Work, work, work…

Today is a bit of a sad day for me. I have listed the home of my dreams, to sell. Not wanting to sound too materialistic, this home represented the culmination of so many aspirations. Every finish, every piece of eclectic furniture, every technological accessory — all picked out by me. I have only owned it two years, as I am not wealthy in financial terms. It took me all the past years of work, to be able to afford it. This is where I was going to retire and live comfortably, in my own skin, so to speak. Not now.

To take this in stride and for survival, one must try to maintain something positive about the situation. Every single day, I wake up grateful. Grateful to be standing up, breathing in and out. Grateful for my wonderful daughter, brother, Mom. Grateful to have had enough work to sustain me this long. I look at other people struggling in a different way and say to myself, “…there by the grace of God, go I…”. It can always be worse, right?

So, as I write this piece while feeling a bit melancholy, it occurs to me that I should not be. I am grateful that I got to experience the gift of my dream house at least once in my life, even for just a little while. Kind of like those who have experienced a true love with a carbon unit. The experience of true love doesn’t happen for everyone. Is it shallow that I equate my love for this house to the same love as a carbon unit? This attempt to take the high-road aside, I feel like crap about losing this house. Really, it boils down to losing this life that has so consumed me and in which I am still in love. I will miss working.

People ask me why I never married again after having been divorced for 36 years, from a carbon unit. Truth is, I did marry again. I married my work. My work has been the constant in my life. It is very much like a marriage. At times I was frustrated. At times I was angry. At times I was ecstatic. At times I was peaceful and perfectly in the zone. I committed to my work like others commit to their spouses or children. It is painful to admit that my one and only child, probably suffered more than I realized.

Is it considered cheating on your spouse, if you lie about staying late at work? Some use that excuse to have an affair. It’s true. I used it, to actually work. Is that sick? I guess that could be construed as cheating, although not with another carbon unit. I was always in an affair with my job.

Everything and everyone in my life, outside of work, took a backseat. “Normals” (what I call regular carbon units), probably thought of me as the ADHD poster child while conversing. They would start to tell me about what they ate last night or their grandchildren and I would start to fidget. Worse, I would beg off from the conversation after just a couple of minutes. I could not care less about such things.

Ahh, but let me hear someone espouse a business idea or a theory about the Universe that was creative or scientific, and I was all ears. Completely entrenched. Better yet, take me to a seminar. Being from Colorado, I used to frequent the “Scientifically Speaking” seminars at CU Boulder. Never once was I accompanied by another carbon unit. The Normals found that as boring as I found their grandchildren’s stories. Fair enough.

Here’s the thing. I thought I would be allowed to work as long as I wanted. I thought that if I always produced a good product, met budget, finished on time, played in the team, there would be no question that I could work into my 80s. My dain-bramage and the old nerd personality quirks often made me an acquired taste, but in the end, my work spoke for itself. I was allowed to remain in the workforce. Yay!

God’s little joke, this pandemic. He took my only love from me. Now I understand how a spouse that has lost their loved one after 50 years feels. It is devastating. Your reason for living is now gone. What the hell do you do with yourself?

Time will tell as I move into a small little house that needs quite a bit of work. Work that I will no longer have money to accomplish. I will be unhappy for a while but always grateful that I have roof over my head and will not be a burden on my family.

Livin’ the dream….Ha!