A friend of mine’s blog prompted me to go ahead and write about my journey over the month and a half. If he has the balls to write about his weirdness (or rather, uncommonly-accepted ideas), I guess I should get over my fear of others’ judgment and go ahead and do the same.

Now, for something completely different from the world of Michelle.  I am going to do this piecemeal, as one, I don’t want to write that much right now, and two, that much material would bore you to tears in one sitting.

Michelle’s battle with reality, Part I

After a medication change in December, becoming ill from the same, and being at home in isolation from mid-December to date after being on the road constantly around people for 48 weeks straight, I hit a wall.

I have been unhappy most of my life.  I have high expectations of myself, and am very hard on myself.  There is always something I could have done better; a situation I could have handled better; someone I could have treated better.  There was remorse regarding the same; my conscience told me differently than my behavior.  In isolation and depressed again, I hit a wall.  My doctors thought it was medication; I insisted it was me.  I knew I needed to have a battle with reality.  I knew it was going to be hard.

I thought about taking the quick route to discovering reality, but I couldn’t do it.  Due to my illness, obviously this has occurred to me before and has yet to come to fruition, despite many real and honest attempts.  For some reason, I am still here, and for the most part, it pissed me off on a daily basis.

I thought back on my life, which I do frequently, since many times I wake up in the morning and wonder how in the hell 34 crept up on me so fast.  Wasn’t I 16 yesterday?  Ok, I am digressing. Anyhoo, I thought back over my life.  I tried to think of a year that was relatively happy throughout.  Couldn’t find one.  So, I tried to do six months; no go.  Three months?  Come on.  Damnit.  Okay, one month?  Nope. Just various days.

This depressed me and I became angry.  I didn’t understand why I, who had become successful professionally, and have my shit together regarding what I do and what I make, had become so miserable.  No, not become.  Have always been…I have everything I could ever want or need.  Although my past haunted me, I was more concerned with my current state and the ramifications on the same during my adulthood.  Of course I had to deal with my younger history, as it has a major impact on patterns in my life today.  Anyway, okay, so here I am, moving between depression and being pissed.  Again.  For the umpth time in my life.

After deciding that I was going to be stuck on this damned planet until I go, which is only logical and a dumb thing to say (thank you, captain obvious), I decided to pick up my “A Course in Miracles” again.  I have known about this course for years. It’s been around for decades.  Some rebuke it, some embrace it, and some have no clue what it is. Damn, I hope you are the latter, but no matter.  I had picked it up again last January (2006), and decided to give it a try.  Frankly, it was the only thing that got me through San Fran last year (first quarter), which was my first gig as a consultant and very, very stressful on me.  Otherwise, I would have gone crazy and quit.

Okay, so we start mid-January, just so you can have a timeline.  I realized that I had spent my time sick, with the exception of relaxing from burnout in early December most of the time I was off.  The first thing I did was stop beating myself up for the things I had not done while I was off.  I did get a ton of things done; it’s just that my expectations required more.  I keep trying to make myself do 300% of what I am capable of doing; hence, I am always disappointed in myself, because I am unwilling to one, give myself a break and two, realize the physics of what my body is capable of withstanding in any given situation.

Digression. 

I have spent the last 11 years of my life busting my ass to “climb the ladder”.  Now, I don’t have a degree, but I have 90 hours toward software engineering. I have always tried to compensate for this (I am very insecure about this) so that my parents would be proud of me and I could prove myself to the world.  But, I did this mostly out of fear of not having food on the table.  I do not have the luxury of someone else’s paycheck coming in (except the two times I was married; am in the frequent flyer club, as I call it), so it was up to me.  I knew I am smart and capable.  And the money was good in technology.  Plus, I really do like technology, so I decided to pick it up.  First thing I did was start busting my ass and I set huge, huge goals for myself.  And I met every one of them.  At the expense of everything else.  But it was worth it.  I did become successful quickly, learning technology as I went.  As bad as this may sound, each job I took I used as a springboard for the next one.  I gave no loyalty to the companies for which I worked, pretended as though I worked for myself, and only gave my loyalty to my customers and to the products with which I worked.  I assumed them as my “babies”, and became one of the best at whatever I happened to be doing at the time. I sacrificed my personal life, excepting a few friends, hobbies, and balance. Now, let me say I wouldn’t do it over any differently.  I have derived my pleasure and happiness in my work.  But the motivation was unfortunate; it was purely based in fear of being on the streets; not on desire and passion.  Okay, it was also based in wanting to make a lot of money someday and have really nice things, but that also happened to fall in line with parental and personal approval, and a feeling of worthiness.  Again, wouldn’t do it differently.  I like to be comfortable, and learned from my parents about money creating security so that I can do what I really want to do in life; not to spend extravagantly.  I don’t require or want Beemers and a 5000 square foot house.  I prefer comfort and nice things, but nothing over the top.  I like shoes too, and shoes can get really expensive. :-)  .

Anyway, suffice it to say I am successful professionally now, by my standards, but I chose to sacrifice my personal life in order to be successful.  Again, wouldn’t do it differently. But let’s just say that I burned out.  And I mean, HARD this time.  Working 60-80 hours a week for eleven years will do that to you.  And 48 weeks straight on the road last year.  And the realization (not pity thing) that if I died today, I wouldn’t be found for at least a week.  I am not squeamish about this; I just think it is very sad.  Mostly, I worry about my dogs, and their being able to stay alive for the week it would take.  You have to look at it this way; my parents wouldn’t think of anything until a week went by.  That’s not a bad thing; most kids don’t even talk to their parents once a week.  Work?  Well, I work for myself now, so they would expect that I am just doing my work; until the weekly engagement report was due, since they know how reliable I am.  Friends?  Well, I can go two weeks without talking to my friends.  So it’s up to my family to figure out where I am.  By then, trust me, a week will have gone by. And that’s okay… Parents are busy, I am an adult, and frankly, I probably do talk to my parents more often than most. As an aside, I am not preoccupied with death.  I just know that hey, people die in their sleep all the time, so if it happens, I would like to make life a bit easier on my family.  I am practical about it; not obsessed or depressed.  I am lonely, however.  Don’t confuse this with being okay with being alone.  I have spent most of my adult life being alone.  I enjoy my alone time, and now that I am older, appreciate the quiet of not having kids around.  Little ones, that is.  But I am lonely.  Lonely for people in my life, lonely of a sense of community, friends, roots. 

Let’s face it; I have been nomadic over my adult life.  Not by choice, but by doing the next best thing in front of me.  This depressed me too until I reconciled that this may be the life I was and am supposed to lead.  It’s just a very lonely life.  I mean, to mnost of my friends reading this, how many of you had no idea where I was or lived at any given time?  I have had 17 different addresses since I was 17, albeit mostly in Texas.  Sometimes I think about who would come to my funeral.  Again, not obsessed.  More of an analysis of life.  I think to myself, what legacy do I want to leave?  As it stands now, all I would leave is money.  That’s not what I want to leave, no offense to my beneficiaries.  I want to have had a positive impact on others’ lives.  I want to be a teacher, so to speak, and a learner.  I want lots of friends; I want a sense of community.  I want roots.  I want to have contributed something positive to life and those around me; not leave money to people.  That’s just a bonus for anyone left hanging around.

End Digression.

You think, “God Michelle.  Thanks for that. I really wanted to read that hefty digression.  Didn’t need to know all that.  Appreciate the loss of time. Can’t get that back.” :-).  It’s important, for if you are interested in knowing about me (and if you aren’t, stop reading now, because it’s ALL ABOUT ME!), you gotta know how I got here.

So here we are, mid-January, and when I get ready for bed, I put out enough water for the dogs to last a week, and make sure all of my stuff is in order for if anyone finds me should I die in my sleep.  I have prepared contact lists for my parents, because how would they know who to call?  See, I don’t have someone around all the time that knows me and we have common friends.  My life is very isolated, and only I know what my life is all about on a daily basis.  So mid-January, I have to make a decision; keep living in a miserable condition, or find a way to be happy.  I realized that the only way I could be happy was to relieve myself of the burden on my chest, which some of you call “the demons” in one’s life.  We all have them.  I saw the quickest way to do that as death.  But I knew that wasn’t in the cards for me.  But I was at the end of my rope; hitting the bottom, so to speak.  So whatcha gonna do?  Well, for me, I picked up my course again. 

Okay, more tomorrow.  I got a friend that wants me to review his resume.  Gonna go do that and then work.

Take care, and honestly, thank you for reading!