I miss my audience
Seven years ago, when I started this journal, my life was shit. I had been forced out of the house I'd shared with my wife of nine years, and was living alone in the cheapest flat I was willing to move into. I had fascinating neighbours of the "Gosh it's a good thing you're not going to let an attempted murder conviction get in the way of a friendship" sort, and was holding on to life (let's not discuss sanity or hope just now) by a pretty narrow thread. LiveJournal (more importantly, the people I met there) saved my life. In an existance where leaving the house was a noteworthy achievement, there were people who understood me, and who would celebrate an achievement like that. I met a whole bunch of people, many of them even stranger than I was, and began to feel that there was a place for me in the world.
Things are different now, very different. I've been living with Kim for a bit more than a year now, and we're getting married in November. I have an exciting, challenging job, which stretches me to the limit (and sometimes past that point) in more ways than I imagined possible, and I'm succeeding at it. I have worked miracles, and continue to work miracles.
And I don't know how to talk about it, or where to talk about it, or how to get the feedback that helped me get a sense of perspective, and to climb out of the pit. Kim is wonderful, but she's in here with me, living the life with me, and so she's a participant, she's not out there in the audience. And I can't talk about the things I don't understand in this forum. When I have broken my rule of "Only talk about yourself on LJ" it hasn't gone well, and I'm glad I've never blogged about work in a way that could hurt me. When you have an exciting challenging job, there's plenty of things that are hard to understand. And I have this sense that I'm doing really well, but I don't trust it. And I don't know how to go about checking it.
The struggle against impossible odds gave my life meaning. If I win, I want to reap the rewards that I'm able to collect. But I don't trust it.
And talking out the problem seems to help a little. What I really need to do is reality-test this, not social-test it. I have to decide what are the measures that really matter to me, then make an assessment in terms of those measures, then work out what to do about the findings.
Thanks for listening ;)
Things are different now, very different. I've been living with Kim for a bit more than a year now, and we're getting married in November. I have an exciting, challenging job, which stretches me to the limit (and sometimes past that point) in more ways than I imagined possible, and I'm succeeding at it. I have worked miracles, and continue to work miracles.
And I don't know how to talk about it, or where to talk about it, or how to get the feedback that helped me get a sense of perspective, and to climb out of the pit. Kim is wonderful, but she's in here with me, living the life with me, and so she's a participant, she's not out there in the audience. And I can't talk about the things I don't understand in this forum. When I have broken my rule of "Only talk about yourself on LJ" it hasn't gone well, and I'm glad I've never blogged about work in a way that could hurt me. When you have an exciting challenging job, there's plenty of things that are hard to understand. And I have this sense that I'm doing really well, but I don't trust it. And I don't know how to go about checking it.
The struggle against impossible odds gave my life meaning. If I win, I want to reap the rewards that I'm able to collect. But I don't trust it.
And talking out the problem seems to help a little. What I really need to do is reality-test this, not social-test it. I have to decide what are the measures that really matter to me, then make an assessment in terms of those measures, then work out what to do about the findings.
Thanks for listening ;)