Looking Back

Five months ago, I suffered through my last day at a job that bored me, drained me, and held me back from all the things that I had actually kept the job in order to have time to do. Five months ago, I drove away from IBM Boulder and remembered the irony in how I used to drive by the complex every day on my way to class at CU and think, "I'm glad I'll never have to work in a place like that." Five months ago, I left Corporate America and was damn glad to do so. Tomorrow I'll walk into a job that actually has potential for growth. Tomorrow I'll walk into a job armed with a writing schedule and a couple projects already rolling to defend my writing against what happened at the last job. Tomorrow I'll put the past five months of learning to the test and see how to go about working and living with the knowledge I've gained about myself and my writing. But before I do so, it seemed appropriate to reflect a bit on my unemployment.

April started out great. I was actually happy to have been laid off as I was able to get the hell away from a bad job without having a new bad job lined up and still bring in money. I was ready to write the month away. To finish up all those Human Dignity revisions that I'd been slogging through. To do all the research I wanted for The Masque so I could start writing that project again. I was energized and refreshed, walking every day, taking care of myself and ready for about a month or two of trying to find another job. Then I encountered The Peaches, and all of that energy vanished. The depression I had been flirting with ever since I decided against my original career plan descended with nasty hooked claws. And I had no job to occupy 40 hours of every week and keep me well and distracted from all the nasty issues that depression demanded I face. However, I was able to keep myself busy enough by finishing up Human Dignity by the end of April.

May and June is a bit of a blur to me. I didn't do a thing those months. I ignored my writing, I ignored my depression, and I buried myself in fun books and video games to drown out the sounds of my pain. The worst part about May and most of June was that I knew full well what I was doing. And I did it anyway. I didn't know how to go about dealing with the myriad issues that had been piling up since I sat down one November afternoon in 2001 and said, "You know, I really don't want a career in academic research." Not only did I not know how, but I got the sense that these issues went to the core of who I was, how I had adapted to this world--and who wants to sit down and get into that?

In July, after an afternoon spent weeping because I kept getting pounded by a particularly challenging boss in Final Fantasy X-2, I started to get serious about fixing me. Went to a therapist, got some good books to read, started to piece together a lot of things. I even began to write regularly again. Granted, it wasn't on The Masque, but I settled that issue by expanding the universe The Masque exists in and carrying it far into the future for a whole series of short stories/novelettes. And no matter what I was working on, I felt the joy of actually writing again. I finished two of those novelletes (or, rather, finished one and wrote all but the last scene of the other) and started developing a whole cast of characters and really got into the idea of cultural and historical development of the two nations in conflict in the series. It was great. I was starting to chip away at all the blocks I had put up to keep me from seeing what I needed to fix. It was an exciting month.

August, however, was not so thrilling. All those blocks were down and I was faced with a lot of harsh truths in my life, stretching all the way back to when I was 8. In the month of August, I had to examine me and build me up at the same time. It's not a pretty sight to realize you've been systematically excising a part of who you are for nearly twenty years. But I faced it, and faced it, and faced it, even when it kept getting harder and harder and harder. And then last week, the last of all my illusions was brutally yanked away. It's been a long time since I've cried as hard as I did last Tuesday and Wednesday. By Wednesday evening, I felt calm and relaxed, ready to start living the life I wanted to live--writing, no matter what 9-5 job I had to take to keep money coming in. Then I got a job offer Thursday morning, and I saw the pattern of the past five months. April to August was an incredible journey for me. Each step was necessary, each tear, each pain, each joy, each moment.

And to further cap off the past five months, to put that final conclusion on everything I've been through, I got 100% completion for Final Fantasy X-2 last night and was able to see the "Perfect Ending" I've been aiming for since I started the game back in May. Things do fall into place in mysterious ways.... :)