my recent bill for $700, it had. I have to look for jobs, which is disheartening and demoralizing. Then, if I find one that might be okay, I have to apply for it, which takes a lot of effort and concentration and usually doesn't result in anything. As always, I need to do dishes and laundry and keep the house looking nice in case someone wants to look at it. Actually showing the house might be fun, except that I have given up on hoping that anyone will ever buy it.

I miss California. I miss the fog and the ocean air. I miss the palm trees and the golden poppies. I miss the rolling hills and the ocean views. I miss the dolphins and the otters. I miss my sailboat. I miss absolutely everything about it.

I'm not going to fight that missing feeling anymore. I wont try to assuage it with the hope that we'll move there soon. I've just got to face the fact that we are here, not there, and we may never ever be there again. That is so sad. But, it's certainly not the worst thing that could happen to a person. I just finished reading a book about the holocaust. Before that, I was reading a book a bout slavery. So, it's really clear there's nothing too bad going on in my life. I can bear the sadness of never living where I feel at home again.

So I'm looking this town square in the face, and I've got to find a way to make peace with it and learn to be happy here. I have spent the last two years refusing to be happy here. I guess I felt like if I got happy here, we would never leave. But now I know we may never leave anyway, and even if we do leave, we may not go there. So now I'm going to refuse to be sad here. I've got to learn to be happy.

This healthy behavior experiment seems to be helping. At least, it's interesting. But, of course, it's not enough. I need something to look forward to today.

I'm going to make a dream list for the perfect job. Just making the list should be fun, and maybe it will actually help me find what I want. It's worked before.

Also, I will continue to pursue the folks at the Spanish and English non-profit. I want to make a connection there that might pay off in several ways.

I need things to look forward to. Right now, all I really look forward to is meals. That's kind of sad. It's really true. I can't think of a single other thing I look forward to. Well, I guess I look forward to Sweetie coming home at the end of the work day. And, I look forward to reading, when I have a good book going. While I don't exactly look forward to sleeping, I do enjoy it. Actually, I'm still kind of groggy right now, and even though I've been up for 45 minutes, I am looking forward to the next time I get to lie down and sleep.

I really need something else in my life that I can look forward to. I guess that's what my challenge will be today with the list. I need to be able to describe a job that I would actually look forward to every day. Right now, I'm looking forward to that.