14-hour Days Need Sweat & Meatloaf

A good friend called me tonight. He is stressed, confused and feeling lost. He started a new job a couple of weeks ago after quitting another new one he kept for a week. Deep down I think he is ready to throw in the towel on this one as well. He has lost confidence in his abilities and is getting extremely overwhelmed. Today he pulled a 14-hour day.

My friend spent the last 3 months or so, traveling all over the world, to places very different than this bubble of San Diego we live in. I do think part of his struggle right now has to due with the amount of time he has taken off and the fact that he has moved into a different role than he was in. He is also new to San Diego and probably a little outside of his comfort zone. Sound familiar?

I have the same fears. Just as he has lost confidence in his abilities, I question mine every day. I look at positions that a year ago I would have said, “I can do that job with both eyes closed and my hands tied around my back”. These positions intimidate me now. Time off takes away that confidence.

The other thing I am hearing from him is his lack of self-care through all of this. He hasn’t been to the gym in ages and is not eating at work because he is so busy. I tried to explain that his productivity would be so much better working 10 hour days with a lunch break (plus a few stretch ones) and a good sweat at the gym afterwards than working straight through 14 hours. I bet he could get done more in those 10 hours than he could in the 14 if he tried it that way. I have to remember that when I get into that stressed mode with work again. I tend to try and overachieve at work. I am competitive with my own self. I try too much too hard. I do this in my personal life too.

How do we learn to balance so our life doesn’t become all about our job? To build ourselves back up when we have lost confidence in our abilities? How do we know when we should just put everything down, and go sweat it all out at the gym followed by a meal only our grandmothers could cook? We can’t rely on someone else to take care of us. I guess that’s why we have the friends that can remind us that we need to.

Time for a New Watch

It’s interesting how your life can be completely fine, you meet someone new or get to know someone on a different level, and you don’t know how you got along without knowing them before. It’s like you can’t even remember that you were ok before. What is it that triggers inside of you that makes someone feel that way? It is some sort of familiarity that makes them feel connected with you? Is it that they have filled a hole or a gap inside of you that was needing some patching up?

I just finished watching “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and found the story line intriguing. So many people come out of one relationship and feel like they need all of this time to pass before they should get into another one - or that they should play the field for a while rather than exploring yet another relationship. I guess that works for some people. Not sure why it has to be that way, or if really it is more of an excuse that people give themselves and others for a variety of reasons. Then again maybe starting a new relationship really is all about timing. It can't be too close to a previous relationship, and obviously not when one is current. I am sure there is some time frame that needs to be dodged so that people aren’t in their "playing the field mode". Honestly, I think all of it is just an excuse. But if timing is all it is, maybe I need to be asking for a new watch for Christmas.

No Need to Know Why

I don’t really have anything brilliant to say this evening. Confused about things as usual. Wondering why people are the way they are as usual. I sat next to a person on Friday who not knowing anything about me was able to read that I ask “why” too much in my life. Their philosophy is that knowing “why” doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make a difference. It is the way it is. And most of the time, we don’t need to know why.

I have written this paragraph 4 times and keep scrapping it, so I think I just need to leave this where it is. Sometimes short and to the point is better.

I Want To Go Home

I am exhausted. I seriously feel like I need a vacation just as much as I ever have working my ass off in any job for 12 months straight. As of today I have been unemployed (full time) for 16 months and have applied to 256 jobs. Ok, I guess technically I did get one of them so 255, but it is still fill-in/part-time, so it only counts for so much. I am going on an interview next week for a job that the hiring range is $15.91 to $17.56 an hour. And I am seriously excited at the possibility of making $35,000 a year….in San Diego….California….where you can’t get a one bedroom apartment for less than $1,200 a month. And you don’t want to live in the $1,200 a month ones. $35,000 a year. I am speechless.

So that is work…the relationship field doesn’t get any better. I am trying to stay friends with an ex. It usually works. Works better when they aren’t the only person in San Diego that you have to hang out with. I’m on the really bad side of a relationship where you want to see someone and they really could care less if you hang out or not. And having that made clear every day doesn’t feel good. I have always thought of myself as having so much to offer someone else. I have always been very attentive, nurturing and affectionate in relationships. I have always been supportive of people I have dated. I feel like I need an outlet for these things – almost like they are overwhelming me. I am sure I have overwhelmed others with them too. I need new people in my life badly. It’s just a little more difficult to walk up to a girl in a bar and say, “Hey – want to be friends?”.

The gym is my best outlet at the moment. Sometimes it feels like my only outlet. I have met some nice people there, but no friendships that have gotten past the lounge chairs by the pool. The funny thing is, some of those people probably know me better right now than my best friends do. With the hours I have spent at the gym over the last 16 months, I should have a supermodel body. Not sure how I got passed by on those genes. Instead, I am losing my hair due to stress, breaking out on a daily basis due to stress, crying more than any human being should due to stress, and having that feeling like I JUST WANT TO GO HOME ALREADY. Problem is…I am home already.