What a relief...

...to wake up in the morning in a stronger mood than last night.

Thank fuck for small mercies! Nothing else has changed though.

Most times when I've been battered down to my knees by life it's taken a combination of several simultaneous attacks on me. Life is too cruel to leave things to chance so, yesterday, for example:

• My mind was buzzing with a comment a customer made about over-40 year-olds being technologically inept. At the time I replied, "Wow, I'd better make the most of the next two years then LOL" but it did nudge the Sword of Damocles a little closer to my head;
• I resented working on a public holiday (the entire public sector in Ontario had the entire weekend off);
• I'd worked several days in a row at The Beach which, thanks to my ill fortune with dating, is now a district of Toronto I regard as (sometimes nauseatingly) ostentatious, and sinister;
• I was one dose behind on my meds;
• I'd just arranged a chat with an advisor at my bank which, strictly speaking, should be a positive thing - especially if I manage to secure a line of credit. However, yesterday all I could foresee was being judged by her, scolded by her, and generally having to defend myself because she neither understands nor believes in mental illness...much like my ex-wife and her entire family;
• Yesterday was the first day of 2010 it's been warm enough for me to wear flip-flops. Naturally then, when I left work the streetcar was just ahead of me and I needed to run for it, but couldn't. I remember thinking, "Well, that's what you get for trying to enjoy life. You're gonna have to wear combat boots for 12 months of the year, even when it's 30+ degrees, because otherwise life will ensure that there will ALWAYS be a reason why I have to run."

If you've been reading, paying attention, or caring at all then by now you'll recognise that 'all the above' is riddled with cognitive distortions. But, at the time, it was just too strong, and there were too many yesterday for me to be able to fight. They crushed me, dissuaded me, demotivated me, drained me. By 8.30pm I was in tears on the sofa, kittens in my arms. By 9.30pm I was in bed, crying myself to sleep, and rocking side-to-side the same way I used to before I hit my teens.

I just need a break. Just one break. In general, I feel like I have earned the right to sit back a bit, to cruise, to smell the roses. I'm 38 for fuck's sake! I went to uni late and had to fight to get in. I had to fight to change careers and get into PR. I had to fight to further my career vs people younger than me, with degrees from fancier universities than me. I had to fight the bureacratic inadequacies of both British AND Canadian governments in order to fight my way 3,500 miles across the Atlantic to Toronto. I had to fight for my reputation when I got here when employers bullshitted me, "Well, you won't be as effective as a Canadian PR professional because you don't know the Canadian media."

What rubbish.

In 1994, when I was 23 years old, I was afraid of scrapping my retail career and going back to university. I would have to start all over again. Circa 2006, 12 years later, I had just started to feel like I was getting somewhere in life - married, a homeowner, and successful at work with savings in the bank. My next steps were to become a father, diversify my financial portfolio, and change down a few gears from the breakneck speed my career development had been going at for the preceding decade. Then it all went to shit.

So yesterday I was feeling old. I felt as if my ex-wife had stolen away ten years of my life. Here I was, at 38, worse off, iller, and lonlier than I was 20 years before that. The ex got the house and the car because at the time of the divorce I was too ill to work and couldn't afford to buy her out of her share. I lost everything and barely made it out alive. I was at the point in my life when I SHOULD have been a Dad. I SHOULD have been settled. I SHOULD, finally, have become one of those nine-to-five people I used to hate at work, who always arrived no earlier than 9am and always left on the dot of five because their kids need collecting/dropping/taking to hockey/ballet/football/whatever. I've earned that right but it has ALL been taken away from me.

Life, sometimes, is like picking peanuts out of poo.

Back to square one...yet again...

It's not fair

Saying that I'm a man of principle is the nice way of describing it. Describing me as idealistic helps to explain why I have so little patience for malpractice - such as that incurred by some companies on a near-daily basis. When put under intense pressure though, or treated badly, that idealism quickly morphs into defiance.

Then I become a peculiar combination of things. The voice of everyone's conscience. Defender of the defenceless or downtrodden. Empowered by my perception of right and wrong to do whatever it takes to ensure the right result, regardless of whether it also happens to be the most profitable one or not.

My concept of "right" is a bit old-fashioned and eccentric. To me, "right" means that I actually BELIEVE AND UPHOLD the line, "In sickness and in health, until death do us part." Right does not include employees in the organisation I work for being reduced to tears or - worse - a hospital bed. "Right" is like communism but amongst a species that isn't too selfish to actually make it work - unlike humans. "Right" means that when I'm incapacitated through illness, my government says, "How can we help?", not, "You're not eligible." (Fuck me, even Americans get that now thanks to Obama). "Right" is when someone who tells you they love you isn't lying about their name, town, marital status, intentions, emotions, and pretty much everything else.

Now I hear the next-door neighbours will be gutting and rebuilding their house over the entire fucking summer of this year. The noise and mess will be so bad that the neighbours are actually moving into the apartment above the coffee shop around the corner until their new home is complete. My upstairs neighbours already gave their notice and will be in Thunder Bay by the time the work begins.

They didn't want to leave either.

So now, on top of everything else, that single scrap of stability in my life that I've fought for more than a year to get might be evaporated overnight with the signing of a single planning permit. If I have to move house, then I am seriously considering moving countries. I was willing to stick around when things looked like they might work out with Sarah but now I have no reason to stay. I have no property here, no family I haven't adopted, no career anymore thanks to a string of piss-poor employers, and no money of speak of. In fact the five biggest things Canada has given me are mountainbiking, exacerbated mental illness, divorce, near-bankruptcy, and near-death.

This weekend's been tough on me. And I can mountainbike anywhere on the planet.

I should probably sleep before I make a decision.

What day is it again?

It's Monday...probably.

I had my first shower in three days this morning. I've been so busy with additional work hours that while my second move went like a military operation, I still haven't had time to unpack and move in properly, let alone get to the store to buy a shower curtain...until yesterday that is. "Moving in properly," also includes things like finishing unpacking to the extent that I can walk from one side of the room to the other without having to walk on the bed. It would include NOT running out of medication, which happened the day before yesterday so I'm typing, from work, in withdrawal or "discontinuation syndrome" as my shrink calls it. It would include being able to find something, or anything in my home. It would include having fresh groceries in the fridge. It would include ordering internet access in advance and after thorough research rather than just ordering Rogers for two days from now.

If I sound a little peeved it's because I've been struggling to scrunch everything in around work. Since starting, my hours have been increased and whilst I seem to be doing quite well, when the thought of asking for a day off crosses my mind I suddenly feel like Oliver Twist, asking for more. I even organised both moves to happen on my day off. Yesterday I had to beg for half an hour during the time the store was open so I could get to the hardware shop across the road. I struggled back with a mailbox, grounding cable for the mixer, sponge and squeegee for the windows, bathmat, shower curtain, doormat, light bulbs, dusters, door wedges, surge protectors, plus more I can't even remember. This will all pass I'm sure, once I can get everything organised. I just have to hang on for today and tomorrow and then I get two days off on the trot so hopefully I can get caught up. It's really pissing me off though. My place is a mess, and not being able to lay my hands on things whenever I need them is driving me nuts.

I'm too tired to relish the place at the moment, although it is still nice to come home and not have to worry about working around someone else and their own schedule.

More updates will follow when I finally get web access at home.