Headthegong.com

My wife and I had a plan when we returned from Mexico last year. We’d move from Lexington, KY to Carrboro, NC. She would write her doctoral dissertation. I would get a job in the addictions field, finish the 200 (out of 6000) work hours I needed to become a licensed counselor, then get a solid job with good benefits to support us until my wife’s Ph.D. was completed.

I should’ve learned from the previous year in Mexico not to expect life to go according to plan. There, I had planned to play soccer every day and get into the best physical shape of my life. Instead, I blew out my knee two minutes into the first scrimmage, and spent much of the year trying to get back to walking without a limp.

So we moved from Lexington to Carrboro. Then my wife was offered a teaching job in Lexington, which was too good an opportunity to pass up. Then she won a dissertation-writing fellowship (another great opportunity) that required Kentucky residence. I’ve been going it alone here in Carrboro for most of the year. The job market has been slim pickins, and my best chance at a solid job in the addiction field was a post at the university counseling center. After a several-months-long courtship and multiple interviews, the position was cancelled due to lack of funds. So here I am a year later, still working as an office temp with no benefits.

A coworker snapped this photo of me on Thursday, to use as part of a staff meeting slideshow. This is how I’ve spent my days for the past twelve months — clicking a mouse and answering the phone.

Looking closely at the photo it strikes me — as it has again and again, through all the ups and downs — that I’m right where I need to be. Maybe it’s pure rationalization, or maybe I’m just making the most out of the situation. What else can anyone do?

I’ve enjoyed an almost stress-free work environment for the past year. This after years working in a psychiatric hospital, breaking up fist fights and dodging pieces of broken furniture being hurled at me. I’m even getting paid more — significantly more — for clicking that mouse than I have for any past mental health job. I’ve rejoined forces with my buddies from the old rock band and enjoyed performing again after a six year layoff. My knee is almost fully rehabilitated.

Life is good, although nothing has gone according to plan. Life isn’t always good. Sometimes it sucks. And sometimes it’s weird. And while through it all I’ve been feeling like I’m right where I need to be, I don’t believe in any of that fatalistic, law of attraction, “Secret” nonsense. I’m going to work my ass off to make the shit happen that I want to happen this coming year.

I suppose I’m just at peace with life for the time being. Simple as that. It’s nice, really nice, and I wouldn’t mind staying this way for a while. Sounds like a plan.

I was walking to the mailbox yesterday evening, lost in a daydream I’d been wandering through for hours. I looked up at the sky and daydreamed about how cool it would be if I looked up at the sky and had a true moment of awakening, a flash of clarity about my place in the universe. I reached into the mailbox and pulled out a coupon flier and a bill for my cell phone. I walked by the recycling bins, dropped off the coupon flier, and shuffled back to my apartment.

I’m not sure why I’m bothering to relate such a dull moment, except that it captures the spirit of my existence over the past few days. This morning I watched the Today Show while I sipped my coffee. I kept thinking “This show is just awful” —yet I continued to watch. When I turned the TV off, I did experience a tiny spark of clarity. I had been entranced, caught up in a web of illusion. Suddenly, with the push of a button, I was in another place, rising from my couch, rushing out the door to catch the bus before slipping into another daydream.

I’ve been bothered lately by the news reports of red-faced, pea-brained yahoos squawking nonsense at town hall meetings, parroting what they hear on Fox News, and now toting guns to presidential events. Of course, these people think they’re in the right, and it’s people like me who are really nuts. Just like it seems crazy to Americans how Iraqis and Afghanis blow themselves up every day, yet we may seem like a bunch of dangerous lunatics from their perspective.

We’re all lost in our daydreams. Almost all of the time, we’re caught up in some web of illusion. Worst of all, some of us are well aware of this, and even know precisely what to do to snap out of it—yet choose not to most days.

What can I tell you? I’ve spent most of my life daydreaming. I’ve rescued women from being raped, fought off knife-wielding criminals, performed on the Tonight Show, told off my boss, been interviewed by Rolling Stone magazine – all in the past week, on my way home from work.

Now maybe, from someone else’s perspective, I was just riding the bus, in silence, with a far off look in my eyes. Maybe. But I doubt anyone was paying attention.