As you can see from the previous post, January 2010 was a tough month. February wasn't much better. Fortunately, things improve as the year goes on. It just takes a while to get there.
Even though I was convinced that leaving my job in Ohio and moving to Wisconsin was the biggest mistake I had ever made, I kept plugging away. I drug myself to work. I did the basic things I needed to do on a daily basis to get by. I was sad. I was angry. I was resentful. I was depressed to the point that I started to really understand why people kill themselves. Don't get me wrong. I wasn't thinking about killing myself. I just gained an understanding as to why people do. Feeling despair and not seeing any way out of a situation is probably what drives people there. I had some dark days, unlike anything I had ever experienced before.
February did bring a trip back home to Columbus for a visit. One of the arrangements I made with the company I work for when we negotiated the deal for my position in Wisconsin was a few "sponsored" trips home during my first year. So, in early February, I got on a plane and headed to Columbus. My flight left super early in the morning. I remember feeling so anxious the night before. I was anxious about driving in the dark, essentially in the middle of the night, to an airport I wasn't really familiar with. Where would I park? What would the weather be like (translate: would it be snowing)? I didn't sleep well the night before the trip. Too nervous for good sleep.
At the time, Scott was spending his days in Logan, Ohio at the IUOE training site working to finish up his apprenticeship program. As a result, he wasn't available to pick me up at the airport. I took a cab to get our house. As we were heading from the airport to the west side, the snow started and that snow wouldn't stop until it buried Columbus. But, I made it to the house. This is one of the first things I saw upon walking in.
Scott, who has a real artistic streak in him, wrote me a note on the dry erase board we kept on the side of the refrigerator. I hadn't seen our pets (Rudy, Jada, Isaac and Simon) since I left for Wisconsin on 12/31/11. It had been six weeks or so. When I walked in the door, all four of them gravitated to me. I was surrounded by pet love. Dogs were pushing cats out of the way to get to me. Cats were pushing dogs out of the way to get to me. I was like a rock star.
Since my flight from Madison had left very early that morning, Scott knew I would be tired by the time I made it home. He had the bed turned down, ready and waiting for me.
I dove in. It felt so good to be back in the comfortable surroundings of the place I called home. Pet love all around. Sleeping on clean flannel sheets in the big bed. The only thing missing was Scott, but I knew within a few hours we would be together. I took a big fat nap and slept like a rock.
As I slept, the snow kept falling. I had asked my parents if I could borrow one of their cars while I was home. Prior to his health scare in September, my Dad had been on quite a mean streak for at least a year and a half. He refused to let me borrow a car. He nastily told me, "I don't loan my cars to people." I pointed out that I'm not really "people", I'm his daughter and we're family; I'm not just some random person off the street asking to borrow a car. But, whatever. In hindsight I should have just rented a car. Fortunately for me, I have great friends and they helped me throughout the weekend with getting to where I needed to go when Scott was at the training site.
I had plans to visit my friend, Greg, my first day home. God love him. He ventured out of his house in the extreme snowfall just to pick me up and take me back to his house. How nice was that?
Greg is a great cook and the best mixologist I know. He lives in a big old house in Old Town East. He more or less has an entire room dedicated to his bar. I'm pretty sure he has every kind of liquor known to human kind and most of them are stacked 2, 3, 4 bottles deep on his shelves. He has a more impressive bar than most restaurants. The picture below gives you an idea, but one really has to see it in person to truly appreciate it. In addition to the liquor bottles on the shelves, he has a cooler for wine, a refrigerator for juices/mixers and beer and a freezer so he can keep martini glasses frosted.
See all the limes and lemons in the basket in the picture above? Those are for the fresh juice martini's he makes. Fresh juice martini's. Luxurious.
My very dear friend of 20+ years, Renee, ventured out into the mountains of snow that were falling to join us.
Being back in familiar surroundings and in the comforting presence of friends felt so good. It was also bittersweet because I knew in a few days I would be leaving again. I tried to enjoy myself while I was there, which I did, but dark clouds seemed to loom over me no matter where I was back in those days. I hated myself for what I had done, for not appreciating the life I had more, and for fooling myself into thinking moving to Wisconsin was a good idea. My mentality would change later (thankfully!), but that's where I was back in those days. Full of self-loathing. Not a good place to be.
Throughout the first couple days of my visit, the snow kept falling. It was a major snow storm and it affected a large portion of the midwest/eastern part of the country. This is a shot of the back yard of our house. You can see the trees are bending under the weight of the wet, heavy snow that had fallen.
One of the effects of the storm was major delays at airports. For me, that translated into a couple extra days tacked onto my visit. The day I was supposed to leave, Monday, I was able to get on my flight out of Columbus but wouldn't have been able to get on my connecting flight (don't remember the city now) back to Madison. So, I changed my flights, which meant I got to stay home for 2 extra days. That did not hurt my feelings.
Scott and I don't go to the movies very often, but during my extra time at home, we went to see Avatar in 3-D at Easton. It was pretty cool. Do I look hot in the 3-D glasses?
Eventually my time in Columbus came to an end and I had to return to Madison. I had to return to work. I had to return to an existence that I hated at the time. I didn't want to go back. Every fiber in me wanted to stay right at home. But, I did it. I went back and I keep plugging away. I may have hissed and spit about it, but I kept plugging away.
As if I didn't have enough on my mind, apparently I decided to further complicate my life in February by putting an offer in on a house in Madison. This is a shot of the inside of the house. It shows what one sees immediately upon entering the house through the front door.
It was a decent little house. a 4-level split. 4 bedrooms. 3 full baths. It was a nice enough house in a decent enough neighborhood on the west side of Madison. Immediately upon making the offer and it being accepted, I regretted it. I wasn't ready. It wasn't the right house. I wanted out. Typically, that may not be a particularly difficult thing to do when there are 2 realtors involved. In this case, however, the sellers didn't have a realtor. They had an attorney. He ended up being a horses ass of monumental proportions. I could go on and on about it, but suffice it to say I eventually got out of the deal. It took weeks and created a tremendous amount of additional stress and consternation for me. Like I needed any more of that. Oh, and it also took $2500.00 in fees to the attorney that I had to hired to combat the horses ass.
Good things, besides the bittersweet trip home, that happened in February? Well, one thing is that I moved from one office to another at work. The first space I was put in upon arrival to the company's office in Madison pretty much sucked. There is a story behind it that I won't go into here. The good news is, within a short period of time I got to move to a much better office space. That definitely helped my mentality at work. I still had a long ways to go, but the office move helped. Here is my office. It's the same office I have today. It's a decent little space and I would even venture to say that I like it.
Something else good in February was that I found a church and attended a service. I went to a church in Columbus that I absolutely loved: First Community Church in Grandview. Dr. Wing, the lead preacher/Reverend, is an amazingly gifted orator. When he preached, I felt inspired. And the choir at First Community Church was beyond words. They could blow the roof off the place. The music they made was so powerful, I was often moved to tears. After many of their performances, Dr. Wing would stand up and ask the congregation for an "Amen". That's right. Amen.
I looked on line to find a United Church of Christ in Madison. I found a couple and selected this one to attend a Sunday morning service.
For me, going to a new church, especially alone, can be kind of intimidating. I did it though. When I first got there, I sat down and immediately in my head began criticizing everything about this church in comparison to First Community Church. As I was thinking every possible negative thought in my mind that I could come up with, it occurred to me that that is pretty bad behavior in church. I didn't say anything negative out loud, but I sure was thinking it. I think bad thoughts in church, about the church, constitute bad behavior. Anyhow, after I chilled out a bit, I realized that the people there were welcoming and friendly and the service was nice. I felt better when I left than I had when I arrived. Back then I was desperate for anything that would make me feel even a tiny bit better. What better place for that than church?
Another good thing in February was that later in the month Scott came to visit. The winter Olympics were in full swing. We watched a lot of the events and were highly amused by the sport of Curling. Neither of us had ever seen or heard of Curling prior to this. Did you see any of the Curling events on the Olympics? I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but it is so flippin' funny. It's kind of like shuffle board on ice. The people who send that....thing....whatever it is.....down the ice are soooooooo serious.
And then those other people have the brooms and are sweeping madly trying to get that thingy to go wherever it's supposed to go. Clearly my use of the word "thingy" shows how little I know about the sport.
While Scott was visiting, we made a trip to Marinette. On the way back to Madison, we stopped in a town called Appleton for fuel. As Scott was pumping the fuel, I waited in the car and was randomly looking around. This caught my eye and I had to get a picture. Near the gas station, is this facility.
That would be the Appleton Curling Club. As immature as it may be, Scott and I found that so funny.
That's the gist of February. Some good things happened, but overall I continued to be sad and consumed by dark feelings dominated by regret and self-loathing. I spent a lot of time alone in my apartment curled up in bed with my old Pooh Bear and a picture of Emmy.
1 comment:
Seriously; why is your life NOT a feature film drama? Or perhaps a series? I would be happy to play me!!
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