Cold Death Everyday is how I imagine a windowless office job. I had a taste of it today. Here's what had to come out of me to purge myself of the dread:

"I just left hell. It was in a big brownstone building. One Gojo Place, Akron, Ohio. I parked on the lowest level of the deck, and walked in just my suit jacket against a stiff cold wind up one level through a square cement tunnel to reach protection from the elements. I should have worn a coat.

Inside the building, through the revolving glass door, I took the elevator to the second floor. I was only allowed to the second floor per my plastic card pass. I came out of the elevator into a world of white marble walls and pristine glass doors. My heels clicked on the floor, Click Clack, Click Clack. My bare toes struggled against the confines of my narrow dress shoes.

Accountemps thick blue carpet portrayed a slight sense of warmth contrasting the minimalist upscale atmosphere.

Where do these people hang their coats, or wipe their feet? Where are the coffee cups, the counter sprinkled with sugar spilled from the last person to sweeten their cup of joe? Where is REALITY?

I filled out a thick stack of papers portraying my spotty work history and took three skill evaluations at a computer in the computer bank. The bank consisted of a small room lined with cubicles in which only a monitor, a keyboard, and a small white pad of paper sat on each desk. The flourescent lights overhead are the opposite of comfort. They screamed at me, "Faster! Produce! The masses are waiting! Turn little cog, turn!" I am bored already with the endless stream of numbers spilling from the fingers on my right hand. Do people really exist on this diet of mundane repitition?

I bombed the test for knowing Accounting Clerk office terms. It's been so long since I worked in SBU's small dirty construction office filling out invoices, and answering phone calls, that I'd forgotten a lot.

I have never had a factory worker mentality. I have always been allowed to dream.

The computer prints my final data. I am graded Average on my Excel and Accounting Clerk abilities. I sign a few more papers saying that I will pay the government part of my wages. I will pay out for the misery of this soulless work?

Finally, I am ushered to a room crowded with a table and 3 small chairs. I am told to sit and wait. Someone will meet with me soon. A thick man in a dark suit with dark hair comes in. He uses phrases like, "Alright!", Good Deal!", and "We'll be in touch!" These are office lingo for "We're done here. Get out, and let me get back to my facebook page." He reeked of old office mentality. I could almost hear his thoughts. "I put in my 8 hours repeating the same information to different people everyday, and that is how I spend most of my life. I am a robot."

I am reminded of the satirical picture of an army of skeletons in suits I came across on facebook the other day. All of the skeletons quote monotonously and in harmony, "I am Free. I am Free." A row of black suits in front of a second row, against a 3rd row, and another, and another. We the People, ARE those skeletons. We are shadows of who we could be. We are the products of this society. By which I mean, we are manufactured. Have you ever really thought about the two words, Human Resources?



I have been looking at the world from a distant point of view for so long that I find that I do not want to be present here. I refuse to become a clone embalmed in one of these white marble and glass sepulchres.

Yet, I need an income. Whatever will I do?

So maybe I am silly, unrealistic, immature, etc...

"The main thing that keeps popping into my head is to sit with yourself with no distractions and really ask yourself what it is you would love to be doing if money was no barrier. What is your dream? It doesn’t have to be some big elaborate thing. Then, write it down exactly as you want it to be. Write it like it is already here, already happening. Read it once a day, and then lay it in a place that nobody else disturbs. I put mine on an altar where I meditate. I did this, and within 2 months I had exactly what I wrote. So, don’t try to figure out how you will get it, just “put it out there” and let it be. But, keep your ears and eyes open for opportunities. Don’t ignore anything, even if it doesn’t look like an opportunity. Keep listening to your heart, and ignoring what people are telling you you “should” do. Maybe you will have to take a job until something else works out, but maybe not. I wouldn’t worry about the student loans right now. Tell yourself that all is working exactly as it should be. (assuming you aren’t ignoring things that really need to be done).

I believe the reason you are feeling down is because you don’t want to be in the workplace doing something that doesn’t feed you. Keep thinking outside the box. It doesn’t have to look like an ordinary situation.
Hope this helps a bit. Let me know if you want to talk more or brainstorm.

Much love to you,

Amie J"

What's above is what a new friend wrote to me after I emailed her on her 'Overcoming Depression' website. Below is my reply.

I printed out what you wrote and I am going to begin brainstorming to try to come up with what I "really want to do". The only thing that keeps popping into my head is FREEDOM! I want to write for money, I want to cook, bake, clean, be with my kids, and create pastry art for money... I want a variety of ways for money to come to me through doing things that I enjoy. Society tells me that such a "Jill of all Trades" isn't a job, and won't bring in enough income... I want society to be wrong... but am I being unrealistic? I have a few weeks to find out.

Still Dreaming.....

On becoming an author...on becoming Self Employed!!

I have just realized that one of my favorite ways to write is also a way that just seems to flow from my mind through my pen... journaling, or first person perspective, or writing in the first person... is a specialty of mine.
What's to say that I can't get paid for writing from the first person perspective?
My first thought was a "Diary" series.. like, the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" books... or some such.
I am determined to be self employed. That is my goal. to be free. to excercise my freedom in the realm of supporting myself. I will be Self Employed. Maybe I will be a Jill of many trades... Maybe I will be a traveling RN? maybe I will work two 12's a week, and write on the side... or do pastry art on the side?
Maybe I will work out with the Hollow Creek Cafe, a weekend deal? something where I sell pastries on the weekends? or I do a pastry class? something to draw people in? While not working a traditional job, I should have the time to come up with ideas like this!

I have to help.

I have to help the young people who need so desperately to be loved for who they are, and know that who they are is not as accepted in this country as it should be. They know that its widely accepted in certain little groups, not so wildly accepted in other groups, and possibly downright unaccepted in their hometown, their school, and possibly, their very homes.
I need to do something about this. I want to create a self sustaining supportive group of people who accept anyone for who they are. Not just 'because they are gay', but because we want to treat others as we ourselves want to be treated. I want to start a Gay Straight Alliance, whose subscript motto is "nerd/jock alliance, cheerleader/bookworm alliance, etc.." You get the picture.
I want to make a pamphlet or a sign on the door that says, "Leave your predjudices and your judgements at the door. Ok. Now come on in!"
More to come soon...

glad to view the Process....

I just read over my posts from the last year. The place I am in was inevitable. I cannot stop the real me from coming out. No pun intended. It's like giving birth. You just cannot go back once you have grown up.
Yes, it makes me sad that I cannot homeschool my kids right now. But I cannot change that at this point. And I am working towards my goal of having a better job, and one that I can take more than 2 days off per week.
I am doing the best that I can. That's what I need to focus on.

Critical

Many are critical of my choices. My main concern should be that I not be critical of myself. There is no 'right' way. There is only the way that I choose, and the ways that I do not choose. There is only the here and now, and simultaneously, there is the future I plan for, and the past I struggle to learn from.
I am who I am, and simultaneously, I am who I want to become.
Life is so fluid, and so multi-layered and leveled, it's not just about whose shoes I've walked in. There are too many variables. No two lives are the same. So why worry about what another thinks of my choices? Do I really think that they know better than I do about the many varied nuances of my life, my character, my situation, my pros/cons?
Or can they only look through their lens? It's just not practical to think that someone else can decide for me what to do with my life. I am the only me. No one else can actually walk in my shoes. No one's feet fit so perfectly in them as mine.
Releasing the grip on my chest, the crushing weight of my need for others' approval. Like a fist loosening its grip, stiffly, slowly at first, flexing, stretching, practicing my freedom. Less Critical. More Forgiving. This is what I choose.

Sometimes I wonder...

Sometimes I wonder why things happen the way they do... sometimes I cry inside for what never was... sometimes I cry outside for what I couldn't accomplish. Tears and Time wash away the sharpest edges of the pain, and Love tells me that I'm allowed to be happy. And I am. So Happy.
I'm proud to be honest, proud to be Out. In love with my woman.

Who Says?

Who Says?
by Michelle Schooling on Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 3:21am

Who says that love has to be traditional?

who says that I have to be someone I am not?

What authority puts me in my place?

Who says what place I should be in?



Who writes the story of my life?

Who defines happpiness as one size fits all?

I'm not wearing someone else's life.

I'm not happy in someone else's dreams...



I am who I am.

I am true to my own self.

Who says I am selfish for loving myself?

Isn't that what life is about?



Don't you want your children to love themselves?

I do.

I want my kids to love themselves so that I know

they will be taken care of.



I say what makes me happy.

I say who I am.

I make my own happiness.

I say. That's who says.