....Of Poets and Madmen Pt.3

       Some readers have supplanted in there minds that I am not taking responsibility for my bad decisions. Truth is I am well aware of the poor choices I have made in my life, starting with losing my family at age fifteen. I'm the one who screwed that up, no one forced me to throw my young life away but me. For many years I have made bad choices and left money on the table time and again, this is my fault. I have filled my own head with self entitlement, grand delusions, and a false sense of pride. I have left many a good job just because I felt under appreciated or under paid. These things are my fault, I'm the one who walked away from perfectly workable jobs without compensation. I messed up my future by being a boorish snob without reason to behave like that. I'm nothing special yet I acted like a childish ingrate and pissed off a lot of people in the process. I have worn out my welcome in more than one business in many different towns. I screwed up.

     There have been some exceptions to this meteoric rise to the bottom of the food chain however. My last place of  blissful employment was Dollar General, a nine dollar an hour absolute joy. The people I worked with were great. The manager Jose was somewhat a kindred spirit. I loved that job even though I never made a ton of  money, it was a great place for me. That company had many plans for me going forward, up to and including a position in management. They sent me to open other stores in other states, I was moving upward quickly. i worked every hour that was available to me night or day. I got up at five in the morning and sometimes didn't get home until late at night, I worked my ass off for them. Why did I leave you ask, quite simple, I became homeless and the only people who could take me in lived many miles away. I don't own a car or have a way back to Torrington where Dollar General is located, so I had to leave that job. It broke my heart, but what could I do, I had to leave. Without a roof over my head and the state dragging it's feet to help me, the right move was made. I left behind two jobs, (the other job would have been K Mart, but they too were slow in hiring me), and the comfort of knowing I had finally found a place I felt appreciated. i fought hard to keep my place in Torrington, but alas, I failed in all attempts.

    Next was a job working for an old Greek couple at a  pizza place in Southington. I went back in time to my roots for this one. It's been almost twenty years since I stepped foot in a single owner restaurant. I begged my way into this place and worked everyday, every hour they wanted me there. I showed up early and tried my best to turn back the clock to when I was younger. I sweated behind a five hundred degree oven in a kitchen without air conditioning enduring twenty-two days straight of ninety plus degree summer heat. I toiled daily the best I could trying to keep up with the fast pace of this busy award winning mom and pop diner. I felt pressure I had not felt in two decades, yet I pushed on. I thought I was doing well even though the owner rode me like a prized race horse every chance he got. to me it felt like home. Most people would have packed it in week one, I just kept plugging along. One day I walked the two or three miles to work only to find the owners had replaced me with a much younger friend of the family. I was let go. I was told I wasn't what they were looking for and seeing how I was being paid off the books, my last day was that moment. They kicked me a little extra money (which was cool), alas, I was still left unemployed. That is where I am today, jobless and being turned down by such "exclusive" place like Dunkin' Donuts, McDonalds, Rite Aid, Blimpies, and Walmat, just to name a few.

   So don't tell me I'm being lazy or that I'm not trying because it's not true. I want to work but poor choices and bad luck have clouded my future. I am trying, that's why getting mental help has been so tough, no one believes I'm depressed because I do get up in the morning and look for work, I'm doing the right things. I've been told I should be lathargic and not be making good choices, I just want to survive. This has been determental to me getting the help I need, because my will to survive over rides my want to stay in bed and sulk. It's okay not to like my new found "darkness", it's just not cool to be chastising me for your misconceptions. I've had to swollow enough shit from Lucy's family and their cronies, I don't need other people piling it on. I can't force people to hire me, I wish I could. I've bugged people so much that I've been told to stop calling or showing up on several occasions. I've made plans to move on, I just need to catch a break and I may be able to move on. Until such a time I will deal with my situation the only way I know how...airing out my frustration in this blog.

....Of Poets and Madmen Pt.1

  When you are young, people never tell you that being a failure is a reality. We are filled with hopes and dreams that one day success will find us. We are never prepared to fail. The streets are filled with people who never realized the potential of their youth. Why?

  People lose sight of themselves and fall into the trappings of a society obsessed with beauty and wealth, never taking the time to discover the true meaning of who they are. They get caught up in the falsehood of the so-called American Dream. That dream becomes a nightmare with the realization that not everybody can be a success. People fail all the time never arriving at the top of any mountian, the mountian ends up on top of them. They fall into a state of dispair and spend the rest of their lives trying to unbury themselves from the tons of shit piled upon them, never finding help from family or friends or getting very little help from anyone. They become lost in a system of self lothing and depression, never able to step up to the challange of recovering the warm fuzzy feeling they had before they became failures. they wallow in the muck and mire of an unfulfilled potential that crushes them like bugs on a windshield, hopes and dreams are dashed by the wieght of  a cruel reality and a heartless world. Their pain becomes the only thing that they live for, living in a mass darkness which consumes every moment of their lives. The pain is the only thing that they can relate to, happiness is just a lie told to them by other people. Why does everyone insist on comforting others by saying "things will get better?"  How does anyone know things will improve?  Where is your proof?

   In a life filled with failure and pain the hope of a better tomorrow is just rubish. When all you know is heartache and disappointment, that is all you expect...nothing more. The darkness becomes sunshine to the ones who have done nothing but failed. Loss and grief becomes your daily sustinance. A world of a loving God becomes a fairytale to those who can no longer pick themselves up off the floor one last time. Why get back up when you're only going to fail again and again?
Despite what you are told by everyone else FAILURE IS AN OPTION. Failure happens everyday. There just comes a point in your life when getting back on your feet seems like a fruitless endevor. Sometimes it's just better to stay down and accept that you are a failure. Self lothing almost feels as good as a hug, darkness shines as bright as the sun and words of hope become useless background noise.