Brain Dragons

Man, I'm telling you, sometimes it seems as though I let all my crazy out here.  I suppose that's a good thing, getting out in cyberspace where it's not even all that wacky.

Anyway, this is to inform everyone that I will be going through and deleting a bunch of posts.  I've been thinking about it for a while now.  There's so much here that's not on point.  I have specific goals in mind for this blog, so a bunch of stuff is going to get scrapped.

What this means - what I hope this means - is:

• more of a "theme" will come through as I write new posts that more align with my goals
• clearer, more thoughtful writing (I'd also like to have more consistent posts in terms of length, but we'll see)
• a little less of the crazy
• more regular posts (bi-monthly?)

That's it.  I plan to start posting again in July.

Until then...

Armistice Day/Veterans Day 2014

The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

Wilfred Owen, 1893 - 1918

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,

And took the fire with him, and a knife.

And as they sojourned both of them together,

Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,

Behold the preparations, fire and iron,

But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?

Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,

and builded parapets and trenches there,

And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.

When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,

Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,

Neither do anything to him. Behold,

A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;

Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.



But the old man would not so, but slew his son,

And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Changes are being made

 Okay, I am slowly, but surely cleaning up my online presence.  Slowly, but surely cleaning up my life.  I've deleted or reverted to draft ALL my posts from 2011 and many, many others.  They just don't fit where my head is right now, or where I think it will be again.  Or at least anytime soon.

I've been in a strange and contemplative mood for the last couple of weeks, and feel like I am undergoing a sea-change.  Maybe I am.  I certainly hope I am: things need to change, I need to change.  Maybe this is the beginning.

Or maybe this is just a mood.

I suppose I'll find out.

It doesn't really matter.  All I know is that I feel different.  I feel like I'm changing.  I feel . . . like maybe my life will get a little bit better soon.

I'll write more later.  Something deeper, more in depth.  I want to write more on my religious beliefs and my life and goals and dreams and whatnot.  I'm going to be taking more time between posts, working on my own things, and I want to make sure that what I do post is more coherent.  Life has been complicated (and rather awful) lately, but I feel like that is going to change.  I just want this blog to keep up.

And finally it ends

It's auspicious, I think, that I'm writing this now on the autumnal equinox, Mabon, or whatever else you want to call it.  (Though this probably won't be published until tomorrow, I got a late start and I keep letting myself get distracted.)  Finally, finally The Summer of Death and Pain is over.  Not to say that Death and Pain won't still follow me, but it seems to mostly be coming to an end.  This summer is coming to an end.

Please let it be coming to an end.

This summer started with my cousin dying, a horrible and tragic death, and it's ended with my dad being sick - not the blood clots that almost cost him his leg from last month, but some crazy gallbladder thing that caused renal failure, and the collapse of the lower part of his lungs.  He's home now, my dad, with a tube to drain the excess bile from his gallbladder into what looks like a colostomy bag.  In a few weeks, once he's recovered enough, he'll head back to the hospital to have that gallbladder removed.  Right now, though, he's got to empty his bag regularly, and the house smells weird (in a bad way).  Between Sara's death and this new horror from my father, I've hurt my hip, caught a virus that knocked me on my ass, got stuck in the middle of crazy drama at the library (which may ultimately cost me my job there), have seriously neglected my blogs and felt guilty because of it, haven't made any headway on any of the writing stuff I wanted to get done, been rejected by several prospective jobs, and haven't been able to claw my way out of this damn depression.  Top that with my last remaining grandparent in the hospital for some old person malady, gaining five pounds, and not being in full control of my emotions (most notably anger).  

It's been a hell of a summer.  Or, more accurately: this summer has been hell.  I need a change of season.

It's made me reevaluate some things.  I don't have a clear plan on what I want to do, but it's coming.  I'm moving slowly, cautiously to the next road in my life.  I'm standing at the crossroads and I want to check my maps.  I want to move forward with a plan this time.  I don't want to have a vague idea and the "see where the world takes me" attitude that I've used to go nowhere for the past several years.    I want to know what I want and go after it with my whole self.  Fear of failure be damned.

While I rest here a bit and discover my route, I'm cleaning house.  If you're familiar with any of my other blogs, well, I've deleted them.  Except for this one and my professional blog (which I haven't updated in a month or so), and my tumblr accounts which are no work at all to maintain.  I'm still working on The Gothic Library too, but that's not so much a blog as it is a resource or collection of resources - it's slow going there too.  But that's it.  I'm whittling away my online presence.

From cyberspace to the real world - I need to clean house there too.  Literally and figuratively.  I'm going to take a bit of a break next week, recharge, run some ideas past an old friend down in the Ozarks, and then maybe come home to implement those ideas.

All I really know right now is that I need to get a handle on life.  It's a freaking mess and has been for a while now.

I've had some good things happen recently, though, and am hoping that more will happen, momentum will build, and I'll be able to put this awful, awful summer behind me.  What good things happened?  Well, I had a good interview with Burns and McDonnell for a corporate librarian job (Data Curation Librarian is the actual title).  I'm hopeful, but not exactly holding my breath.  Still, a good interview is something.  And I got a new cat.  We named him Jasper.  I'll talk more about both in my next post.

Places I'd like to see before I die

Croatia: Specifically Ogulin, Croatia in the shadow of the mountain Klek about which there is the most fascinating mythology . . . Plus a faery tale festival (and that is so me).  Also, I'm fairly certain that Ogulin is where my family is from, so it would be nice to visit.

Barbados: No particular town, just along the coast somewhere . . . And I don't really have a reason other than the main character from one of my favorite childhood books was from Barbados.  It just seems like a nice place.

London, England: Okay, I know I've already been there, but I'd like to visit without getting the plague and being forced to wander the streets like a zombie.  It seemed like a nice place, but I wasn't able to fully enjoy it because of my aforementioned case of the plague.

Ireland: Maybe County Cork or County Kerry or really anywhere.  I like the sea, so the coast would be nice, but whatever.  I'd be thrilled just to be in the county.  Though I may have simply read too many Nora Roberts books (many of which are set in Ireland, or have protagonists that are Irish/of Irish decent).  I just have to be sure to avoid it if I'm pregnant, because I have no wish to be murdered by their idiot medical system if something goes wrong.

New Zealand: Just 'cause.  Okay, okay, it's because of Xena, the Lord of the Rings films, and no snakes.

China: Because the history of the country is so cool and I'm learning the language (or one of them).

Iceland: Because it just seems . . . awesome.

That's all I can really think of right now.  I'm sure I could probably add more, like pretty much all of the Scandinavia or more tropical islands or wherever, but, truth, a simple two week vacation to any of the countries/cities listed above would sustain me for years.

Moving Forward, Staying Still

First off, I want to say thank you to all my friends and family for your support in the wake of last weeks post.  I'm so very glad that I have people who care about me in my life, however peripheral.  That said, please, please stop sending me suicide prevention hotline numbers.  I assure you that I'm not suicidal.  I'm just massively unhappy with the path my life is currently on.  That doesn't mean I want to die.

My mother, she with a psychology degree, says that depression is just anger turned inwards.  I get that.  It makes sense to me.  Since I fluctuate between raging at the world and at myself, it makes sense to me.  It's just that I don't know how to fix this: my life.  I don't know how to find success and happiness.  I can't seem to do anything but fail, and it makes me bitter.  How do you get a job?  Or even a job interview?  I'm closing in on 700 resumes sent or applications filled and have only gotten two interviews.  I try, but no one is interested in giving me a chance.

I've applied for jobs that I'm perfectly qualified for - jobs that seemed like they were made just for me - and nothing.  I've applied for jobs that I'm overqualified for, and nothing.  I've applied for jobs that I'm under-qualified, and, of course, nothing.  There are only so many ways I can change my resume.  So many times it can be rewritten.  I keep trying and I keep failing.  Again and again and again and again.  I don't know what to do.  I don't know what else to do.  Is there something in me that's lacking?  Something other people can see, but I can't?

What do I have to do to get a full time job?

I'm not sure that I believe that it will ever happen.  And then what do I have?  Nothing.  Useless degrees and many thousands of dollars of student debt.  I can't afford a life.  

I'm so ready for this summer to be over.  Autumn needs to come and bring with it crisp air and cool rains to wash away the mess the summer has left in it's wake.

I don't know what I'm going to do with my life.  I need some kind of plan, some structure.  I thought the library would give that to me.  I could make my career, find my place . . . The truth is, I've been questioning that assumption all along.  For all that I would be a fantastic librarian, for all that I spent tens of thousands of dollars getting a degree that would allow me to move up in the field (provided anyone gave me a chance to get out there), for all that I've invested my time and energy and spent my spirit, I've questioned . . . From the beginning I've questioned if this was the right path for me. 

I want it to be.  I would love to work in a library in a librarian position, as a professional, as an integral part of my community.  And I love libraries, I do, but I don't fit.  I don't know why, but I don't.  I wish I did.  It would be so much easier, but when, of late, has anything been easy?

The thing is: what else can I do?  What. Else. Can. I. Do?  What else can I do?

That's the crux of my problem: I don't know.  I don't know what to do.  I don't know what else I can do?  I just know I can't stay here.  Stagnant.  I've got to move forward with my life, and I don't know how.  I need to find a job, and I don't know how.

I suppose I'll have to figure it out, because I can't stay here.  I can't.

It should be an interesting journey.

Drama. Heartache. I'm so done.

Sometimes I wish I could just burn my life to the ground and scatter the ashes to the winds.  Or cut ties, walk away from everything, begin again.  No sick and helpless father (though he's out of the hospital now and still has both feet/legs!).  No massive student debt ($48,000+).  No crappy infighting and bullying at the library.  No annoying underemployment.  No frantic, fruitless job hunt.  I could be/find something novel, something new.  I could find my place without the weight of everything dragging me down.

I imagine myself as a of the hero in one of the fantasy novels I love so much: wanderer, poet, mage, bard, adventurer, lover, dreamer, warrior, witch, princess, thief.  Brave and strong and smart.  Wild and wily.  Have you ever noticed that they don't need funds?  That they can walk away from or stab their enemies?  Have you noticed how everything works out for them - these heroes of my faery tales?  Somehow, everything works out.  It must, otherwise it wouldn't be a good story.

Life isn't a story.  It sure as hell isn't a faery tale.  And I'm not sure that anything's going to work out for me.

I'm so tired of bad luck.  I'm so tired of failure.  I'm so tired of thinking I'm moving forward only to find myself further back than when I started.  I'm tired of not being told what I'm supposed to do at work, then getting in trouble when I don't do it.  And I'm tired of platitudes, and "it gets better"s, and false reassurance, and "at least you don't live in (whatever 3rd world hellhole is fashionable at the moment)"s.  I'm tired of "it could be worse."  I know it could be worse, but it's pretty damn bad now.

I almost walked out of the library tonight.  That's one of two things I've never done at any of my jobs: I've never quit without giving at least a months notice and I've never been fired.  But I was ready to walk out, go home, and never return.  My boss actually talked me out of it.  She was right when she pointed out that it would damage my future career.  It would, but I'm not really sure I have a future career to damage.  I have a couple of meaningless, expensive pieces of paper that ideally should make me employable, but haven't seemed to help me at all.  I have a constant headache and tears in my eyes every single night, but especially when I leave the library lately.  I have a brain that replays the bad parts of my day, my life, over and over and over again keeping me from getting to sleep until I pass out by way of pure exhaustion.  I have a desire to cut myself, something that is so fucking cliche and upsetting to me, something I haven't done in over a decade.  I have an almost pathological fear of going to work, and the beginnings of a need to avoid libraries from now until the end of time.

Which sucks because I truly love libraries.  And for the most part I love my job.  I LOVE helping people find books, answering questions, doing research.  I love thinking up programming ideas and learning about new trends and conceptualizing my ideal library.  I love making pathfinders and study aids.  There is a comfort for me in libraries, but it's slipping away because of stupid internal politics and a fucking bully of a supervisor.

And I hate it.  I hate that I hate going to work now.  I hate that I feel underutilized and unappreciated. It just compounds, you know?  It just keeps getting worse.  I'm so stressed and upset and it seems like nothing is going my way.  Nothing IS going my way.  All my family drama is stacked on top of my professional failures is stacked on top of my general depressed person depression, and that twisted layer cake is topped with this new work bullshit.  Something's gotta give.  I just can't do it anymore.  I'm having nightmares, night terrors, again.  I woke myself up screaming and tearing into my arms the other night with my fingernails.  I can't do this anymore.  I feel sick inside.  Rotted.

Knowing that I'm not the most stable, mentally, at the moment, and not in the best frame of mind to make decisions, I'm going to give it a couple of weeks - until the end of the month.  Then I'm probably going to quit my job.  I hope that something comes up before that.  That somehow, miraculously, one of the many, many, many places to which I've applied gives me chance.  It would be better that way, easier.  With my luck, though . . . 

I wish I could just walk away from it all.  Disappear.  Go on some grand and magical adventure, and return home triumphant, if I return home at all.  Life's not that neat though.  It's messy and awful and painful.  There is no "better."  There is only the same or worse.  Or at least that's the way it's been for me for my life.  And I know from trying that there's no way for me to change it.  I endure.