OK, compassion didn’t work, so I’ll go back to blunt honesty.
Guinastasia, you’re whining, but you already knew that. Just over 8 years ago, I had no car, no driver’s license, and it was a mile and a half (2k) walk to a Port Authority bus stop on a route which ran twice a day – into Pittsburgh in the morning, out of Pittsburgh in the afternoon. I was living with my parents because I’d moved back to Pittsburgh 4 months earlier because I couldn’t keep up in Hawaii, which I took to mean “failed.”
I had had a temporary job up until Christmas, and when I left work the last working day before Christmas, I left all my stuff there because they were talking about hiring me permanently as soon as they checked my (Hawaiian) references. Instead, there was a political split and it took two months of fighting to get my stuff back.
In January, my folks were out of town, so I got real familiar with the bus system as I kept trying to go on job interviews and do temporary work. Oh yes, the nearest grocery store was also about a mile and a half away. Nevertheless, I did keep slogging away trying to find something. I remember walking Dallas Avenue from Fifth to Forbes in February with a raging cold.
I was 30 years old, never married and not likely to, no friends because I had no transportation except for one treasured holdover from high school, and down to about $7.00 in my bank account. That’s when the temp work payed off.
I got a temp job in a manufacturing plant in my town which did become permanent this time. It wasn’t a high paying job, but it payed enough to cover driving lessons, then a cheap car. It started off a junk job, but by the time they laid me off, I was programming. That let me step into the wonderful job I had for the next four years. A few years of checking out interesting things led to me taking up with a writer and his best friend, which led me into what turned into a blast of a party, which led to me doing something I never thought I’d want to do – joining Mensa who continue to throw good parties.
There was a point in Hawaii when life sucked worse. To be precise, I was out of work, recently hospitalized for clinical depression, no phone, and at some point during that horrible year, two friends walked out on me because I wasn’t recovering fast enough!
Here’s my last shot. There’s a Mensa Games night Saturday night in Wexford. I’m going, especially since the weather’s looking decent. From what I see of you here, you’d like the crowd and they’d like you. Heck, some of us are pretty dead good at whining. Shoot me an e-mail and I’ll tell you where it is so you can arrange your own transport or I’ll make arrangements to meet you at the place of your choice so you can see I’m not an axe murderer and back out if you decide I am.
As a friend of a friend is fond of reminding her patients (she’s one of the two best therapists I know), you have choices. Use them.
Or, in the words of I song I once started tinkering with,
So your life sucks!
And your lover don’t.
Baby you’ve got to change,
Don’t blame the world if you won’t.
[End tough love]
CJ