STUCK
I stare at a blank page, looking for words to appear. But nothing happens. I can hear their voices. Characters screaming for recognition. Begging me to write the first words that will become their testament. But my pencil doesn’t move.
That’s how it’s been for the last few days. Nothing. A reflection of how I feel inside. A couple of weeks ago, I became uncomfortably secure knowing, or believing, that depression is my natural state of being, and happiness was something I didn’t experience all that often. And I liked it. I could feel it building walls around me, becoming my sanctuary. It’s not a bad way to be, it’s actually quite soothing. In essence, you’re dead. Nothing really affects you. Nothing gets through; you just go about your day with life’s volume turned all the way down. You spend hours staring at a computer or television. You kill time playing video games where you kill people. Or you go for a walk and watch everyone else living life. You’re the invisible man, walking between the cracks in other people’s awareness. That’s the scary thing, actually. You begin to notice just how little people pay attention to things, especially other people. You begin understanding how serial killers find their victims. How someone could kill their entire family and no one notice, not even when the carcasses stink up the entire neighborhood in the middle of a summer heat wave. How little people care. And that ignorance and lack of compassion fuels you to continue diving deeper in inside yourself until you’re so far gone you can’t find your way back.
Of course, the one problem with this is having a family. It’s hard to die or be sad about anything when a five year old is jumping on you because she wants to play house or something. And your wife, she sees you, sits next to you, puts her head on your shoulder, and give you that look that makes you feel like a God among men. She’s the only one who can make you feel that way, like you’re not a slug sizzling under a mound of salt. It’s hard to hate yourself when you’re surrounded by love. Thankfully, it doesn’t last long, and soon enough you’re right back where you belong. At work, and in hell. Where no one gives a damn and you can wallow in peace.
Everyone has a dream, but few have the strength and determination to follow it. Those that do may never achieve their goals, because the chase is more exciting than the achievement. It’s taken ten years for me to get here. Ten years of fears and self-doubts. Ten years of screaming, crying, and disappointment. But after ten long years, I’m finally within arms length of publishing my first book. And I’m not so happy about it. Because, once it’s over, what’s next? Where do I go from here? Oh yes, write another book. Easier said than done. And where will I get the money to produce another book? I can’t go to my father with my hand out again. And for all I know, I’m probably exhausting whatever inheritance I may have had. The more I move forward, the more I look back at those four boys who all would go their separate ways. I remember how we came together, first as Gothic Studios and then as DMS. I remember the first year after I got married, I had no job and working temp was so consistent that I could take a week off between assignments. I was making more money than I had previously, and every new job upped the ante. My wife was working late afternoon to evenings, so I had all day to hang with my other unemployed friend, The Actor. We’d hang out at his place, watching television and talking about our big plan in comics that would make us rich. At the time, Actor was an illustrator and we were working together in Gothic Studios. He had a vampire story and I worked with Bloody Pencil, another member of the studio. We would all meet on Saturdays, but during the week, when the others were working, Actor and I would drive around LA or just chill, talk, and dream. I miss that time. I miss the time I had just a couple of years ago, when I worked in the clinic as a Scheduler. All I did was answer phones and schedule patients. I came in a 7:30am and left at 4pm, and I loved it. But, I didn’t know it at the time.
How did I end up here? Well, in hindsight, it’s pretty stupid. It’s a parable I could tell my kids one day when I’m preaching against the evils of greed, or not appreciating what you have until it’s gone. I live my life by certain rules. And the reason why I have rules is because whenever I go against them, I’m screwed. Well, one of those rules would have protected me, had I listened.
For years now, I’ve been caught in a conundrum. That being, I’m a writer trying to establish myself at a time when I have a family to support. If I were smarter, I would have established myself first, and then had a family. But as my GPA and poor grammar will prove, I’m not that smart. So, I had to work the grind, support the family, and try to make a career for myself. One rule I had that would make all this possible was simply not to get too involved in whatever work I was doing. Keep my job simple. Stick to being a peon. Sure, I wouldn’t get a lot of money, but anyone in the working world knows that longevity is a moneymaker. I could stick to doing my job, something not too complicated or stressful, and the money would flow in the long run. The point was, with less responsibility, I’d have less stress, and more ability to do what I had to, which is writing. That worked well for a number of years, until I one day I started to care. I started to care about my job. I started to car about my coworkers. I started to care whether my work was being appreciated. And, I started to care about the money. This happened around the same time my daughter was born and followed by my weight loss. I started to see myself as having value. Too much value, and it was soon afterwards that I started to complain about how things were running in the clinic. I started voicing my opinions and making suggestions to the manager. Soon, I became a blip on someone’s radar. And, when a position opened up, one that was higher in status and salary, my name was mentioned.
All I saw were dollar signs.
More money, and the possibility for even more money later on. And, something very important happened. Something I’d forgotten until yesterday, when I met with employee counselor to ask for help and I recounted the story. I’d forgotten that I had met with my old boss about the promotion, and she was selling this new job to me, about how great it would be, a “real opportunity for growth”. I remember she mentioned my writing at one point, because I’d always made it known that this was a pit stop for me, and she said she knew I was pushing to get my writing out there, but that I had to start considering something else. Basically, I had to stop fucking around with this writing bullshit and find a fucking career. And she was handing one right in my lap, no degree required. And for some insane reason, I agreed with her. I wouldn’t give up writing, but for the first time I entertained the thought of having a safety net. A second career opportunity that could payoff in two years vs. the seven or eight years I’d burnt with DMS and still had nothing to show. Sure, I wasn’t qualified. Sure, I was breaking my own rule. But I didn’t care. I’d gotten cocky. Everyone was still patting me on the back for losing all that weight, so I thought I could do anything. I was wrong. The first thing to make me uneasy was signing away my paychecks in the case I get fired. See, here, if we get laid off the hospital continues to pay us based on the number of years we’ve been employed. So, if you worked for five years and get laid off, you get five “free” paychecks. But, since this new job is funded on grant money, I had to give that up. I’m not the only one who had to do it, but I still feel stupid for giving up that safety net. I remember when I signed it; something in my gut told me I was making a mistake.
Why is it we only pay attention to that little voice after we get in trouble?
Next, I knew I was in trouble when I went to my first team meeting and had no idea what was going on. And I still don’t have a clue, because I know very little about medical terminology, and that was a requirement. One that was overlooked, so I could get in. Then, there was the training, or lack thereof. My boss held herself in such high esteem as the “master trainer”, that I felt certain I could do the job after her training courses. In fact, she told me it would happen. I would become a “Super CRA” and pharmaceutical companies would knock down my door and throw money my way. Well, if you were to string all the training days together, it wouldn’t even equal a week. My new boss left another trainee and I twiddling our thumbs, so I spent most the time writing my book. Before I was ready, or even close to ready, I was assigned protocols. Then, word starts to leak to me, about my old job being eliminated and how other more qualified applicants were overlooked. And some of them are my coworkers, and they know they’re more qualified than I am, but were told they weren’t qualified enough. The whole thing stunk and they knew it. Worse, I knew it. And my knowing that they knew made me withdrew into my cubicle for the next two years. I still don’t go outside, unless it’s to smoke. I avoid people at all cost, and since then, I’ve been plagued by paranoia on a level that even scares me. Always wondering if someone is talking behind my back, and wondering what they’re saying about me.
And that’s how I ended up here. Now, I’m stuck. It seems every time I find a way out, I’m stuck right back where I started. Right fucking here. I tried to transfer out, something that was more like my last job. But, the powers sat on their assess until new management took over. And then, that manager left, and now we have no supervision and I was ordered to assist a coworker with her protocols that are harder than the ones I had before, in a program I have no knowledge of. And no one cares. No one cares that I don’t know what I’m doing. No one cares that I’m unhappy. No one even asked me what I want to do. I’ve been trying to transfer out of this department, but the week I was to meet with my old boss, I got the stomach flu. I missed the meeting and she hasn’t written me back to reschedule, even though I’ve written her twice. Two months ago, I started applying for other jobs here, trying to get out of the division and start fresh, but no luck there. My applications haven’t moved. And the head of HR who’s looking into the delay just had a death in the family, so she’s out until next week. And who knows if any of those jobs will come through. Not to mention contending with my own fears that lightening will strike twice, and I’ll be in a situation I could have avoided by just staying put.
I wish I were back working with my father in his restaurant, doing what I hated to do, and being a host and cashier. What I really wanted was to hang in the kitchen washing dishes, so I could listen to the cook and bus boys talking shit.
I wish I were back at L. Medical Center, filing charts all day long.
I wish I were still temping, bouncing from one job to the next. It never mattered how I worked because I was never there long enough. And no one wanted to train me because it was too time consuming to put forth the effort. So, I’d get paid twelve dollars an hour to cut paper or answer phones. I was making fourteen an hour when I came to the hospital as a temp, and had to take a decrease when they hired me, all because I had a kid to support. My Daughter. She wasn’t even a year old.
I wish I were back in the clinic, answering phones and scheduling patients. At four every day, as the last of the patients rolled through, things would loosen up and we’d start having some fun, cracking jokes and having intense conversation. God, I miss that job. I never thought I would. I hated it so much when I was there. But I miss it now.
I wish…
I wish I were at home with my wife and kids. I spent two days with them, and even though I was sick with the stomach flu, it was great being there. I don’t care if I write or not, I just want to be near them.
I can wish for a lot of thing, but they won’t happen.
So to save myself that feeling of despair, I shut myself down and cut myself off. I do what I have to and interact a little, but that’s all. That’s no way to live, but it’s better than the alternative. Feeling afraid every day, in pain, regretful, angry, irritated and annoyed. The paranoia is the worst thing. Always feeling like I’m being watched or talked about. The employee counselor suggested that I might be suffering from an imbalance brought on by aging. She wants me to have a complete physical and mental check-up. Great. I go to my employee rep. looking for a solution to my crappy job and she suggests I’m crazy.
Another eight hours is about to fly by and I haven’t done a damn thing. I’m not working. I’m not writing. I just exist. Or rather, I’m trying not to exist.
So I keep staring at the blank age in front of me, holding the pencil in one hand, and moving the lead across the page haphazardly. And what came out is what you've spent the last few minutes reading, which begs me to ask if you're any more pathetic for reading this than I am for writing it. But this isn't what I want to write. It doesn't sedate the voices in my head that are screaming for release. But this is what happens when I get writer's block. It's not about having no ideas. It's about being so obbssessed with myself that I can't focus on the lives of characters I need to create. And that obssession becomes depression. And that depression is all consuming. And that is when I most feel like God.
This is my life, and I’m dying between the commercial breaks.
JPG.
That’s how it’s been for the last few days. Nothing. A reflection of how I feel inside. A couple of weeks ago, I became uncomfortably secure knowing, or believing, that depression is my natural state of being, and happiness was something I didn’t experience all that often. And I liked it. I could feel it building walls around me, becoming my sanctuary. It’s not a bad way to be, it’s actually quite soothing. In essence, you’re dead. Nothing really affects you. Nothing gets through; you just go about your day with life’s volume turned all the way down. You spend hours staring at a computer or television. You kill time playing video games where you kill people. Or you go for a walk and watch everyone else living life. You’re the invisible man, walking between the cracks in other people’s awareness. That’s the scary thing, actually. You begin to notice just how little people pay attention to things, especially other people. You begin understanding how serial killers find their victims. How someone could kill their entire family and no one notice, not even when the carcasses stink up the entire neighborhood in the middle of a summer heat wave. How little people care. And that ignorance and lack of compassion fuels you to continue diving deeper in inside yourself until you’re so far gone you can’t find your way back.
Of course, the one problem with this is having a family. It’s hard to die or be sad about anything when a five year old is jumping on you because she wants to play house or something. And your wife, she sees you, sits next to you, puts her head on your shoulder, and give you that look that makes you feel like a God among men. She’s the only one who can make you feel that way, like you’re not a slug sizzling under a mound of salt. It’s hard to hate yourself when you’re surrounded by love. Thankfully, it doesn’t last long, and soon enough you’re right back where you belong. At work, and in hell. Where no one gives a damn and you can wallow in peace.
Everyone has a dream, but few have the strength and determination to follow it. Those that do may never achieve their goals, because the chase is more exciting than the achievement. It’s taken ten years for me to get here. Ten years of fears and self-doubts. Ten years of screaming, crying, and disappointment. But after ten long years, I’m finally within arms length of publishing my first book. And I’m not so happy about it. Because, once it’s over, what’s next? Where do I go from here? Oh yes, write another book. Easier said than done. And where will I get the money to produce another book? I can’t go to my father with my hand out again. And for all I know, I’m probably exhausting whatever inheritance I may have had. The more I move forward, the more I look back at those four boys who all would go their separate ways. I remember how we came together, first as Gothic Studios and then as DMS. I remember the first year after I got married, I had no job and working temp was so consistent that I could take a week off between assignments. I was making more money than I had previously, and every new job upped the ante. My wife was working late afternoon to evenings, so I had all day to hang with my other unemployed friend, The Actor. We’d hang out at his place, watching television and talking about our big plan in comics that would make us rich. At the time, Actor was an illustrator and we were working together in Gothic Studios. He had a vampire story and I worked with Bloody Pencil, another member of the studio. We would all meet on Saturdays, but during the week, when the others were working, Actor and I would drive around LA or just chill, talk, and dream. I miss that time. I miss the time I had just a couple of years ago, when I worked in the clinic as a Scheduler. All I did was answer phones and schedule patients. I came in a 7:30am and left at 4pm, and I loved it. But, I didn’t know it at the time.
How did I end up here? Well, in hindsight, it’s pretty stupid. It’s a parable I could tell my kids one day when I’m preaching against the evils of greed, or not appreciating what you have until it’s gone. I live my life by certain rules. And the reason why I have rules is because whenever I go against them, I’m screwed. Well, one of those rules would have protected me, had I listened.
For years now, I’ve been caught in a conundrum. That being, I’m a writer trying to establish myself at a time when I have a family to support. If I were smarter, I would have established myself first, and then had a family. But as my GPA and poor grammar will prove, I’m not that smart. So, I had to work the grind, support the family, and try to make a career for myself. One rule I had that would make all this possible was simply not to get too involved in whatever work I was doing. Keep my job simple. Stick to being a peon. Sure, I wouldn’t get a lot of money, but anyone in the working world knows that longevity is a moneymaker. I could stick to doing my job, something not too complicated or stressful, and the money would flow in the long run. The point was, with less responsibility, I’d have less stress, and more ability to do what I had to, which is writing. That worked well for a number of years, until I one day I started to care. I started to care about my job. I started to car about my coworkers. I started to care whether my work was being appreciated. And, I started to care about the money. This happened around the same time my daughter was born and followed by my weight loss. I started to see myself as having value. Too much value, and it was soon afterwards that I started to complain about how things were running in the clinic. I started voicing my opinions and making suggestions to the manager. Soon, I became a blip on someone’s radar. And, when a position opened up, one that was higher in status and salary, my name was mentioned.
All I saw were dollar signs.
More money, and the possibility for even more money later on. And, something very important happened. Something I’d forgotten until yesterday, when I met with employee counselor to ask for help and I recounted the story. I’d forgotten that I had met with my old boss about the promotion, and she was selling this new job to me, about how great it would be, a “real opportunity for growth”. I remember she mentioned my writing at one point, because I’d always made it known that this was a pit stop for me, and she said she knew I was pushing to get my writing out there, but that I had to start considering something else. Basically, I had to stop fucking around with this writing bullshit and find a fucking career. And she was handing one right in my lap, no degree required. And for some insane reason, I agreed with her. I wouldn’t give up writing, but for the first time I entertained the thought of having a safety net. A second career opportunity that could payoff in two years vs. the seven or eight years I’d burnt with DMS and still had nothing to show. Sure, I wasn’t qualified. Sure, I was breaking my own rule. But I didn’t care. I’d gotten cocky. Everyone was still patting me on the back for losing all that weight, so I thought I could do anything. I was wrong. The first thing to make me uneasy was signing away my paychecks in the case I get fired. See, here, if we get laid off the hospital continues to pay us based on the number of years we’ve been employed. So, if you worked for five years and get laid off, you get five “free” paychecks. But, since this new job is funded on grant money, I had to give that up. I’m not the only one who had to do it, but I still feel stupid for giving up that safety net. I remember when I signed it; something in my gut told me I was making a mistake.
Why is it we only pay attention to that little voice after we get in trouble?
Next, I knew I was in trouble when I went to my first team meeting and had no idea what was going on. And I still don’t have a clue, because I know very little about medical terminology, and that was a requirement. One that was overlooked, so I could get in. Then, there was the training, or lack thereof. My boss held herself in such high esteem as the “master trainer”, that I felt certain I could do the job after her training courses. In fact, she told me it would happen. I would become a “Super CRA” and pharmaceutical companies would knock down my door and throw money my way. Well, if you were to string all the training days together, it wouldn’t even equal a week. My new boss left another trainee and I twiddling our thumbs, so I spent most the time writing my book. Before I was ready, or even close to ready, I was assigned protocols. Then, word starts to leak to me, about my old job being eliminated and how other more qualified applicants were overlooked. And some of them are my coworkers, and they know they’re more qualified than I am, but were told they weren’t qualified enough. The whole thing stunk and they knew it. Worse, I knew it. And my knowing that they knew made me withdrew into my cubicle for the next two years. I still don’t go outside, unless it’s to smoke. I avoid people at all cost, and since then, I’ve been plagued by paranoia on a level that even scares me. Always wondering if someone is talking behind my back, and wondering what they’re saying about me.
And that’s how I ended up here. Now, I’m stuck. It seems every time I find a way out, I’m stuck right back where I started. Right fucking here. I tried to transfer out, something that was more like my last job. But, the powers sat on their assess until new management took over. And then, that manager left, and now we have no supervision and I was ordered to assist a coworker with her protocols that are harder than the ones I had before, in a program I have no knowledge of. And no one cares. No one cares that I don’t know what I’m doing. No one cares that I’m unhappy. No one even asked me what I want to do. I’ve been trying to transfer out of this department, but the week I was to meet with my old boss, I got the stomach flu. I missed the meeting and she hasn’t written me back to reschedule, even though I’ve written her twice. Two months ago, I started applying for other jobs here, trying to get out of the division and start fresh, but no luck there. My applications haven’t moved. And the head of HR who’s looking into the delay just had a death in the family, so she’s out until next week. And who knows if any of those jobs will come through. Not to mention contending with my own fears that lightening will strike twice, and I’ll be in a situation I could have avoided by just staying put.
I wish I were back working with my father in his restaurant, doing what I hated to do, and being a host and cashier. What I really wanted was to hang in the kitchen washing dishes, so I could listen to the cook and bus boys talking shit.
I wish I were back at L. Medical Center, filing charts all day long.
I wish I were still temping, bouncing from one job to the next. It never mattered how I worked because I was never there long enough. And no one wanted to train me because it was too time consuming to put forth the effort. So, I’d get paid twelve dollars an hour to cut paper or answer phones. I was making fourteen an hour when I came to the hospital as a temp, and had to take a decrease when they hired me, all because I had a kid to support. My Daughter. She wasn’t even a year old.
I wish I were back in the clinic, answering phones and scheduling patients. At four every day, as the last of the patients rolled through, things would loosen up and we’d start having some fun, cracking jokes and having intense conversation. God, I miss that job. I never thought I would. I hated it so much when I was there. But I miss it now.
I wish…
I wish I were at home with my wife and kids. I spent two days with them, and even though I was sick with the stomach flu, it was great being there. I don’t care if I write or not, I just want to be near them.
I can wish for a lot of thing, but they won’t happen.
So to save myself that feeling of despair, I shut myself down and cut myself off. I do what I have to and interact a little, but that’s all. That’s no way to live, but it’s better than the alternative. Feeling afraid every day, in pain, regretful, angry, irritated and annoyed. The paranoia is the worst thing. Always feeling like I’m being watched or talked about. The employee counselor suggested that I might be suffering from an imbalance brought on by aging. She wants me to have a complete physical and mental check-up. Great. I go to my employee rep. looking for a solution to my crappy job and she suggests I’m crazy.
Another eight hours is about to fly by and I haven’t done a damn thing. I’m not working. I’m not writing. I just exist. Or rather, I’m trying not to exist.
So I keep staring at the blank age in front of me, holding the pencil in one hand, and moving the lead across the page haphazardly. And what came out is what you've spent the last few minutes reading, which begs me to ask if you're any more pathetic for reading this than I am for writing it. But this isn't what I want to write. It doesn't sedate the voices in my head that are screaming for release. But this is what happens when I get writer's block. It's not about having no ideas. It's about being so obbssessed with myself that I can't focus on the lives of characters I need to create. And that obssession becomes depression. And that depression is all consuming. And that is when I most feel like God.
This is my life, and I’m dying between the commercial breaks.
JPG.
posted by QABBAL at 2:56 PM
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