And truthfully, Mile High "Madness" may be pushing it. I'm not some wild and crazy dingus looking to toot his own horn. I am, however, in an interesting place in my life. One I'd like to share with people either in the same situation (and I hope to God you're not), or about to be. So, for my first ever blog post, I'm going to give you some history - a brief one, we have just met, after all - about who I am and why I'm here.
You know those people who don't do anything with their lives? Not the "I'm the VP of XYZ Corp., marrried to a supermodel, driving a new car every month, vacationing in a summer home bigger than the White House, but inside I'm lonely and unsatisfied" types, the "how in the hell did I get to be 36 without ever doing anything" types. Well, that's me. Not sure how it happened, to be honest, but I've got a few ideas.
I was shy in high school. Again, not the "Shawn's really cool, but he's kind of shy" type, the "who the hell is Shawn?" type. It was nobody's fault except mine. And after high school, I worked really hard to not be that guy anymore. Sometimes it worked; mostly, it didn't. Leaving out a lot of details, we'll just jump ahead to last year. ..
I was 2 years into a great marriage, and 7 years into a crappy job. If I had stayed at the job any longer, the marriage would've suffered. So, rather than caving in to her primal urges and bludgeoning me with a frying pan or her old PC (a perfect excuse, in her mind, to go buy a new one), my wife was nice enough to tell me it was time to go back to school and finish my degree. She was right, and I did. I enrolled at the Metropolitan State College of Denver as a journalism major in January 2009. I took one class, but not because I was lazy; I waited too long and it was the only one available. (Hey, I said it "sometimes" worked, didn't I?)
For the next 18 months, that was my life. I went to school full-time and took care of the house while my wife supported us. Things were great, for me. I wasn't working at all, but I was writing again, which I hadn't done since dropping out of college the first time. (Again, my fault, no one else's.) I was in the blossoming stages of a freelance writing business...
SHAMELESS PLUG!!!!!
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END SHAMLESS PLUG!!!!!
...and I was practically letting our two little dogs starve from neglect while I worked on my novel. (As for the dogs, that's really saying something. If you saw them, you'd know it wouldn't take much to let them waste away.) Then, well, things changed. They usually do. Sometimes you see it coming, most of the time you don't.
This time, I didn't.
My wife, for reasons that remain between her and I (and family members who already know everything), decided to end our marriage after 3 years. That was three months ago. Since then, like most of America apparently, I've been looking for a job. With no money of my own, and no prospects, I have moved back in with my parents. Like everyone else, I'm sending out countless resumes every day. I'm even qualified for some of the positions, so that's kind of a bonus. So far, however, it's come down to one nibble, and they just threw me back for a bigger catch.
Which brings me (FINALLY!!! you say) to the reason for this blog. I'm here because I want to write. I am not able to make a living at it just yet, but I don't want to stop doing it either. A few of the jobs I'm looking at require some blogging experience, which until...oh, I don't know...15 minutes ago I didn't have, and this gives me something to show them when the selection process starts. It's also a way for me to control the emotions, good and bad. I'm here because I don't want to stop doing something I love, and I want other people to be able to speak up, and speak out, about the things that are happening to them.
I have a lot to say on things, I'm just not an expert on any of them. I know, I know...who is? But they're out there. Trust me. This internet thingy wouldn't be as popular if someone wasn't doing well at it.
Anyway, enough for one day. I'm not here to tell you about things you should know, or things you want to know. I'm here to talk about things that affect everyone. They have affected us, they do affect us, and they will affect us. I welcome all reasonable and polite feedback and comments, and will do what I can to entertain you with the minute details of a life evolving.
See you again soon. Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
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2 comments:
My sitch is remarkably similar to yours, my man.
In March of 2008, I was laid off from the sweet TV production gig I worked for five years. The money was only okay and the company I had worked for was bass-ackwards but the people were awesome and I was doing what I loved to do. This was right before you started hearing the grumblings of the "housing crisis" and the "financial meltdown of Wall Street". But where I worked was the last bastion for TV production folks. It was time to look for a new career because TV prod is DEAD unless you live in New York or LA.
I was unemployed for five months. I then took a shitty ass call center job for Verizon Wireless, mainly because they were the only folks that had interviewed me. I found out that they would pay for me to get some IT certifications. I figured I would suck it up and work for that Hanoi pit of Hell.
After about 10 months of being treated like a sub-human, I quit that bitch and started freelancing in the IT field. Things were okay at that point. Then my girlfriend of 5 years at the time loses her job because she didn't like having to go to said job. We eked it out for a little bit. We had a roommate so we were able to make it okay with me freelancing and her looking for work.
The end of July/first week of August, I ended up getting hired on full time as a PC Support specialist for a larger corporation. It was a sweet-ass gig! My girlfriend was interviewing with a different call center so things were looking up. The dark spot in this new future was my roommate was moving out with his new girlfriend. My girlfriend and I decided we could make do with a little budgeting and so forth. What happened next was so tragic, no work of fiction could truly capture the despair. My roommate became ill suddenly and passed away two days later at the tender age of 34. Everything was in turmoil. We grieved and managed to deal with life over the coming month or two. The girlfriend was working, albeit part time. My job paid decently and things were okay for a while.
During the tenure of my relationship with my girlfriend, I had tried to motivate her into going back to school. She would be riddled with anxiety about working in a call center but was reluctant to do anything about it. I told her the solution to having crappy jobs is to find a career that you'll enjoy. She though school was "boring" and "didn't like it" the first time she went. There was countless times I told her school was a means to an end. People slog through school everyday to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I might as well have banged my head up against a brick wall repeatedly for all the good it did. So, one day in July, my girlfriend gets fired from the second job in a year. We were barely making it when she was working so now we have to move back in with my folks. What bugged me the most about the whole ordeal was her laissez-faire attitude about the whole thing. After a month of living with her at my folks place and all she did was watch TV and play World of Warcraft. So, I decided that I couldn't be with someone that didn't have the slightest bit of ambition and that would rather cry and feel sorry for herself than correct any issue. After six and half years (the last two years were just a formality at this point), I was single again. And living with my folks. And stuck with our three cats.
I do like my future now better than I did before. I see a lot more potential than just being someone's crutch. I can also say it feels super-good to expunge all this from my psyche. I'm sure in time you'll feel the same way too.
I look forward to reading more of your blog posts. I do think you have something to say. Each of our stories are similar and yet unique.
Wow. You apparently had so much to say, you posted it twice! And here I thought two DIFFERENT people were actually reading this thing. =) Hope you don't mind my deleting one of them...
I am so sorry to hear about everything that happened. There are some strong similarities to both our stories, and I'm glad you landed on your feet. My life right now is like one of those puzzles where you shift the pieces around to make the picture. Only problem is, I can't get that little plug out to start shifting things around. Til that happens, I'm kind of stuck.
Glad you like the posts. I'll keep this up for a while, and we'll see how it goes. It's mostly for me, but also to get some experience since this is the kind of thing I'm looking at doing career-wise. Thanks for reading, and thanks for posting. Could do without the double posts, but I'm sure that's just an accident...this time.
I'll be keeping an eye on you, just in case!
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