Welcome to my favourite week of the year.
Ever since I left 7-Eleven and resolved never to step out of my home on another New Year's Eve ever again, the week between Christmas and New Year's has been a time of real festive joy for me.
Working in a grocery store means, of course, that the weeks and especially days approaching Christmas are supremely stressful; in the actual week leading up to Christmas, days off are not permitted. But the week between Christmas and New Year's, barring New Year's Eve itself, is the slowest of the year by far, so the time you've banked tends to get paid out then. Between the three holidays and your banked time, you might end up working two shifts in the space of seven days. Ah, luxury.
Now, I haven't been working for the last this year, so it probably seems odd to you that I feel that sense of languid lassitude even more strongly than usual. But I do, because even though I haven't been punching a clock for six months, I have actually been working. Harder than I ever have, in some ways. More on that in a minute.
This is World Junior week...if you're a hockey fan, this is some of the best pure hockey you will ever see, every year. A distant cousin (who is nevertheless a good friend of mine) has tickets to all the Toronto games this year. Envy!
The last weekend of the year means the newspapers are, for once, something approaching what they used to be. Lots of meaty articles dissecting the year that has passed and predicting the year ahead. They provide excellent blogging material, for one thing. They also give me a real and needed centering effect: this is where the world is, that is where it has been, and this is where it's going. Like many, I take this week to do the same on a personal level, so I can greet the new year properly. Granted, this can be done on any day, and should probably be done on a limited scale on every day...but it is easier to do when everyone else is doing it too.
Breadbin readers have been along for the ride this year in a way that I did not, quite, intend in January. I think it fair to say that I went through that midlife crisis I scoffed at not even three years ago. All it took was one corporate downsizing.
Losing my job caused me to deeply question...pretty much everything about myself, and many of the answers I dredged up were not at all pretty. Pretty damned persuasive, yes...but not pretty.
I was good at my job. I really was. But that didn't stop them from laying me off, which made me doubt I really was any good at the thing I'd been doing for the better part of twenty years--really, the only thing I'd ever done. And since retail was a fallback position for me after I had royally fucked up my life lo those twenty years ago, absent that career it's no surprise I suddenly found myself back in 1994 when I least expected it.
That's not the only hurt I've suffered this year, but suffering it made the other hurts and rejections much harder to deal with. I still have bad days, but nothing like what I was feeling in July and August. I felt not just insignificant, but also blocked--even writing it out, which had always worked for me in the past, simply opened up another well of pain. Working didn't work, writing didn't work, even loving was made to seem pointless there for a while. I can't really tell you how horrible that was to live through.
The job search was not going well, either, which further sapped my confidence. I believe I have skills built up over a lifetime of retail that would (will!) transfer very well to my next career...but, at least at first, it didn't seem like anyone agreed with me. There, too, I've been undermining myself, both mentally and physically. It has been my observation over many, many years that people in retail jobs are treated as if they are less than human. Cashiers are screamed at for things that are completely out of their control; stores are expected to be open Christmas Day. I'll never forget the story a former colleague told me about a customer she had once...this was years ago, now. The customer told her daughter, who was about ten years old, "now, you have to stay in school, otherwise you'll end up just like her".
That's retail...and I felt like I had failed at it. Worse, prospective employers seemed to agree there for a while. Turns out my resumé was twenty years out of date and had serious structural issues to boot which did not showcase me well. That fixed, interest has been shown and I will be employed again soon, I am sure. Not in retail.
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It has not been by any means a bad year despite so many bad things happening. I have learned who my friends are...and who they aren't. For every friend I thought I had and didn't, it turns out there's someone I didn't know was a friend who is. Those are valuable things to learn. So is the lesson that some dreams are worth the waking up from.
There have been joys spread out throughout the year, several of them involving my friend Craig: a couple of Jays games (well, he'd call them Sox and Yankees road games), and seeing and hearing him perform in CABARET and THE ADDAMS FAMILY, spending a couple of days with him and his family at his old place in London; helping him move into his new place. Love you, man, thanks for everything.
Other friends have made themselves known, appreciated and loved this year. Jason (as always), Nicole, Sue, Jo-Anne, Ande and some others have really been there for me and I hope you know I'm here for you, too.
And of course my love for Eva has only deepened this year...as I knew it would, as it has in every year since we met. There were some who doubted us; there are some who doubt us still. But I know she is my life's companion on the road we have chosen together, and nothing and no one will take that away from us. Eva has been an absolute rock in some pretty ugly emotional weather....for about a month she was pretty much the only thing keeping me tethered. There is no doubt in my mind that 2015 will be our best year yet.
I've passed the fourth of what turns out to be six courses towards fluency in French. (There's a French for Business course that, contrary to what a teacher told me, is actually part of the certificate program.) My marks so far have been 92, 93, 94, and 95 percent--this past course was 93. I'm happy with those marks...I had no reason not to do at least this well this time around. It wasn't as if I was working, or anything.
The highlight of the year was undoubtedly our first cruise in September, which did not go quite as well as we expected but which was nevertheless a fantastic experience. "Docean" was everything we hoped it would be, even if it waved hello to Eva a little too enthusiastically for her new reduced form to handle.
Writing all this out makes me feel bad again for feeling bad in the middle of so much love expressed. Believe me, it's recognized...and returned.This flip of the calendar represents a lot more to me than a change in the date.
I think I'm ready to take the reins again, folks.
Happy New Year. May 2015 be your best year...until the next year.
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