Bunnies, Clouds, And Thoughts

The last time Anne and I went to see the roses at the Botanic Gardens was a graveyard disaster, so I decided to check back this year to see the roses in bloom. As I've mentioned, Tuesdays are free, so I roamed around by myself and explored. Since I was alone, I took some more pictures of things I found pretty and went to parts I haven't been to before. It always feels a little weird to be doing fun stuff alone (I also went to the library!), but I sat on benches in three different sections and just enjoyed the sun and quiet. Some thoughts and many pictures after the jump.

Not to get all hippie on everyone, but having this time off (euphemisms!) has really made me think about what our time means and how we spend it. I'd like to say I'm bored out of mind having been unemployed for five months now, but I'm not. While I'm eager to get back to work and continue building my career, it's been an amazing experience to have time to myself to just figure out how to enjoy myself and life. I said to my therapist just a few months ago (when I had health insurance and a therapist) that I simply can't pinpoint a time in my life when I felt happy. Yet today, sitting on a ledge in front of the Brooklyn Museum, I felt happy in that moment, and that is extremely rare for me. Despite all the confusion and stress I feel about my job search and the relationships in my life, I've had time to just enjoy my friends, my neighborhood, and normalcy. I feel like a normal person for once, someone without the weight of constant depression; I can have all these problems I'm dealing with and still enjoy an afternoon.

So that's why I feel it's so important to find a job that will, if not satisfy me, then at least not torture me like many of the past ones. Some other countries are much more aware of the importance of mental health in relation to work, allowing for more time off and concentration on family and life. After I watched this video, it did make a lot of sense that we live the way we do; it's part of our society to workworkwork and buybuybuy, and that has kept us running for a really long time (even if we're not all that happy). That's probably why I feel so ashamed of myself for not just accepting a retail job and for depending on unemployment instead. It's just not in my or our nature to take a little time to really figure things out. We have a system where we've made this impossible (for the not-rich anyway).

But I have this luxury (well, a catch-22 of luxury) at the moment unlike any other time in my life, and I'm making the best of it. From the time I was a child, I always had the next goal in my head and I'm not sure what it was all meant to lead up to because here I am--unmarried, unemployed, unsuccessful, yet happier than before. Still, the weight of the past, but also perspective enough to be able to finally enjoy a little bit of present. I want more than anything to find a job and career path that utilize my skills and work ethic, that leave me fulfilled at the end of my life, that support me so that I can take care of myself and others. But I also want to always be able to find a balance, to be able to sit on a park bench and look around, to know that work is part of what makes our lives but not meant to be a distraction from living.