December 30, 2005
Mahalo, Aloha Joe
The Gleaming Shores Hilo Bay Big Island
I made a discovery at work that may have saved my sanity... and I feel like I am losing it...
I am somewhat adrift. At the end of my fifth week at my job is feel like I am a million miles away from what I love. I miss being at home terribly, envious and angry at Woody for his joy in domesticity. I try not to let it show, not even a little... Woody says he sees how mean he was to me, when I found myself too ill to work and home in bed, right after we were married. He thought that we should some how be "even partners". I never understood this since he wasn't working until just a few weeks before we went to the altar. Within three months the whole situation changed and it made him angry.
I saw it as a righting of a imbalance and a terrible wrong. He was now the Breadwinner and the head of the house. I was the stay at home wife and did not shurk my duty even if it exhausted me... I would drag myself up to clean our house and make his dinner, only to have him not eat it and go to mc Donalds and bring that home. Our first few years were just a bigger picture of those moments. It was horrible Now that things have come around full circle, and he is not working, not trying to find work, Im so mad at him. I feel like I have been betrayed...
The truth is I am a traditionalist... All I ever wanted to be was a wife and mother. I know that I sound like a big whiner, but how do you live with this? I am questioning Gods will, because I know that nothing that happens to me is outside of His control, but why am I suddenly the Breadwinner in a role I detest for myself. I feel like I am constantly being forced to be something that I am not.
Work has been uniquely difficult in that I am not permanently assigned to to the desk I am working so the people I am working with have no reason to invest in me at all. Who will decide if I am doing well or not, or where will I go. I had a VP visit my desk today and I shared with him that I am concerned that I have no position, I am a temp... I thought that I was a permanent hire and he said that I am, but I am going to be "floating" for a while... I don't know what the criteria is to not float... I found out that that two of the four people that started with me quit already because of this lack of security...
I wont quit, but I feel this rising level of anxiety...Coupled with the anger it is really overwhelming.
"This is what I gave my Hawaii up for..." "This is what I gave up my store and my dreams for..." I feel these thoughts pushing into my head all of the time.
This is a pretty "free" company... As far as policy goes. One of the things they allow is for everyone to play what ever music they want at their desk. The guy across the way was cranking up the metal last week when I complained about it. So I checked my CPU and sure enough, I have a sound card. So I plugged some speakers in and I called up my buddy,
Aloha Joe. Having the sound of the Hawaiian language in my ears is a soothing balm to my aching heart. It helps me to smile and takes me back to a place that while I struggled at least I knew my place. Right now I don't know where I belong.
Mahalo Aloha Joe
