I remember when I was last unemployed.

I like joking about how this year has gone. But, I thought I was past all the bad things. I joke about getting my head beat by a stranger, about slamming my hand in a car door. Small things, really. Like it or not, that job was something good I had going for me. It was stability. The ability to relax while I figure out what it is I really want to do with myself.

I’m not quite back to square one. I can’t take that attitude. I have to avoid being too depressive. After all, it’s not the end of the world. I’ve been responsible in at least having SOME money in the bank.

I’ve known for weeks that I’ve been feeling a bit discontent. Feeling like I was just coasting. Simultaneously content with my situation, content to not move forward, and feeling like I was stagnanting and really needed to think about what lies beyond.

Erik’s mom was yelling at him today for calling out yesterday. The rhetoric of being worried about him. The rhetoric of where he’s going in life. He seems so content, it makes me wonder what he really thinks he’s doing. What he really thinks he’s going to end up doing. He’s more or less in the same boat as me, except he actually has bills. Rhetoric of not being able to survive without that house being there for him to live in.

I may have worked with Erik, but he never got the hours I did. In part because of stunts like that. No, he wasn’t scheduled yesterday. But he was asked to come in. That’s hours. It’s his own fault, ultimately, and I can’t save him there. I worry the same way his parents do, only I’m his friend.

And I worry of the same things about myself. I avoid the conversations with my parents simply because I know these things.

A constant struggle, is it not? Actually, it isn’t. Like it or not, work is just one of those things which is needed for life to be stable. When it’s there, things are fine. Everybody spazzes just a little when that stability is gone.

Is there anything to be learned? Can I avoid this in the future? As much as its clear I need to learn how to keep my anger in check, I must agree that getting fired was bullshit. I gave too much to that damn store.

Bleh.

Not long into my time at Panera, it occurred to me that I could thrive anywhere I go. Something I’ve always known, but couldn’t quite actualize until I saw myself doing something I’d never done before. Throw some darts at the wanted ads, shall I? Ha ha. I’m young. I should be having bizarre jobs I’ll be able to bitch about when I’m older. That’s the ticket. But, I’ve thought of this before and nothing really comes to mind.

Nothing ever comes to mind. How I ended up at Panera in the first place was absolute randomness. Always having that external locus of control.

Oh, and Erik has gauged that the noise the van is now making is the carburator dying. Oh. Fucking. Joy. Nickle and dime, nickle and dime.

There’s a Fatburger openning soon. Erik and I were driving by it and said, “We should get jobs there!” Two seconds later: “That would suck horribly.” “Yes, it would.”

So much for the Bank of Timmy.

That responsibility thing. It isn’t the end of the world. I have time. I don’t need to get a job tomorrow. Soon. But not tomorrow. Perhaps I am turning into my dad in that I don’t know how to have a vacation. Especially not during these circumstances. Can’t relax.

…I’ll definitely try to track down Melissa once she gets back from Wildwood. She’s someone I want to keep in my life, regardless of what we are. I can talk to her. Given certain things we’ve gone through in the past, we have a bond. Or so I like to think.

Things feel different when I write now. As if I was repeating myself to death for years, and somehow it comes out different now. Just a feeling. It’s a good feeling, but tempered with the knowledge that I’m still bitching. Not that bitching is a bad thing. We all have to bitch.

Oh, whatever.

I want my rainbow. Just have to weather the rain. The sun pokes out now and then, but I don’t think my rainbow will shine for a while. I dispelled the myth of riding off into the sunset a while ago.