I don't blog here anymore.  In fact, I think it's been at least a year since I have, except I have a nasty habit of deleting blogs shortly after I write them.  Sounds ridiculous, but sometimes it feels liberating to delete the painful blogs, as if by erasing them, you can pretend the whole shitty experience never happened.  Just FYI......this is not effective.  The shit is still in your mind, even if it's not on your page.

Anyhoo, I was here tonight, copying some of my older blogs to submit for a freelance writing position on, of all things, relationships.  As if I should be advising anyone on relationships, except maybe those chicks at the convent.  But I thought I would drop some updates.  I really have no idea if anyone with whom I used to correspond is still here........but if so, here's the skinny.

I have just quit my traveling job.  The money was awesome, but the physical, mental and emotional toll of living in airports and hotels has proven, after 5 years now, to be a bit much for me.  I've taken a local position that I was very fortunate to be offered, still in research, but not traveling, ever, except for the 5 mile drive from my house to the clinic.  I am both terrified and excited, all at the same time.  Terrified because, although the salary is decent, it is not what I have become accustomed to earning and change always scares the hell outta me.  I can live without my shopping sprees and vacations, but it's knowing that I'm not as prepared as I should be for that "rainy day" that bothers me.  In my old job, the unexpected expense was not something to fear.........now, it's a concern.  I like to get a head start on worrying.

Country Boy, if you remember him, turned out to be the most self-centered, narcissistic, unreliable, cowardly man that I have yet to encounter in fact or fiction.  Disappointing, to say the least, as I had high hopes for that relationship.  Misplaced hope, to be sure, but it took a good while for that to become evident.  Anyhoo, he is gone, gone, gone, but I take some solace, although very little, in the fact that the ending was of my doing.  He had made several disappearing acts in the last year, and I simply would not allow him to make another.  So, I cut ties.  Hard decision and felt somewhat forced, but it was either him or me, and I chose me.  THAT was what actually felt most awkward and foreign......choosing myself. 

Same way with the job thing:  I have been doing the work of 5 people now for a long, long time, and I know this because it took that many people to take over my site assignments when I resigned.  I had reached the point of such misery that I actually resigned, in the middle of a recession, with no other job lined up.  Yep.  Thankfully, the local position was dropped in my lap and although it's half my current salary, it will give me the chance to rebuild a life that is not dependent on unreasonable deadlines, unbearable travel, and it gets me out from under a company that has chosen to use the fear of the recession for all it is worth.  Translation:  my promotion never came, but the work that said promotion would entail WAS given to me.  They had no intentions of EVER getting me off the road.  So, again, I chose me........and as right as I know the decision was, it still feels all wrong. 

The challenge before me is this, and it is daunting:  to rediscover myself, by myself, and simply as myself.  Not as the professional go-getter, not as someone's girlfriend, not as anything other than who I am.  Not for the money I make, not for professional achievements, but just me.  All of those things aside, I'm afraid I might not know who "me" is anymore.  I feel like I've spent so long morphing into what someone else needed me to be that I've forgotten the core of the individual entity that once existed.  And while I feel that, professionally speaking, I am taking a step backwards, it might take going back to the beginning to recover what was lost.  Who knows?

So, that's me right now.  I am no longer consumed with finding the love of my life; I am consumed with making myself the love of my life and becoming more and more comfortable with making those choices that are best for me.  I do not wish to be self-centered, but a healthy level of selfish is, in my opinion, the only way to be any good to yourself and, ultimately, others. 

I'm taking a few weeks off before the new job begins to just rest up, get my head outta my ass, and take care of myself.  Exploring some interests, working more on my writing........seeing what pans out with, hopefully, a clearer perspective.  I feel like I've spent a great deal of time searching for something that isn't to be found externally.  I guess we'll see.