LONDON BYE, TA TA!
It has been a very long while since I've been here. Seven months ago I moved to London and had a flat in Cricklewood (NW London.) A month ago, Ben and I moved into a new flat in Putney (SW London.) It's a great flat! And Putney is just lovely! I think I'm going to like it here. In four days we will be going to Los Angeles to spend Thanksgiving with my family. It will be nice to go back and see everyone. I think I'll even be stepping foot in Sexy Hair Concepts. I even miss them. I can feel free to visit because my old boss who made my life so miserable there has since left the company.
I have had some time to reflect on life and experience some different things over the last few months. My most major revelation, which I think isn't breaking news, is that I am never happy. "I was looking for a job and then I found a job, and heaven knows I'm miserable now..." Oh Morrissey knows what it's like to be me! It was awful to be unemployed for three months. I applied for over 100 jobs and got number 88. Now I am the Design Manager at a company in Wimbledon Park (SW London) called Feme Limited. I was really excited to have the job for about a month and then reality set in. There is very little structure or conveyance of a plan to drive the company forward and miscommunication runs rampant. The combination of no guidelines and micro-management by the heads of the company ensure that very little gets accomplished without initialising plans in the dark and then having to rework and reexamine about 20 million times. From an artistic point of view, the image of the company is very bland. The good thing is that the design department's main task is to publish a quarterly magazine called Spell and it is very fun to work on. And hey, it's a job that pays well. I can't imagine that I would find another job that would make me completely happy. My plan is to give it a year and then if I'm still not happy then I'll look for a new job.
I'll tell you why I am never happy. Because I have a negative outlook on life. I've tried to modify the way I see things but I am a pessimist at heart. It seems I can only really enjoy things when I look back on it. I can't name one thing that would make me feel happy right now. That's an awful revelation. Even going on vacation to see my family isn't making me feel happy. I know I'll be happy when I am there, but thinking about it now just fills me with dread because I don't want to fly.
The flight over here was difficult. I got sick on the way. That's because I'm a wuss. I'm getting extra sensitive and paranoid. I can't stand to think about my blood running through my veins, it makes me nauseous. During the flight here I was convinced that I would get a blood clot from sitting too long and it made me throw up. I went on a basic one-day first aid course last month and I didn't get my certificate because they started talking about cuts and bleeding and I threw up and fainted. Not in front of anybody, I left the room and went to the bathroom, but it was still embarrassing. They sent me home.
It would be nice if I was a confident, secure, flexible, kind and generous person. But I'm not. I'm insecure, paranoid, tense, demanding, critical and a perfectionist. Since I can't live up to my own standards, I have also become very lazy. What can you do when you've lost all confidence? I don't want to let these things take over, I want to regain some sense of worth. But when I view the world as being crap, how can I find worth in myself in that sort of setting? I need some sort of guidelines or a method, an affirmation or a list of things to train myself to see on a daily basis that is positive. Maybe I should get some sort of self-help book (not Dianetics!). That, my friends, is at the core of what is wrong in my life. I'm sure if these things changed I'd be fitter, happier and more productive...