Reflections 2003

[illusionofjoy]

Last night, midnight and the advent of 2004 came as I attended the mid-week New Year's edition of Ceremony. missjoi and beeporama were DJing. Up until a bit past midnight there was a pretty good crowd at the club; a healthy slice of the under-21 crowd had shown up, along with the bar's target consumers, who were pleasantly surprised to discover that the drink special had been extended for an hour and that this was the one night they were allowed to bring their alcohol onto the dance floor.

Despite being at Ceremony, 2004 didn't arrive for me with very much ceremony. I had a couple of drinks throughout the night, though not enough to blur my vision, midnight came, I gave Joi a kiss, and everything wrapped up around 2:00AM. To be a spectator though, one would think that everything had wrapped up about half-past midnight. Most of the patrons left after the clock struck 2004, likely off to different parties or simply to bed.

It had been 22 hours since I'd last been to bed by the time I crashed last night. I had to work eight hours yesterday, which I felt was ridiculous, being that it was the advent of a holiday. For Christmas Eve, we were allowed to leave early. However, there is apparently a backlog at the office in documents that need to be processed, meaning that we had to stay for a full workday. As a matter of fact, they had wanted us to do an hour of overtime (if we were able to, of course). I did my eight hours and was out by 3:00PM on the dot.

Tomorrow they want us to stay until 6:00PM, which would give me three hours of overtime. I'll do it, because I need the money, but I do have my limits. Despite signing up to go on until 7:00PM on Tuesday, I burned out around 5:00PM and left. It was a simple case of dredging in a couple of extra hours of overtime pay at the expense of losing my mind. I decided to pass on adding any more mental instability to my already burgeoning list.

A year ago today I was unemployed, though I volunteered at WAIH. SUNY Potsdam's college radio station was like a job...my position as music director and all-around radio god did indeed appear as work to an outside observer. However, it was without that pesky benefit of being paid but it didn't ever feel like work to me (at least normal operations of the station didn't). Had I been able to make a career out of college radio, I would have had a bright future ahead of me.

As it stood, I was a student who was disenchanted with college life, slowly failing out of school, but feeling trapped by it. With my key to the student union, I could go in at any time and just hide from things as I immersed myself in the fragile world of the radio station.

In January of last year, I was four and a half semesters towards nothing. I had received a letter from the school telling me I had been dismissed, followed by another letter saying that my appeal was worthless and I was still dismissed.

So I found myself living in my mother's house, unemployed, out of school in a village that I hated. It wasn't as if this misery had been instantaneous - I hated school as well. The only good thing about school was that, as long as I was attending, I really didn't have much else to worry about (except paying for it eventually). In school, I was free to come and go as I pleased and pretty much do whatever I wanted without the unwarranted judgement of someone related to me. I didn't have this luxury at "home."

So I decided to leave. I told my mother that I was moving to Pittsburgh and that my decision was final. It was uncharacteristic of me to choose to do something like this so quickly, but I was at the point where I just wanted out! I couldn't spend any more time in Potsdam, as it was slowly killing me. It took about two weeks, with the help of masochistmonkey/Joe between the time I decided to leave and the time I actually found myself in a U-Haul, driving towards south-western Pennsylvania.

Perhaps I was rash in deciding to move to Pittsburgh, as my decision to come here was based on few facts. Of the city I knew that Joe lived there with his boyfriend and that it had a Goth night. I also knew that the cost of living was pretty low, which appealed to me, as I was pretty much broke. The former two facts had been gleaned from my visit to the city when Joe had moved there a year prior.

I had gone to Ceremony during that visit, thinking it was the most wonderful thing I'd ever encountered given I'd no basis for comparison in Potsdam. That night I had met a very voluptuous woman at the club, whom I flirted with heavily in attempt to get her onto the dance floor (if not elsewhere). It had worked; wherein she did dance with me, but also informed me that she had a boyfriend. Last night I saw this woman - though I wasn't entirely sure that it had been her at first. I went over to talk to her in an attempt to figure out what was what in my messy memory. She didn't remember me and I assumed that it wasn't the same person. Then, I saw her in the bar with the same boyfriend she'd motioned to nearly two years ago. It was the same woman! I refrained from telling her about my revelation for the sake of not appearing too unbalanced.

In the months since moving to Pittsburgh, I've found employment in the form of temp assignments. It's paid the bills, but hasn't allowed me to stretch much further than survival with a few luxuries. I certainly still can't afford to begin paying back my student loans, which, like a pack of hounds, have begun nipping at my heels.

At my current assignment, I have a lot of time for reflection - far too much time, as a matter of fact. It's hard to believe that people can actually be satisfied doing data-entry for upwards of eight hours daily, though there are a few in my block who claim to be perfectly happy with the work.

I, on the other hand, need more mental stimulation for a job to be satisfying. Lacking such, I sit at my desk all day, typing in names, addresses, social security numbers and dollar amounts. As my fingers respond autonomously to the characters on the screen, my mind begins to wander. Directionless, my mind often wanders through memories like brambles or tries to quantify everything that has happened to me up to that point. It'll move on to remind of missed opportunities or create a laundry list of all the mistakes I've ever made while alive. I sometimes wonder if I'm slowly losing my grip...that's what it felt like on Tuesday when I eschewed two more hours of overtime pay to leave early.

Aside from nearly completing a new album, I've not accomplished much over the past year. I've survived, which many would view as a great accomplishment in of itself, but it's just not enough for me. I can't subscribe to the concept of something being "good enough," when I see so much that could be better. Is it such a sin to want things to be better? Is it even more of a sin to try and fight to make things better? From what I've seen, the answer would be yes.

I may live in Pittsburgh now, but the ghost of Potsdam and my grievous error of staying at the school there for so long still haunt me. I'm in debt and I don't know if I'll ever be able to pay it back. So many of my problems seem rooted to money - or the lack thereof. On several occasions czerach told me that I should move to Boston, even after I'd moved to Pittsburgh. I told her that I couldn't afford to. I can't even afford to visit Boston or anywhere without scrimping and saving forever and even then, when I think I have enough to do something with my money, I still have to contend with a shaky economy. Three steps forward, only to make two steps back...

I admit that I am moving forward, though it is an excruciatingly slow journey. I'd be happy to pick up the momentum. To do so, I think some radical changes need to be made. It would seem that I have yet another year to try and get what I want.

Comments

[arkadyrader.livejournal.com]

The most important thing is to remember WHERE you came from...and Who helped you to get there....and who helped them to get there..and so on and so on...

[mr-sunyata.livejournal.com]

yeah

[masochistmonkey.livejournal.com]

yeah.. you gotta take it somewhat slow.. it's not as if a shitload of changes didn't occur in the last year, they certainly did... besides, you're still young.. then again, you gotta remember that no one lives forever.