002: The Face of a Shadow

It has been a rough week, honestly, and not even because of anything particular that happened during it. I just feel less and less apt to put up with the frustrations of everyday life - carrying on in a job that barely gives me mild satisfaction, and held back both by outside forces and internal ones - okay mostly my own crippling self doubt and lack of motivation - from my true passion and what I believe to be the only thing in life that would give me true satisfaction to do for a living (and even that is something I doubt.)

At the end of a long week or wondering what the hell I am even doing at my job, I think the last thing I wanted was to sit in a 2-hour meeting where the overall direction of the company and performance over the past quarter is discussed, and individual accolades are given out. Of course never to me personally, since I don't seem to make it my business to perform well enough to earn recognition. Oh, I'm good. I'm very good. But I find it hard to excel.

You have to laugh. The winner of the award - whom I don't begrudge in the least because she deserves it - was Catherine, lauded for coming into a new category with the biggest book in the business on her plate. Which is, you know, so funny, because I could have sworn that one year earlier I, too, had come into a new category with the biggest book in the business on my plate, and I was not formally recognized. (I didn't mind then because again, I respected the person who got recognized at that time.) I'm just conflicted because I don't even really want to be recognized but at the same time, what are you even doing in your life if you are working somewhere where you don't feel like you're worth being acknowledged and are doing good enough work to be? Like I said, I was in no way bitter or jealous, only that I was not in the right headspace to even broach the topic.

Catherine was also celebrated for branching out into Planning, which I had been talking with Jess about doing for months and yet seems to have fallen by the wayside. And I almost don't want to push the issue because deep down I just can't bring myself to care about my trajectory at this company anymore. I'm spent.

The thought had been percolating within me all week. With every micromanaging request from Caryn, I shudder. With every discussion of in-stocks and sell-through I cringe with something approaching existential despair. I don't know how I'm going to hide it in my next one-on-one with Jess. I am in turmoil and I don't really have anyone I feel like I can talk to about it. Even my wife, because of the dire implications for our future if I were to, you know, bug out and leave a decently-paying job with benefits to specifically do nothing but, I suppose, chase my dream, which I could - hypothetically but not in practice - do while staying employed.

My dream! I hate my dream. I wish I could be happy just working at a damn desk all day. The world doesn't want, or need, my dream, I've checked. But guess what, it won't go away.

I could be writing right now, you know. I could be making progress on something that might actually go somewhere. But for major things it feels like, if I have to confine it to the smaller corners of my time then I shouldn't even bother. I got a little bit of writing done on a script earlier this week - more on that later - but where will it ever go?

Ahem.

I took a break from this rant of existential despair to finally set up  LinkedIn Profile for myself. I thought, if I'm going to cry so much about my lot in life, the least I could do is some small gesture toward changing it. Now, as it happens, I am not interested in virtually any job that could be fond on LinkedIn, but it was a concession to myself that it's entirely possible that my next job is in fact out there and that some kind of professional presence could be warranted.

Life is just so chaotic these days. It's become hard to reset to zero. I got home and started on chores, long-neglected cleaning and laundry, and everything, only to find the motor of the dryer appears to be busted. Outside forces appear to be working against me, not that I need any help.

So the place is a mess. Dishes, grime, clutter, clothes. The tap drips all night, water torture in the sink, the furnace is burning but it's still cold I think. Oh wait, that was Sarah Harmer. Just those first things though.

I don't feel like we have much room to improve our lot. It's always something, you know, like the gym or whatever, and even when it's not, it's just fatigue from life.

Randomly - under circumstances too sensitive to discuss here but that I will be sure to remember when I am inevitably re-reading this tragic entry years down the road - I ran into Robyn. Of all people to wander into my world at the ass-end of Toronto on a Tuesday evening! It could have been any damn person from high school, and it was Robyn. Go fucking figure. It only lasted a moment because I had to go soon after, but I couldn't help but be rattled. I had been working - only moments earlier - on a plot that involved the return of a person from a character's past, and then a character from my past appears as though I conjured her. My most unwelcome magic.

It felt significant, but as I said it didn't last long. When I got home there was a message from her on FB, apologizing for the previous message she had sent four years ago. Water under the bridge, of course. I thought maybe this would lead to a requisite conversation, and then - what, a coffee? But no. I'm not even sure I ever fully disclosed to Mel the exact nature of Robyn's and my friendship. I'm not even sure I've ever truly comprehended it. And if I did, I doubt Mel would be in favour of me looking her up. It's probably better if we don't follow up, but it could be considered inspiration for this writing.

I...

Ugh, this post. In the annals of awful, soul-crushing posts I've done, this is... well, it's up there. It's a grown up kind of despair. We watched the new Paul Rudd Netflix series, Living With Yourself, which hit too close to home, not because the couple was unhappy, (well, in that we fear becoming such a couple) but because of all the other reasons Rudd was unhappy and flawed and looking for release. Of course it was your typical white guy drudgery porn, the kind I will inevitably end up peddling if I ever make it out of here alive.

Well.

Have a little faith.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Edit 12:40 AM: I'll give you this. As embarrassing as this whole rant was, putting it down in words was actually really stimulating and therapeutic, and now I'm not so frustrated for now
 If I could harness this to write in the same way I harnessed my bitterness some 17 years ago to write Half Past, I'd be set. But I'll settle for doing some X-Cerpts for now.