Storytime: Changing Seasons
Changing Seasons
Staring out at the world with the sun shining through this large window in our small living room is how I like to spend my free time. When I’m not working at the bank or running errands, I watch the flowers on the tree outside bloom and die, while neighbors walk by. Sometimes, they see me and wave, and as I wave back, I’m filled with a sense of community. In this apartment building, I have two neighbors; one is a nice older lady whom I rarely see while the other is a family with two parents and a single child. That child is a nightmare to us all, he works so hard at being a brat it is pretty amazing. I share my space with my roommate Sara who calls me Bee short for Beatrice and she is also a coworker but luckily, we work separate shifts. I work the day shifts and she works mid shifts, so we see enough of each other that we are friendly but not in each other’s face all the time. Five days a week, it is work and then home, but I don’t mind because there are always the tree and the people watching. I always have fun making up stories about the passersby like this older man, one of those that waves, maybe he could have been a spy or a circus performer. Or the young person running by could be starting a new job or preparing to move and they use running to help with the stress or anxiety. As the day darkens and Sara comes home, I do the same chores of cooking and cleaning then move onto watching YouTube while getting ready for the next day, yeah life is pretty perfect right now.
The next day I work my shift and although the stress of this job has been starting to get to me for a few months, I am friendly to customers and work efficiently. The end of the day comes, and I’m called into the office which is a pretty normal event as we all have weekly meetings with the manager. Though today it goes differently, FIRED. Fired?! This has to be a mistake! I can’t be fired from a job because of poor performance, Poor Performance? What that means, I have no idea, but it happened. I walk home as it starts a chilly mist, why does it have to be this cold? What am I going to do now, I guess my only option is to lie in bed forever…or do what Sara suggests, “I could get off my butt and do something useful, like finding a job!” A month passes of job searching and then another in my job quest as I sit in the living room on our shared computer. It’s winter after the holidays, and no one seems to be hiring since the holiday temps have secured the permanent jobs. Even though I was with that company for five years it does not seem to help, but I guess loyalty counts for nothing these days. As I start the search for another job while mindlessly listening to videos a random ad pops up. “Have you ever considered writing for a living?” Maybe when I was younger… “We all remember when we were young and full of ideas, but now we’re old and still full of ideas!” okay “Now’s the time to use those ideas, make money with a blog!” hmmm… “Don’t just hmmm at me and click the link to my channel…Wordguy to the rescue!” why not? Okay, let me start by watching these videos and seeing where they take me. A few hours later… wow all of this information and now to start the blog on the site. As I seemingly sit at the computer day in and day out, Sara has seemed a little resentful in my endeavor to write this blog and stop the job hunt. I have savings from the bank so it shouldn’t matter as long as my side of the rent is paid right? I worry though that this is just a hobby that I’m putting too many hopes into rather than having a stable job.
Soooo, Sara has started leaving notes at the computer and they say things like “I love that you have so much free time but if you could do the dishes today, that would be great!” I replied with a note of course, “Thank you for the reminder bestie, I hope you remember that you need to take out the garbage, ok thanx”. This goes on for a few months with notes such as
“My friend says the job opening was a favor and you should at least go to the interview, x Sara”
“I already told you that I’m a full-time blogger now and don’t have time for a full-time job x Bee”
“Blogs are great as a hobby, but full-time work is important for your well-being x Sara”
“my ‘well-being’ is alright thanx so don’t worry about me and worry about yourself x Bee”
Am I going to keep this up? What happens when I run out of savings? These are the major thoughts that keep popping in my head as I lie in the dark trying to sleep.
I don’t know which note specifically started the fight but none of them helped our petty situation. Needless to say, we hadn’t been talking to each other for a while before that day. Okay, so one day I was sitting at the computer writing another blog because keeping up is one of the important steps that Wordguy suggested. Then Sara walks in covered in something sticky “What happened to you?” I asked, with legitimate concern mind you, and she answers “That snotty neighbor kid got me again! With Jam this time!”. I may or may not have laughed at this and she may or may not have walked to her room angrily. The living situation was not ideal with our problems, but who could blame the neighbor kid. He has a spectacular ability to prank us all in very creative ways. There haven’t been many situations where returning home I have stepped on various toys or been soaked by a water balloon while trying to unlock the outside door. We have both laughed at these things because they were just silly problems that meant nothing.
This time was different; Sara walks back into the room and asks, “What is your problem?”
“My problem? You’re the one overreacting to jam.” I’m just sitting there surprised.
“Not the jam, why can’t you see that this blog is a bad idea?”
“It’s not a bad idea! I am making a lot of progress and starting to get ad money, it doesn’t affect you.”
“It does when someone asks about you and I have to say you are a ‘blogger’ whatever that means”
“In this day and age, blogging is more acceptable, and you should understand my choice!”
“How can you be okay with being a failure?” She seems even angrier than before. “Get a real job and stop wasting your life.”
“Okay ‘Mom’ well maybe you should stay out of my business,” I reply
“Fine, I will,” She says as she storms out of the room.
This fight reinforces the feelings I’ve been having, should I work through the guilt of being “jobless” or should this fuel me to work harder?
It was a doozy of a fight and since then we avoid each other; that was a few months ago. In those months I have busied myself with working on the blog like finding sponsors, keeping up with posting and comments. It takes a lot of my time, but I still make time to look out the window and watch the people go by. Since I am home more, I was able to go out and interact with the older guy that walks past every day. We talked for a bit and now we sometimes wave, and other times just yell compliments at each other across the street. Most of the time we just give the odd thumbs up or wave because life is busy, and time keeps going. Another gray day it looks like and the tree has lost all the leaves, winter is always the hardest season with all the darkness and cold. Working keeps me busy and the blog has started to gain readers with a good stable amount of money every month. So, I keep working and Sara keeps working, we avoid each other which adds to the moody season. After all this time, I keep wondering what I should do with my future since the present is pretty bleak. Living with someone I hardly know anymore, the brat neighbor kid, the darkness. The only thing that keeps me going is the tree and the older man, they keep surviving and thriving through the seasons' change. I have to keep going and understanding that the dark will end, and spring will be here soon to revive me.
One day Sara and I are sitting in the living room, it’s sunny and the first blooms of spring are on the tree. Spring is the best season
with its sun, rain, and allergies but it also gives the feeling of shedding off the negativity of Winter. I decide to break the silence that has become our normal by asking “Do you think I’m a failure?” this is a very volatile question, but I feel it must be asked. She replies, “I don’t know what to think because I don’t understand what you do.” Which makes sense for someone who has always been told to follow the traditional path of school, college then fantastic job. Even I don’t fully understand why I decided to postpone looking for a stable career and instead follow a difficult path. I guess being fired from a company that I gave my time and energy to had in a way betrayed me. I don’t expect loyalty from a corporation, but I had expected to get the job and work full-time until I retired and then I could have fun doing something like a blog. The conversation that I had with Sara after asking the question allowed me to put my feelings into words that we both would understand. Rather than another argument or fight, it gave us a new step in our relationship that was deeper than before. We had been superficial friends but until our fight, it didn’t seem that way. Now the blog is successful at least in a small way and I realize that this was the ‘right’ path, if there is a right path, for me to follow. I had things to say and people wanted to read about it, who knew?
Blogging has been a part of my life for almost a decade now and it has created some surprising learning opportunities. I have been able to move and travel because my work travels with me. The travelling has added interesting posts while giving me a purpose in life and success. At least my meaning of success which I have always struggled with because, what is success? And why have I always looked at success as monetary without a thought to happiness or goals. It was always success comes with age and it will lead to a happy end but working towards success means sacrifice. I sacrificed a stable career that would have meant growth in a different way and I would have sacrificed my friendship with Sara because of its lack of real meaning. Instead I have gained more than expected and only given up what was unnecessary like taxes, just kidding, more like giving up a permanent residence to be a nomadic blogger. The days are not always sunny, but they are less gray than they used to be, it is almost like fitting in less has made me more open to change.