Day 30 Time for a little reflection.
So many thoughts flying around, many of them half formed. I will attempt to make sense of them for myself, but reader beware. Let's start with a look back over the last few weeks.
Days 10-20:Most of these days I was feeling pretty good. Coming out of the fog and starting to feel more confident. Still not a productive time for me in work or life in general. Lots of time spent reading here. I think it was day 13 that I had an interview for a promotion at work. Normally the whole process is a huge stress/trigger for me. Interview went well and I was proud of myself for getting through without falling back on the mental crutch of my addiction. Day 18 I got a call from the hiring manager letting me know I was his main candidate and I would be interviewing with his supervisor the following Friday (day 23). Looking back I may have been overly confident in both my career and quit progress (more on this in a bit).
Day 23:The day of the big interview. Leading up to the day still tons of confidence. Being built up by my coworkers, "You're the man for the job," "You deserve it." Feeling great about my quit, "I've got this shit!" "One day at a time is easy, I can do anything for 24 hours." What I failed to realize (lingering fog) was how much time and effort was still required this early in my quit. It was then and still is today an almost all consuming effort. So back to the interview, I show up under prepared and not in the right state of mind. Most of the interview was easy, what I expected, and went fairly smooth. Somewhere towards the end of the interview there came a question that I was not prepared for, and quite frankly pissed me off a little bit. A question that I felt was unfair. It wasn't unfair, by the way, I just flat out wasn't prepared for an interview. This may have been another reason for my irritation and anger. If anything in the past I have over prepared for interviews. Now right in the middle of what I thought was a sure thing, I've got the job interview, I realized that I had done nothing in the four days since I was notified to prepare myself.
Needless to say I left the interview in horrible spirits. All the wind let out of my sails, feelings of personal failure, and still some excuses and thoughts trying to lay blame elsewhere, anywhere but where it belongs (on me). This began nearly a week of a strange funk fog combination. Funkog, or fogunk or whatever combination of those letters that tickles your taint. During this time I kept my head above water only because of KTC. I have been overly sensitive and extremely irritable. Same day as the interview, and back in the store, I punched a computer screen because of a bad and "unfair" customer review that I received an email about. The following Monday a delivery driver thought I should be helping him instead of the line of customers that was stacking up out front. He was promptly told to "Fuck Off!" Nothing about my thoughts or actions seemed to make sense in the real world. Here at KTC, reading the thoughts and actions of other fucked up addicts, complete strangers, is the only thing that made any sense. And then....
Day 28:A couple of breakthroughs. 1)I finally decided to break my somewhat reserved silence here. Posting roll and reading everything will only get you so far and I was at the tipping point of how far it was going to get me. Interaction and participation are crucial.
A bunch of random screen names + typing my name next to them = Error 404 Not Found
My guess is that eventual drift and failure lay down that path. So I decided to reach out to my November brothers with a request for help/suggestions on how to build brotherhood and accountability. Actual post wasn't that direct, but let's take baby steps here. Thanks to all those who replied! Moving forward I know that there are many who already have my back, and all I need to do is ask and there will be a line of others who will do the same. In addition this influenced a change in my philosophy. I will offer help and support to anyone and everyone that I can and in doing so I will never have to worry about who will be there in my hour of need.
2)My wife broke her silence on the matter of quit and dropped some hard truths that I needed to hear about quit and how it relates to my job.
1)Interviewing has always been a weakness for me. My quit and the effort put into it contributed to my lack of preparation, but should not be blamed
2)I have a good job and should not take it for granted. I am in a place where I need to concentrate on relearning and retraining myself to perform as I should in my current position.
3)Taking on the task of learning a new position will complicate the already hard process of quit. Quit deserves my full attention right now. Whatever comes promotion or no, I must and will continue to do whatever it takes to remain quit.
As for my potential promotion I am still in limbo, should hear something by Monday. The more important thing here is that my quit is both intact and stronger now than ever. Life will always have ups and downs, quit will always have ups and downs. When life does not go my way I have never considered putting a gun to my head. Why then would I choose to poison myself everyday through ups and downs? Unbelievable to me now that for 20 years killing myself was an acceptable behavior.
Well there you have it. A long winded rant. A purge of all that I have let build up inside of me. It is all in the past. Today I quit like fuck. I choose to not kill myself. The rest will take care of itself.
