Make the most of my contracting universe

Well, it appears that I seem to be contracting as well. Simply disappearing. I noticed this about a week ago. I’ve lost a certain amount of weight that I’m beginning to find alarming. I’ve always been on the thin side, but today I noticed even more. I don’t know how this is coming about, and I wish that what I am eating would show up more. I don’t really want this to be happening.

2008 being the year of recovery from what seemed like forever, but was four years of graduate school, and three years of working fulltime concurrently..
2008 was a also a year I decided to distance myself from a group of friends (5 or 6 people) who drank pretty heavily but more than that seemed to lack a certain quality of integrity that I don’t have to question in the majority of my friends now, and didn’t really need to before..
2008 was also a year of unstable employment and finances; I was unemployed almost half the year, and then happily got hired at where I currently work in November.
It was a lonely, restful, abrupt, peaceful, austere, healing, sad, lying fallow year. And it seemed like 2008 was difficult for a lot of people just from the comments I read on New Years, like ‘Bye 2008! I won’t miss you at all!, etc.’

On the other hand, 2009 has been a year of being held, by my job and by my community. It’s been a year of ‘slow and steady’ winning the race. In fact, I don’t know what the hurry was before. It’s been my year of slow, incremental changes, and although I sometimes still feel my characteristic restlessness, I’m grateful for the patience that this year has given me…this year of putting one foot in front of the other and doing the ‘next right thing’. One thing I have done consciously and differently since the beginning of 2008 has been to make sure I stay close to my community, where I tended to get isolated before, or with people who might not have the capacity to understand. I’m grateful for the two years of ongoing community I’ve had in my life. It is so important; life saving, I think.

I met with a nutritionist who suggested that I give up gluten, at least of the next while. I have symptoms that would indicate that I am either gluten intolerant, or have full blown celiac disease. I’ve agreed with her to give up sugar, bread and starches until further notice, and I’ll request that my doctor test me for celiac. The diet seems to be a good one for me…I feel pretty good on it, but I still get tempted by sweets, and I’ve eaten bread occasionally. It’s seems a shame to throw the things I have left in my kitchen away, so I’m going to eat them sparingly, so not to let them go to waste, but I will stick to the diet in the new foods I bring home. My symptoms seem greatly improved!

sense of discomfort, and of course, it’s not just me. It’s the economy, it’s my department, it’s nearly winter. My department for example has a shortage of people. There are are only three full time people, and two part timers. One of the full time people doesn’t do his entire work, and leaves the boss to do his work for him. It’s tough he’s my friend, but I get frustrated. It’s like my boss treats him like a little kid. Also, the management won’t let her hire anyone else to help us out. We are pretty overwhelmed with our current tasks and could us an extra pair of hands.

Part of the contractingness is that I have a fairly low paying yet incredibly labor intensive job, and I’ve done nothing to improve my circumstances, like updating my resume. And my shoulder is injured and requires extra medical attention, physical therapy, medication, etc.

Anyway, this is a bit of a tired rambling on, but I just want to win the lottery…rest..travel the world…be…young…again. Nose to the grindstone just seems silly.

simple as it can be. Money is tight, and I seem to walking closer to the ground. News is constant about the financial correction. I just found out that a potential new romance was an illusion, and quickly dissolved into vapor. Everything I do is low cost or free. I barely make ends meet. I have food in the cupboard, a roof over my head. I am healthy. I am distanced from my family and that can be lonely. I have loving friends and community. Someone hugs me nearly every day. Occasionally I feel this emptiness in my solar plexus, but occasionally I shiver with the butterflies of bliss in my belly. How can I explain to you why I feel this love? It comes out of nowhere and ripples through me. I don’t know why I feel it, but I do feel it.

Life is so incredibly rich in this simple austerity. How can I explain it?

I had a strange incident at work about a month ago. I saw a coworker coming out of our backroom who wasn’t part of our ‘team’. She said she was keeping her belongings in there, and it just seemed really strange as we’re all supposed to keep our stuff in lockers, and although we sometimes casually leave our things back there, no one from other departments really think they can ‘share’ our storage room with us. I asked my boss what she thought, and she was dead set against it, and told her that although she could leave her stuff there for the rest of the day, she’d have to find another place to put it after that. The person got upset apparently and began disparaging me to other people at work, thinking that I was the ‘culprit’ in all of this. Work generally goes well with people. There is a lot of good will there, and this was the first time someone had acted in this sort of way. Due to the nature of her comments about me, there was an investigation at work, and although I don’t know what the outcome was, she refuses to talk to the person who she made the disparaging remarks about me to (who is someone on my ‘team’ who I work closely with and get on with very well), and I haven’t really attempted to talk with her. I was surprised how a harmonious situation could be turned on its ear so quickly. It seemed to be a sea change all in a matter of approximately 30 minutes. A few days later, I was wandering through the Sulzer library and found the book ‘What I Talk About When I Talk About Running’ by Haruki Murakami, and I opened the book to the passage below and it really spoke to the confusion I felt in the wake of the previous few days.

Here it is (starting on pg. 18):

“As I mentioned before, competing against other people, whether in daily life or in my field of of work, is just not the sort of lifestyle I’m after. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but the world is made up of all kinds of people. Other people have their own values to live by, and the same holds true for me. These differences give rise to disagreements, and the combination of these disagreements can give rise to even greater misunderstandings. As a result, sometimes people are unfairly criticized. This goes without saying. It’s not much fun to be misunderstood or criticized, but rather a painful experience that hurts people deeply.

As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve gradually come to the realization that this kind of pain and hurt is a necessary part of life. If you think about it, it’s precisely because people are different from others that they’re able to create their own independent selves. Take me as an example. It’s precisely my ability t detect some aspects of a scene that other people can’t, to feel differently than others and choose words that differ from theirs, that’s allowed me to write stories that are mine alone. And because of this we have the extraordinary situation in which quite a few people read what I’ve written. So the fact that I’m me and no one else is one of my greatest assets. Emotional hurt is the price a person has to pay in order to be independent.

That’s what I basically believe, and I’ve lived my life accordingly. In certain areas of my life, I actively seek out solitude. Especially for someone in my line of work, solitiude is, more or less, an inevitable circumstance. Sometimes, however, this sense of isolation, like acid spilling out of a bottle, can unconsciously eat away at a person’s heart and dissolve it. You could see it, too, as a kind of double-edged sword. It protects me, but at the same time steadily cuts away at me from the inside. I think in my own way I’m aware of this danger (probably through experience) and that’s why I’ve had to contantly keep my body in motion, in some cases pushing myself to the limit, in order to heal the loneliness I feel inside and to put it in perspective. Not so much as an intentional act, but as an instinctive reaction.

Let me be more specific.

When I’m criticized unjustly (from my viewpoint, at least), or when someone I’m sure will understand me doesn’t, I go running for a little longer than usual. By running longer it’s like I can physically exhaust that portion of my discontent. It also makes me realize again how weak I am, how limited my abilities are. I become aware, physically, of these low points. And one of the results of running a little farther than usual is that I become that much stronger. If I’m angry, I direct that anger toward myself. If I have a frustrating experience, I use that to improve myself. That’s the way I’ve always lived. I quietly absorb the things I’m able to, releasing them later, and in as changed a form as possible, as part of the storyline in a novel.

I don’t think most people would like my personality. There might be a few (very few, I would imagine) who are impressed by it, but only rarely would anyone like it. Who in the world could possibly have warm feelings, or something like them, for a person who doesn’t compromise, who instead, whenever a problem crops up, locks himself away alone in a closet? But is it ever possible for a professional writer to be liked by people? I have no idea. Maybe somewhere in the world it is. It’s hard to generalize. For me, at least, as I’ve written novels over many years. I just can’t picture someone liking me on a personal level. Being disliked by someone, hated and despised, somehow seems more natural. Not that I’m relieved when that happens. Even I’m not happy when someone dislikes me.”

I am happy with my life despite the contractingness of it. Some things make me sad. I feel like my life had a huge clearing out last year, some of that I wanted and some that I didn’t want and still grieve the loss of. Inside of the limitations that I feel is a new simplicity in my life that I embrace. I like to keep everything down to a simpler level. I wouldn’t mind more freedom to move around, but the things in front of me these days are pretty good. I have a nice job with nice people, and my friendships are lovely and simple (read: no drama). When I start to feel like I’m a little frustrated and trapped, I must remember these things.

I started this job, but money will be tight for awhile, I think. I had an epiphany today that just because I have a job doesn’t mean that I can’t continue to keep my eyes open for another opportunity. Oddly, this made me happier with my current job.

Mind you, I am grateful to have work after five months of collecting unemployment. And it’s not the work I mind. In fact, it’s a very fun job. It’s just that it’s about a third less than what I’m used to earning. At some point, though, I will be able to participate in the profit-sharing program, so I will be interested to see if that will improve things substantially.

transitting Saturn is squaring natal Mercury now…

Also, it’s moving through a tricky, or karmic rather, part of my chart, where there is a grand square (or I think that’s what it is). I have Pluto and Uranus in Virgo opposing Saturn in Pisces and squaring Mercury in Sagittarius. So, transitting Saturn is sitting on Pluto as it squares Mercury, and then it will conjunct Uranus and oppose Saturn. As I’m Capricorn, one would think I’m accustomed to Saturnian energy, and I think I am.

For four years, when Pluto was in Sagittarius, it was squaring Pluto, Uranus and Saturn while it conjuncted Mercury. Pluto moves really slowly, and this was quite the time. At least, Saturn only takes two years to move through a constellation, whereas Pluto (which actually lost “planet status” during this time) takes 12 to 32 years, I think.

and now a simple Indian summer. Not too bad, really. I’d love a job for the money, because it would be nice to not wonder where the money will come from. Yet also there’s a silver lining in it, as in most things.

Somehow my hip and knee pain has been addressed through topnotch medical care that I haven’t had to pay for. And today, I had a follow up appointment for basic care that my doctor set me up with that is on a sliding scale. In many ways I’m enjoying this journey of learning about these resources, so eventually I can pass this information on. There’s no way I would’ve learned of these programs without going through this, and it will be information I can pass on to friends, colleagues, and patients (when I eventually get my license). And it’s a beautiful thing to get my aches and pains looked at without putting it off until later, and without the anxiety of getting the bill.