April 4, 2001
Aprils Past and Present
It’s starting to seem like spring. I
haven’t had to scrape my windshield for a few weeks. The tulips in our yard are
making their way up into the sunshine. I would like to make my way into the sunshine too.
With the change in seasons (and the way
the months are flying by) I’ve been thinking back to Aprils past. Mostly I’m
trying to figure out how right now compares to other years. I can’t go back much
farther than 5 years – before that they start to all blur together.
April 2000. I was
dealing with a lot of problems at work. My department was in the process of being cut
back, and things were getting very uncomfortable. I even sent out a few resumes. Later on
things calmed down some, and I ended up staying in the job. At home, we were working on
the house a lot. We had painted the living room and Marty was building bookcases.
April 1999. I remember
this April very fondly. Maria came for a visit at the beginning of the month, and it was
great fun. Also that month I saw my in-laws and Shoshanna. It was a very good month for
visits. Work was going great – I had taken a new job in January (the one I’m
still in now) and I loved it. That whole year was a lot of fun. I really felt like I was
finding my footing in life.
April 1998. This was a
very confusing and painful time. I had just moved to Connecticut a few months before, and
I was questioning everything about my life. It got worse before it got better.
April 1997. A happy
April but a difficult year. I was living in Pennsylvania alone, Marty having gotten a job
in Connecticut. That April, Celeste and Joanne came for a visit. What fun! I also saw the
Indigo Girls in concert for the first time, with my friend Shannon, at Penn State’s
Rec Hall. And that was also around the time I met Maria, through e-mail (we would meet in
person later that year, in October). I was mostly enjoying my job at Penn State (no longer
teaching), although the best part of it was that Katynka and I were getting to be friends.
But beneath all the good things that were going on, I was very depressed about my PhD and
my lack of motivation for writing my dissertation. It would still be several more months
before I decided to leave graduate school.
April 1996. Wow,
I’d forgotten about all this. In March we had just moved to a different house in
Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. I was teaching English at Penn State. In April, Marty got laid
off and spent some time figuring out what he wanted to do with his life. He ended up going
back to Penn State to finish his Master’s in Engineering (which he’d started 6
years before) and then doing a big job search. It all worked out very well, and toward the
end of that year he found the job he has now. I was just discovering slash in April of
that year. Celeste and I would end up writing our first slash story together that fall.
And now . . . well,
looking back helps to put things in perspective somewhat. April 2001 probably won’t
be the worst April I’ve ever had, but it’s hard enough.
Work is draining. While I feel like
I’ve been fairly successful in this job, it seems to me now that I’ve done just
about all I can do here. I don’t even really want to find another job in the same
company; I just feel like I want to leave. I’m glad I stayed this long, to prove to
myself that I’m flexible enough to deal with the kinds of changes I’ve been
through here. But frankly, the job is just not that interesting or challenging anymore,
and I am starting to feel miserably bored. Luckily, I’m still sane enough to realize
that only I can solve that problem. So here begins the job search.
I know work has been harder to deal with
because I’ve been feeling so sad about other things. My due date for the pregnancy I
lost would have been May 8, so I am feeling very vulnerable about that right now. I
assumed I’d be pregnant again before that date got here, but I’m not. This is a
frustrating, tiresome situation, and it is making me into a frustrated, tiresome person.
It’s never a good thing when I have just one thing on my mind all the time. I'm tired
of myself and I'm angry that this is all I can seem to think about. It also makes me act
weird about other things. It’s not normal for me to be so homesick for Georgia and so
teary-eyed about my family and friends all the time.
But there are good things coming up this
month, too. I think next weekend (Easter) Marty and I will try to paint the dining room
and do a little work on the house. At the end of the month I am going to Maria’s for
a visit, on her birthday weekend, and I’ll get to see her new apartment. And I am
definitely starting a job search right now, so I hope I’ll have something new in a
couple of months. |
