22nd post…………….wow, it’s been a long time.

I started taking medicine for my anger, fear, and depression earlier this year and it’s made a huge difference in my mood and my life. I had a great end of the school year in the spring, an excellent summer vacation, and was very happy and optimistic about the upcoming fall semester. 

Mrs. Pie was scheduled for a surgery two weeks ago. A simple procedure. It went bad. 

Complications and the fact that the situation that caused the surgery in the first place ended up being worse than originally thought, for a couple of hours her life was in danger. 

I immediately crashed. 

For two hours, I was in hell. I didn’t know if my wife was going to live or not.

She did pull through, after they had to remove a large portion of her stomach and intestines, and much of the muscle tissue in her abdomen. Instead of a small outpatient surgery, she wa snot looking at an extended hospital stay. Four days later, she was well enou to go home to rest and not need round the clock supervision. She was home for a day, then she couldn’t breathe.

Back to the hospital. 

For the second time in a week, my wife’s life was in danger. For the second time in a week, I was in hell.

The diagnosis took half a day to discover – multiple small pulmonary embolisms.

This was not good. The treatment for the embolisms is blood thinner, but she was only a week removed from major surgery. Blood thinners could cause major problems at the surgical sites. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of a choice. She had to chance the blood thinners. The embolisms were the more prominent risk. 

Another extended hospital stay. 

She pulled through, again. Mrs. Pie is amazing.

Unfortunately, this hectic and stressful hospital schedule, coupled with our upcoming home sale and move, wrecked my schedule and I started taking my Prozac at irregular times. Because of that, I’ve felt the anger, fear, and anxiety seeping back into my life. 

Now that things are going back to normal, I’m taking my meds at the regular times, but I think the irregular schedule meant they lost their effect. It will take about two weeks for them to start working again, but until then, I may be susceptible to a relapse of anger, fear and stress that will test my resolve. 

I find myself scared to go back to work. All sorts of negative scenarios are constantly playing through my head about how bad things will be when I return to work. I want to believe that everything will be ok. I am struggling to be optimistic right now. I need the meds to start working again soon. 

21st post….I’m very angry about everything…

And I have no clue why.

It seems like lately everything is making me super angry. I’ve got enough control to avoid any blowups or outright fights, but I’m reaching the breaking point. I can feel it.

I’ve especially been angry at all the religious bullshit people are doing and posting about because of Easter weekend. Obviously, I am not a religious person. I think it is ignorant and shallow of people to believe that an invisible man in the sky can wipe away a person’s wrongs on a weekly basis just because they worship him and pledge their loyalty to him.

This belief offends me completely. I know there are some religious people who are good, but I’ve experienced so many horrible people who do horrible things in the name of their God that I just can’t abide by anyone who is religious and doesn’t immediately shun these incompetent and ignorant people.

It bothers me that even these good people can allow themselves to be brainwashed into thinking that their bad deeds can simply be washed away by going to church or pretending the talk to an imaginary person in the sky. That REALLY bothers me. It smacks of arrogance and laziness.

Twentieth Post…..all about the money…

My awareness of money issues has been heightened recently. I’ve always pictured myself in various outlandish scenarios. I’ve imagined what my life would be like, how much easier my life would be with all the money I would have, if I had written and sung that new pop song that I just heard – or if I had acted in the big, new movie and/or TV show that would have made me famous – or if I had written that new big bestselling book that everyone has been talking about. I would have all the money I need to not work a regular job anymore and I would be able to work when I wanted to, on what I wanted to, instead of doing jobs for other people and working on their schedule instead of mine.

I know that I don’t want to be in debt anymore, and me and Mrs. Pie have worked up a budget and have started to save enough money to get out of debt as soon as possible. Some of our debt is by choice – some times we splurged and lived outside our means for a bit. but most of our debt is from accidents and bad luck. Our current car loan is because our old car died and it would have cost more than it was worth to fix – and you can’t get a loan for repairs – but we sure could get a loan for another different car. Our home air conditioner died before Grandma Pie did and it was $6,000+ for a new one. We’ve got another $5,000+ in medical debt from a couple of medical emergencies that me and my wife had a couple of years ago.

We are working on getting out of debt as quickly as possible, but every time we get a little ahead, something else happens to set up back. Things were going according to plan and then our washing machine crapped out on us this month. Can’t afford a new one, and it’s $300 to repair the current one. There goes the little bit of cushion we’d built up to help pay off the other debt faster. Two steps forward, three steps back…

My current dream is to have enough money so I don’t have to work a regular job anymore. I don’t know how to get enough money to do that, but our current track is saving us money, but the saving is so little that one small setback taps us out of funds. It’s just not fast enough. I don’t know what to do.

Nineteenth post……….weird catharsis….

My Labor Day weekend has been really good so far. Which makes what happened today all the more weirder. 

Someone I know at work is a Facebook friend and he posted something offensive to me. When I called him on it, someone else who works with us defended him, someone who by all accounts is an excellent person and exemplary worker. 

And I completely lost my shit. 

I don’t know why. I don’t really work with this person directly, but I went off on them and they probably think that I’m a horrible person and will tell everyone at work about how awful I am. But the really weird thing is that I don’t feel guilty about it at all. I felt this odd sense of relief. Like I had gotten it out of my system and I could move on with my day. 

Normally I would feel really guilty and apologize profusely, but I don’t feel any of that right now. I don’t know of this means that I’m getting over my fear of other people thinking bad things about me, or that I’m giving up on life, but I felt justified in my tirade. I haven’t really felt this way before. 

It’s weird.

Eighteenth post……….the cycle continues

i am scared of everything it seems these days. I can’t show it or talk to anyone about it because I’m scared that people will hate me for it or think I’m crazy. I have no confidence in my abilities. When I have good days, I don’t enjoy them because I just got lucky and my incompetence will soon show through to ruin everything. When I have bad days I am extra hard on myself because my bad day was most certainly my own fault and they will always happen because I am an incompetent moron. 

I’ve been thinking about death a lot recently. I’m coming up on the 20th anniversary of my mothers death. A couple of months ago I had officially crossed the line of living longer without my mom than the time I had with her. It’s hit me really hard. I find myself extra sensitive to many things, and getting extra angry about things that I view with contempt.

I’ve always had money issues and I see all the people who have never had to struggle with money in their life and I hate them with all of my soul. I want them to suffer and die and then be forced to give me all of their money because they don’t deserve it and I do. But instead of being pulled back down to Earth, they get reality tv shows and a ton of media attention only to make more money and become super famous for doing absolutely nothing. The regular people who allow this to happen should also be killed. They have no place in the world. I hope more than anything that this imbalance in the world is corrected, but I don’t think it will be. I try to comvince myself that there are worse things and I’m just feeling jealousy and impatience with my own money control problems, but it is cold comfort. 

I am trying my best to stay positive and balance what I want to do with my life with my responsibilities, but it is very difficult. I can feel myself slipping. 

Seventeenth post………searching for direction

in what seems like an endless cycle for me, I again find myself unhappy and unable to decipher why or how to be happy again without binge eating or buying games or other things that feel different and might bring me happiness but end up making me feel worse in the long run. 

When I feel like this I crave attention and change in the hopes that those things will make me happy, but then I feel guilty for wanting such base and petty things. I feel lost with no way to bring myself out and so I start to think desperate things like quitting my job or getting in a car and driving until I stop feeling this way. I know these won’t solve my feelings but it hurts to sit and wait for my dread and fear and anxiety to fade. 

I have to remember that what I have and how I feel don’t define me. How I perceive what others think of me and what other actually think of me don’t define me either. My actions and what I think about myself define me. I try to make my actions count and do good out of a self hating motivation. I don’t think that I am a good person so I am constantly trying to make up for my badness. 

What have I done in my past that is so unforgivable? I’ve been publicly humiliated for my past incompetence (both personally and professionally), I’ve been fired from multiple jobs, I’m vastly overweight because I can’t control my eating, I can’t control spending money on games – I am always thinking about the next purchase or buying things in secret and keeping it from my wife (which makes me a terrible husband), I am an eternal procrastinator, I am under a mountain of debt, I’m lazy, I act entitled, my kids have problems that I can’t help them solve (which means I’m a terrible father), and the only thing I seem to have a passion for is relaxing, watching tv, and playing games.

I’ve written about this before, but whenever anything starts to feel like work, I am turned off and quickly become disinterested. I feel shame and disgrace for being this way. Should I?

Sixteenth post……..Introspection abounds….

After writing my last post, I started thinking about what makes me happy. Playing games. Watching good TV. No responsibilities. This is what makes me happy.

If I had any writing skills whatsoever, then I would be able to write reviews for games and pursue that with a relative passion. Same with TV. I could see myself as a TV critic for a website or a magazine. But I can’t write for shit, and the deadlines for writing would make it feel like work instead of something I enjoy. Which is why I feel like I’ll never be great or remembered for anything because as soon as something feels like work, I start losing happiness in that thing. I don’t know why.

I also like surprising people. Not like practical jokes, but as in exceeding expectations. However, I only really do this when the expectations start out low. If I start out with high expectations, then the only way to surprise people is to not meet those expectations. It’s much harder to exceed expectations when they start out so high.

I hate it when I exceed expectations and am not recognized for it. I went out of the way to do better than I was supposed to, and then not get any praise for it drives me crazy. That kid of recognition makes me feel special and also happy.

Fifteenth post……..It’s been a while.

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve posted here and a lot has changed. My daughter, Pielette, graduated high school and we’ve figured out what her stomach issue. She has a gluten sensitivity. Possibly Celiac, but because we’ve changed her diet, we can’t officially confirm the diagnosis. Our son is doing well is school too. he’s in the middle of his Sophomore year and is taking afternoon classes at a local VoTech school. He loves it. He is taking physics classes there as well as Engineering classes to get a head start on what he loves.

Both Mrs. Pie and myself started new jobs this fall. My wife got a promotion to a new division and is both excited and challenged by her new position and responsibilities. I did get the High School job that I so desperately wanted last May, and it’s been a really good change. I am teaching better students at a better school. I have a real classroom and we work in an actual theater. The problem is that I am scared that now I have my better job that I so desperately wanted, I will fail at it. The first semester went well, but we are in the middle of rehearsals for our big musical and I am scared because this production will make or break my future at the school. The Choir teacher who is co-directing with me is most likely leaving at the end of the school year, and the dance teacher is in no danger of losing students in her program. However, if this show goes well, then I will see an increase in students in my program and should be well on the way to building the program of my dreams. If the show fails, then I will probably have even fewer students than I have now, and that is not good at all.

I am constantly comparing what I am building to the high school drama program that I graduated from. I want so desperately to manage a program that both my students and myself can be proud of, but I am desperately afraid of failing.

Our winter break is ending and I have to go back to work tomorrow. While I have enjoyed working at the new school, I still really enjoy all of my breaks and time off. I really don’t want to go back to work.

They say the key to happiness is to find what you love to do and then pursue it passionately.

What happens if you can’t find anything that you love, or don’t have any passion?

Fourteenth Post……….trying to keep my patience

So, I am trying to stay patient and upbeat while stuck in personal limbo. I want to make the jump to high school and I have a line on a good job, but I am waiting to hear back from them about the job.

There are several new games that I really want to buy, but we have no money to buy them with right now. We probably won’t have money to get new games until September. That would make it at least 7 months since our last game purchase, which is the longest we’ve gone without buying a new game is a really long time.

I seem to be waiting for everything else to get solved before I can move forward. This is very frustrating.

There are so many things that I want, and many things standing in my way of getting them, but removal of these obstacles is not up to me. I have to wait to see if other people are going to remove these obstacles for me. I hate this.

If I push and try to influence people’s minds, then it ends up backfiring on me and I don’t get what I need/want. If I leave it up to fate and just pray for what I need, then the other people who are so crucial to my success end up forgetting about me and choose a different path.

so I’m damned either way. This fucking sucks.

Thirteenth Post…..Praying for a job change

So, I teach at a “high risk” middle school, and I’ve been looking to change jobs for a couple of years now. It’s not because of the status of the school or the low income students. I like most of the students in my school, but I always wanted to teach at the High School level. It’s just been a dream of mine from the time I started teaching.

There’s a higher maturity level at High School (compared to middle school there is!), most of the students can provide their own transportation, the curriculum is more challenging and fun for me to teach and the interaction level between teacher and student is better. I just want to teach High School.

A couple of times in the last few years, I thought that the timing was going to work out for me. Last year a position opened up at a school where a good friend teaches. This gave me an in, and I killed the interview. I thought that I had the job in the bag. A few days later, I get an e-mail that the school went with someone else. I contacted my friend and asked if she could find out what happened. She said that she thought someone at my current school or district was black-balling me. That is the nearest I could find out.

So, fast forward to a month ago, and another perfect job opens up at a great high school that my middle school feeds into. I have plenty of former students who tell me that not only should I apply for the job, but that they are so excited at the possibility of me teaching there. I contacted the teacher who was retiring to set up an informal meeting to talk about the school and the job. I get to meet the principals and see some of my former students. I feel like I’ve completely killed it, and am psyched up to do a formal interview and get the job.

Two weeks later, I follow up with the principal to find out if there is any new information about the job or if there is anything else I need to submit for consideration. The next day I get a reply that the position was already filled.

WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

My jaw and my confidence went through the fucking floor. I didn’t even get an interview for my perfect job. I was devastated.

Fast forward to last Thursday. My co-worker e-mails me that another position had just opened up at another High School that my middle school feed into. It’s not as good as the previous school I applied to, but it’s a high school job. As a bonus, the principal at this High School is someone I used to work with and had a great working relationship with. I apply. I get a positive recognition e-mail from the principal and am told to contact his secretary to set up an interview for Monday. It turns out that my coworker who told me about the job is also applying for a different job at the same school and her interview in scheduled for 30 minutes after mine. Cool.

I show up Monday morning and have what I feel is a really good interview. We catch up a bit, and he asks a few of the standard questions. I feel pretty positive. Then he tells me that I’d have to come back for a second interview with a couple of other teachers that this position has to collaborate with on a regular basis. OK. No biggie. He says that he’ll have to get back with me about scheduling a second time to meet.

I see my current co-worker as I’m leaving the office and we joke for a bit, the three of us, before I leave for my current school.

Normally, I would not be freaking out right now, because it’s the day after I interviewed. However, I get an e-mail this afternoon from my co-worker saying that the High School principal already contacted her back and offered her a job.

Huh…….?

I start actively trying to keep my paranoia at bay. Was I not good enough and I’ve already been eliminated from consideration? Did the other two teachers already nix my candidacy? What is going on?

I fight the urge to send an e-mail to the principal directly asking for an update, and instead send a friendly follow up message thanking him for his time, and letting him know that my schedule is flexible to meet the needs of those other teachers to complete the interview process.

It’s been a few hours since I sent the e-mail and I haven’t received a reply yet. Was it a mistake to send the follow up? Have I just shot myself in the foot? Am I doomed to teach middle school for my whole career?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

I need to calm down, but I am so worried about not getting this job that I am tied up in knots. I reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally want this high school job.

I have ideas for a special honors club that will help with student motivation and participation. I have ideas for an excellent curriculum that will keep the students engaged, participating, and enjoying the class. I want this.

I mean I reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally want this.

Now.

After getting screwed over for the last two high school jobs that I applied for, I think I deserve this job. Hands down. It should be mine. No questions. No delays. I want to start building my high school program tomorrow.

But there’s nothing I can do about it right now. I have to hope and pray that this principal will decide to give me a chance. I just wish he would make up his mind soon.