life after it all

Its been a long time since I blogged last and I’m not even sure I will be blogging for much longer.  Life has changed dramtically in the past few weeks and my main motivation for blogging has drifted away.

Money.

I was offered a job last week(ish) as an Energy Security Analyst with Solicitor General.  I’ve only been a planner with Employment and Immigration for 2 months, but I had applied for the job as an analyst before I left Justice.  I went to the interview and in late August and felt like I had been anally raped by the interviewers.  I knew I wouldn’t get offered the job, but was glad to get the interview.

Then they called one of my references. 

Then they asked for a criminal record abstract.

Then my manager to be called.

Then they offered me the job.

I took it.  I had to.  The pay raise was unbelieveable and it was finally a job doing what I love more than chocolate - counter terrorism. 

So I am in the final week of work with Employment and Immigration.  Sad.  I like it here, even if the work is mildly boring.

So I no longer have a need to write paid posts, which truly was my main reason for blogging.  I’m not a natural writer.  I am a good writer, but not great.  And HAVING to write is painful for me.  So I may let this blog go by the way side.  But then again, I may not.  Whatever.

I’m also booked to go to Mexico with the boyfriend in 17 days.  We are heading just south of Cancun to Puerto Morelos.  All Inclusive ofcourse.  I had wanted to go to my cousins wedding in DR or Cuba in April, but I really can’t handle the drama of that side of the family any longer and the idea of staying in a hotel with them for a week made my anxiety flare up.  So off we go to Mexico.

I’m super glad.  I need a vacation.  The last pure vacation vacation for longer than 5 days was to Kruger National Park in 2003.  And while it was lovely, it wasn’t relaxing (waking up to wild animals in the African Veld is NOT relaxing). While I did go on a short 5 day birthday vacation for my 27th, I’ve never had a truly long relaxing vacation and I’m drooling over this one. 

Ofcourse because I’m going with my boyfriend, people have ALL kinds of ideas as to what will happen on the vacation.  I keep having to give people the shortened version of why its just two people who like each other travelling to the same place at the same time.  And thats all.  Not that I WANT any of these crazy ideas to happen, I just hate that we’re in a situation where they would not.

Which brings me to my last point.  I firmly believe, and always have, that the way you treat someone prepetuates the behaviour you may wish to stamp out.  This has only incidental meaning to the above note about my boyfriend.  But its something I have thought about for some time.  As a child (relatively), I always thought that if my parents wanted me to stop having attitude, they should treat me like I dont have attitude.  If you expect the worst from someone, you will get it.  That sort of thing.  This isn’t to say people around me are expecting bad things from me, but people often DON’T want something from me and then complain when they get it.  I could understand if my behavior was created in isolation, but its not.

Because I lvoe her to bits, I’ll use my boyfriends cat as an example.  Shes one anxious kitty.  My boyfriend (and I, I admit) would like her to become less anxious.  But what do we do (ok, mostly me)?  I scare her to get a laugh and grab her when shes obviously not wanting to be picked up.  No wonder shes only making tiny improvements in her behavior.  I keep giving her damn good reason to be anxious!

I’m in a place right now where I’m being told to be less insecure and more happy.  Firstly, I never thought I wasn’t a happy person, but thats besides the point.  So if we go with the persumption that I’m both and not argue that, I should have no where to go but up.  I have a wonderful boyfriend, a great job and I love in a great city.  Oh, and I’m healthy.  But I keep being given reasons to be insecure.  And I dont think the one person who wants the most for me to be secure understands that they are the one causing my insecurity.

Make sense?

And worst still is the fact that any conversation about this will make matters worse.

but I digress.  I dont think I’m an unhappy person.  Insecure, maybe a little, but I think everyone is.  If we were all secure in every aspect of ourselves, then what reason would we have to become a better person?

Its been pointed out to me recently that I don’t appear to be a very happy person.  This came in the midst of a very revealing conversation that might have been percipitated by my neurotic need to be the one who cleans my home.  Don’t ask.  I’m sure theres a gene my mother and I share that only this small fraction of the McCarthy clan have.

Am I an unhappy person?  I never thought so.  I guess I always thought I was a realist.  You know, the type that hopes for the best but prepares for the worst.  I guess I always like to think of life as ready to kick me in the ass, but hoping it doesn’t hurt that much.  But someone very close to me mentioned that I don’t appear to be a very happy person.  And this made me think . . . a lot.

I use to be a very happy person.  My teens and early twenties were full of some very happy moments.  I rarely cried while I was doing my Bachelors and dating Robert and lived at home and worked part time at the Running Room.  I was perhaps the most happiest I’ve ever been while living in Ireland.  Not a care in the world until the very end when I threw in the towel (for reasons I’ll only discover with lengthy trips to the thearpist).  I can’t remember ever being as happy as I was when I working at Fitzpatrick Castle.  I loved being abroad, working with great people.  I’ve thought a lot recently about why I was so happy then, and not now (as people have pointed out).  It wasn’t because of the relatinoship I was in.  Sure, I was happy with Robert, but its very obvious to those privy to my confessions at the time, that I was already slowly falling out of love with him.  It wasn’t because of the job I had.  I hated working till 5am two nights in a row, or working the dreaded Sunday afternoon shift full of screaming children. It wasn’t because I was making loads of money and had no debt.  I was making enough to live comfortably, but I had a ton of debt which my parents were paying on at the time.  So why was I so happy?

I think (I THINK), maybe I just felt invincable.  Sure, I’d seen a lot of heartache and pain in my life, but I hadn’t been jaded by love or life.  I was 23.  the world was my perverbial oyster.  I knew I could do anything I set my mind too. I was young, healthy and in charge of my life.

So whats so different now?

I work in a job where I make enough money to drop $100 on a three month pass to all the attractions at the West Edmonton Mall.  My job is personally fulfilling.  I miss my friends terribly, but I keep in touch with them.  I’m developing new friends and I’m in a relationship that makes realize I’m the luckiest girl in the world. I’m healthy and so is my family.

By all accounts, I have a better quality of life now than I did when I was at my happiest.  but yet, I still appear to be an unahppy person.  Am I jaded my life and love?  Maybe.  I’m tired of saying I’m still healing from my last relationship.  I wish jonathan all the best in life.  I’m proud I survived the worst year of my life and I wear it on my sleeve like a badge of honor.  so whats the problem?  why, when I’m told I don’t appear to be happy, so I revert back to excusing my actions through 2007?

When I look at my life in individual blocks, I don’t see the problem.  I’m coming to terms with my career.  No longer do I say “My job isn’t in my area” or “Its just until I find something in my area”.  This is my area right now and I’ve accepted that as long as I’m doing something that makes the lvies of others better, I’m happy.

See . . . theres that word again.  Happy.

I love my relationship.  I’ve never met someone who makes me as happy as my boyfriend does.  I want to squeeze the stuffing out of him.  Hes so supportive and optimistic.  We have our issues (which are essentially my issues).  but i’m happy as punch with him.   (When I’m not worried about losing him - ok, so its not perfect)

But see, happy.

I miss my friends incredibly, but I know their there for me.  And i’m slowly making new friends.  and they are great people.  And for a non-social person, I think the few dedicated friends I do have is a great indication of things to come.  they make me happy.

Happy.

Anyway, my whole point is I don’t get why I appear to be an unhappy person.  I’m “happy” with the things in my life.  but maybe thats it.  I’m happy “with the things in my life”.  Am I happy with my life?  Do I face life thinking today could be the best day of my life?  Just because I know I need to be more of an optimist in order to save my relationship, does that mean I need to fear the end of it?  I’ve proven i’m the strongest person I know.  I know that I will land on my feet no matter what.  Shouldn’t that be enough to make me more secure….

Hey.  Wait.  thats a word I’ve not used yet.  Secure.  Maybe its not about being happy.  Maybe its all about being secure.  Am I secure?

If I’m more optimistic, will I be more secure?  If I KNOW I will eventually work in a job that uses all my talents and in the mean time I’m learning more, I should be more secure in the knowledge that I’m a wonderfuly bright person with skills in demand.  If I KNOW my boyfriend and I are meant to be together because I just feel it in my stomach, I should be more secure in how he feels for me (because I’m a wonderfuly bright person with winning personality and smile - blah - vomit).  If I KNOW my life will work out exactly the way it should, I should be secure in the knowledge that life will not throw at me nothing I can’t handle.

Life will not throw at me nothing I can not handle.

Hows that for a first step towards optimism?

I can feel it already.