Working from home
I'm a web/computer programmer who works at home half the time and on the site of a couple companies the rest of the time. I love being able to set my own schedule except times like this week. I REALLY didn't feel like working and now I've got to spend my whole weekend at it. Yuck =(
This week has been really draining for me.
I had a consistently neglected and sporadicly abused childhood and for the past maybe four years it's been my purpose in life to sort all that baggage out so I can live the life I want to live. Therapy, group therapy, lots of books. And it's been working great! I've become a different person than I could have immagined while bringing out pieces of me I thought I'd lost a long time ago.
It started out that I had to learn to live with myself which I've become really good at for the past couple years but I'm still sorting out how to incorporate people in. It used to be that I was very uneasy in crowds and would be very closed off. Then I progressed past the uneasiness but still not letting others in. I started out being skeptical when my therapist told me it was a tragedy that I'm a great people person conditioned into the life of a loner. That I'm good a connecting with people and being very empathetic. But maybe some of that's true.
For the past month or so all the pieces I've been working on have been coming together to move beyond my last big defenses. It used to be that when a stranger I found interesting would smile at me in public I felt threatened and I would turn away. Lately I've been smiling back. Like in my painting class last week. It was a new group of people and instead of just tuning everyone else out and being polite but keeping people at arm's length I let myself meet people and share my feelings on what they were painting and take in what they thought of what I was doing. And it feels natural... like this is exactly what I've been missing in life and that I'm fully capable of it. But... it's so threatening that I've felt stunned all week. I have crazy nightmares every time I shut my eyes, I can't concentrate, and here I am with allot of work to catch up on. Not at all suprising I've always retreated back into my safe but not very meaningful semi-isolation. I've been here many times but I've never stuck it out before because until now I've never understood it or had the energy and resources to make it through.
Now I do have what I need but just barely and I guess I'm going to be sleeping through the alarm, taking it easy, and filling up the dream journal for awhile. They say the only way out is through so I'm going to keep plowing through it.
At least it's a nice weekend to be stuck at home. Cicadas outside and some mellow MP3's in the background. Plus summer's here and I think I'll take a break to go out and catch some new fish for my aquarium out in the seagrass fields by the skyway around dusk. I'm letting my filefish go.. they keep eating everything else that's interesting. I might try a seahorse since there won't be anything else in there aggressive enough to get in the way of their eating.
I went to the Tampa Arts museum yesterday and it was okay. It suprises me sometimes how such a small space can take up such a large area. It's a weird place at night too. There's a kinda cool little amphitheater like something out of greece. It's sunken, maybe 20 feet tall. There's not much room on the bottom "stage" but it's an interesting space. I used used to go to with friends at night when we had nothing to do but it's suprising to sit down on a homeless person and find that the grounds are infested with rats. Yep, weird place. But, in the gift shop I found a book on a cool artist Yoshitomo Nara. I'm not sure if he's an "artist" or almost more of a cartoonist but I like him. He draws very stylized children and animals that are ultra cute but sometimes malevolent but still ultra cute. You definitely need to see it.
This week has been really draining for me.
I had a consistently neglected and sporadicly abused childhood and for the past maybe four years it's been my purpose in life to sort all that baggage out so I can live the life I want to live. Therapy, group therapy, lots of books. And it's been working great! I've become a different person than I could have immagined while bringing out pieces of me I thought I'd lost a long time ago.
It started out that I had to learn to live with myself which I've become really good at for the past couple years but I'm still sorting out how to incorporate people in. It used to be that I was very uneasy in crowds and would be very closed off. Then I progressed past the uneasiness but still not letting others in. I started out being skeptical when my therapist told me it was a tragedy that I'm a great people person conditioned into the life of a loner. That I'm good a connecting with people and being very empathetic. But maybe some of that's true.
For the past month or so all the pieces I've been working on have been coming together to move beyond my last big defenses. It used to be that when a stranger I found interesting would smile at me in public I felt threatened and I would turn away. Lately I've been smiling back. Like in my painting class last week. It was a new group of people and instead of just tuning everyone else out and being polite but keeping people at arm's length I let myself meet people and share my feelings on what they were painting and take in what they thought of what I was doing. And it feels natural... like this is exactly what I've been missing in life and that I'm fully capable of it. But... it's so threatening that I've felt stunned all week. I have crazy nightmares every time I shut my eyes, I can't concentrate, and here I am with allot of work to catch up on. Not at all suprising I've always retreated back into my safe but not very meaningful semi-isolation. I've been here many times but I've never stuck it out before because until now I've never understood it or had the energy and resources to make it through.
Now I do have what I need but just barely and I guess I'm going to be sleeping through the alarm, taking it easy, and filling up the dream journal for awhile. They say the only way out is through so I'm going to keep plowing through it.
At least it's a nice weekend to be stuck at home. Cicadas outside and some mellow MP3's in the background. Plus summer's here and I think I'll take a break to go out and catch some new fish for my aquarium out in the seagrass fields by the skyway around dusk. I'm letting my filefish go.. they keep eating everything else that's interesting. I might try a seahorse since there won't be anything else in there aggressive enough to get in the way of their eating.
I went to the Tampa Arts museum yesterday and it was okay. It suprises me sometimes how such a small space can take up such a large area. It's a weird place at night too. There's a kinda cool little amphitheater like something out of greece. It's sunken, maybe 20 feet tall. There's not much room on the bottom "stage" but it's an interesting space. I used used to go to with friends at night when we had nothing to do but it's suprising to sit down on a homeless person and find that the grounds are infested with rats. Yep, weird place. But, in the gift shop I found a book on a cool artist Yoshitomo Nara. I'm not sure if he's an "artist" or almost more of a cartoonist but I like him. He draws very stylized children and animals that are ultra cute but sometimes malevolent but still ultra cute. You definitely need to see it.