It is a few things. It is living with people who think they understand, but clearly do not understand. It is me interacting with a greater number of new people and just talking. It is the same old mainstays playing on my moods. It is casual conversations with friends, while in this state, that push me down further. It is the lack of privacy in my new home and the lack of understanding that exists. It is the lack of signal and the lack of Internet; it is the fears that I made a big mistake.
It started with sex of course. It started with a girl who I was chatting and texting to. She said that she was looking for a relationship and she seemed pretty compatible. She was bisexual and mostly monogamous. She told me that she was too busy to be dating anyone but seems to want to talk. I asked more questions than I am used to asking and she answered them all, even the provocative ones. Then I asked her what her degree was in. She responded that it was in Sociology. I was surprised because she was so logically minded and scientifically based. She corrected me saying that Sociology WAS a science. I laughed, as clearly she was being ironic, as anything that dealt closely with only with human reactions and human interactions could not be a science, she was not. I had insulted her. And she ignored me for a few days. I assumed that she was gone and I moved on. She wasn't. She texted me back to tell me about her wonderfully weekend when she had a threesome with the guy she was seeing, then she told me that I was not working for her.
Then it was a series of conversations with people over a few days about how their sex lives in their twenties were wild and exciting. Mine wasn't, it was difficult and awkward and mostly alone and desperate, much like my thirties and forties. Two of my three new co-workers are going through breakups and I can't stop thinking about that either. One of them is only nine years younger than me and I do not want to have a crush on her because at first glance she is a match for me, but it never works for me. I don't want this at this job. I don't like this job as most of the time I am not needed.
The job requires 3.4 employees, except when one person is on vacation, then it needs 3.8 employees. Rather than hire a part time person, they hire a full time person. The store is open 60 hours a week requires two people to be there each day, total hours therefore are 120 and divide that by 40 and you get 3 employees. Simple math. One of the employees working must be a manager or an assistant manager to open and close the store, so when a manager of one level or another goes on vacation, the other must work. So that means one manager workers 60 hours and one employee works 40, and another person is needed to work 20 hours. Since the store will not let ANYONE work more than 40 hours the manager working the double shift logs only 40 hours and gets 20 hours the next week off, so 20 hours that someone else needs to work. Every full time employee gets two weeks paid vacation, so 3 times 2 times 2 is… 12 weeks of part time employment! Of course people want days off, people get sick, so you could stretch it out to fifty-two weeks of part-time employment, but they don't want to do that, they hire a full time employee: me, who feels useless most days, a fifth wheel.
The job is full-time and thus ends my time on Employment Insurance. Never mind that I am earning a fraction of my wage previous. How much of a fraction. I am earning a third less. There are no raises in this job, it is what it is. I am stuck. Currently I am earning $24 less a month than I was earning on EI. If I quit, I lose EI, because that is the way it works. So I stay and learn the job well enough to get a Assistant Manager job that pays $3 more an hour and has higher sales targets or I find another job. The people who I live with put their own pressure on me. They are of the firm belief that earning a lower wage job for the full year is better than earning a lot more money for less time. Theoretically they are right, but they are not at the same time. They are correct as their life is not defined by what they do and they are wrong because in the absence of everything else my life is defined by what I am doing.
When I flick my cell phone on to do something (send an email, receive an email, check the weather, surf the net) and I am greater by two messages: No Service, No Wifi, I get a little depressed. It does not happen often, only when I check from my bed. When I am in my bedroom. Or when I want to be alone. No more than 90% of my time in the house. I recall my friends telling me that my Internet where I used to live really sucked, it went down twice in two years and my router worked outside and down the road a good 100m. Now, sitting in bed 15 m from the router I have much more stable Internet. Sometimes the only indication that people have been trying to call me is the voice mail I get when I come upstairs. I feel like I live in a dungeon. I replaced my two square meter window, facing west, on the second story for a basement window an eighth it's size at ground level between floors facing an alley. It is covered with snow now. There is a second similar window in the family room that faces west into the backyard. My plant resides in that window. The family room has dark wood floors, almost black, and the walls which I was initially concerned that they were painted grey and would suck up the light, is quite light in contrast to the floors and reflects the light quite well after it bounces off the snow, adjacent buildings and sky before it goes through the window. The 'wall' between the Family Room provides lots of privacy as it is a two sided cubby hole bookshelf. My door is always open to the family room, the space between the bookshelf and the wall. They tell me that my room looks much better after I purchased the Wardrobe in Dark wood that covers one of the Grey walls. In it is hide my disgusting clothes from their eyes, but it does not cover the heating vent that blows cool air into the already cold basement. Occasionally my friend opens the window down stairs to let it air out, if I am there when he does it I move my plant so it does not die.
It is not really that bad. I love the kids, who only occasionally have to be reminded that my room is not theirs to play in. Soon I suspect that they will tell me that I should pack up the remaining hint of my furniture in favour of some soul sucking black piece of furniture. My light pseudo wood table is in storage and I use their glass top table. It is really nice and the glass top encourages me not to use my computer, my optical mouse can't sense the surface.
When I am happy, this stuff does not matter, their four year old little girl hugs me and tells me that she loves me and all the bad stuff does not matter. I get to watch some girlie cartoon about Barbie and a small warm body presses against my side and it is the best place I have ever lived, but when I am depressed it all exacerbates the situation. Even the hugs don't matter. I sleep and do not get rest, I am constantly tired and can't go to sleep. I am hungry and not. I am horny and not interested. Currently I am earning enough to make my way barely, but I live in a more expensive area and if I can't find a life companion around here I will feel forced to seek out the empty love of someone I can't afford who won't cure me of my troubles.
I hang out at Tim Hortons to write and to live in light. Writing this down, you reading it helps me out. Thanks
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