Semi-surprise performance at the Online Services Group all hands meeting today...

I was in sweat-spraying distance, I-kid-you-not.

So the cold weather still hasn't left Seattle, and quite frankly, I'm getting sick of it. We had a day of glorious 75+degree weather last Friday, but it's been gray and drizzly ever since. What a tease...

I've been doing a lot of thinking and reflecting lately about my life as it stands now and was trying to imagine what my future looked like if I continued down the path I'm on now. For the first time in a long time, I really don't know where I'm going. While I was in high school, college was always next. When I was at Mt. Sac, transferring to another college was always next. After BU, it was getting a job. When I was in Boston, it was all about getting the hell out of there. Now that I've gotten the fantastic job and am finally out on my own, I feel somewhat lost. I'm in that "now what?" state of mind. Sure I want to get my MBA at some point, but I really don't see that happening in the next year or so. That leaves me where I am, in this relatively boring lifestyle. I go to work, I do stuff, I come home, watch tv and go to bed. I volunteer for a couple of hours on Saturday mornings and sometimes go out with "friends", but it all seems so superficial and empty. I want to be passionate about my work and my new responsibilities, but sometimes even the most challenging thing can end up frustrating me, and eventually jading me. It's hard working for one of the few teams that can't quite get it's act together in a company known for bullying the rest of the world with it's brilliance and innovation. The general public, and especially our client base, expect us to be these technical geniuses, not realizing that we're still learning this new business. Having to face that from clients, plus my own personal frustrations with people at work and/or technical problems (I fucking hate Toshiba laptops...), I end up with insane headaches that are like little lightening storms in my head. I come home after every insane day to an empty apartment in suburbia and have nothing to do but lay on my couch and hope that the funny people in the box in my living room amuse me enough that I forget about the lameness that is my life. I'm not making a difference in any sense of the word, and that's driving me nuts. I need a purpose, some sort of motivation to keep going, and I think the air is slowly leaking out of my fantasy-filled balloon.

The thing that bugs me the most is that I feel guilty about having all those negative thoughts. I mean, I know people who would kill to have what I have now. Yet that overwhelming sense of loneliness, lack of purpose and overall blah-ness is overshadowing the good things in my life. I'm even letting myself go in terms of my health, and again, it's a sign of weakness and lack of motivation. I need a confidence boost so badly, it hurts sometimes. I envy anyone who gets to take a fabulous vacation anywhere, even if it's for a weekend. It would be so nice to get a change of scenery (preferably with sun involved) and a change of company. The same people and the same shit every fucking day. Am I being a whiny baby? Probably. Do I care? Not as much as you think I do.

I hate that I've lost the ability to find joy in the little things in life. I can no longer savor the tiny victories. Am I getting older and wiser, or am I just getting dried up? I don't know. Whatever it is, I'm really tired and just want to stop swimming for a bit. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I'm miss independent--I don't lean on anyone for help and have always held my own. It's what I do...y'know, that strong, sturdy type of girl that doesn't take shit from anyone. It horrifies me that I'm finding cracks in this visage I have painstakingly built, and I don't know where they came from. The absent-mindedness is coming back, as is the memory gaps and inability to sustain a conversation. God, I'm becoming boring.

I wonder if there's such a thing as a mental detox. Man, where's a pensieve when you need one. To be able to do a data dump (and the geek emerges) and reboot my mental harddrive would be incredibly nice.

I want to meet someone amazing. I'm sick of trying to change my own life...I think it's someone else's turn to do it now. Call me selfish, but I give up.

It's been a couple of weeks, so I figured it's a good time to update/reflect/etc.

Things have been good, for the most part. I'm coming to terms with living on my own (finally) and I guess I've stopped trying so hard outside of work. I don't know why I felt I need to meet some sort of weird expectations, whether it was housekeeping, cooking, or just plain staying on top of things at home. Maybe because I've never lived alone before? I know this sounds kooky, but anyone who knows me will tell you that I have OCD tendencies when it comes to cleanliness and organization. Part of that may have stemmed from my mother's OCD tendences; I felt like I needed to keep on top of things to somehow please her or something. Looking back I remember always feeling drained after a good cleaning session (yes, I had "sessions"). I used to tell myself that it felt good to clean, that it was therapeutic or something. Man, was I nuts.

Now cleaning is what happens when I can't find something or I get grossed out...really once every two weeks or so. I do my laundry every week and usually keep on top of dishes, but that's about it. I love that if I dump my coat on the couch, it will be there in the morning and won't get in the way of anyone else's existence. Again, probably sounds crazy, but this is new for me, so bear with me here. The same applies to cooking. While I do have moments when a Lean Cuisine doesn't quite cut it for me, I don't have the overwhelming pressure that I need to fix a proper meal for myself. I have discovered, quite unfortunately, that I suck at cooking anything that doesn't involve boiling or baking. I feel so disappointed in myself. Oh well, another thing to add to the Top-100-Things-That-Suma-Sucks-At list (also recently added billiards). I did get a little ahead of myself and buy all these fantastic ingredients to make stuff with, but after kitchen disaster number 1, I gave up. Yeah, I know, I give up easily. Bite me. I still make fabulous brownies and cupcakes, so until I can learn to make something else, anyone who is not me will only be tasting brownies and cupcakes. That leaves the other crappy stuff I throw together for me to eat. And people wonder why I have such a love-hate relationship with food.

Work is picking up again. Got moved to a new team a while ago and now will be servicing a higher-spend service level. This means a larger client load, more clients who actually know what they're doing, clients with greater demands and ultimately, clients who spend a hell of a lot more money. With great power, unfortunately, comes great responsibility; if I screw up from now on, it could cost me my job. Scary, yet exhilirating. The cool thing is that I get to keep these clients; they will be mine going forward and I will essentially be like their account manager (as opposed to now when I only service them for 30 days and then wish them goodbye-and-goodluck). I love the fact that I can actually develop relationships with these people, whether bad or good. What sucks is that they're dumping about 40 of these clients on me in about a week and a half, so I'll be going from 0 to HOLY STRESSED OUT, BATMAN in very little time. I'll get back to you in about a month as to what I really think of the whole thing.

Peda Kashi (my sister for those not in the know) is coming to visit me in about 2 weeks, so that's something to look forward to. The timing royally sucks (refer to previous paragraph for reasons), but this was planned months ago and I have to perform my sisterly duties and show her the sites and sounds of the great northwest. Not sure exactly what that will entail, but I'm sure I'll figure it out.

So overall 4 out of 5 parts of my life are going well (finance, work, health, social), which leaves part number 5 (love) to be as barren as the lunar landscape. Seriously, my issues in this area have plagued me for decades and I still can't seem to get it under control. Just when I see a faint glimmer of hope on the horizon, turns out to be just a mirage. God I'm cheesy when I'm drugged. Nevertheless, it sucks but whatcha-gonna-do-about-it. Whatev, it happens when it happens. For now I have to concentrate on not self-destructing at work.