i do my best but i'm made of mistakes

listening to: "i'm an animal" - neko case

It's March! Springtime! This is the second day in a row of beautiful weather, though I am unable to take advantage of it today. Yesterday was Saint Patrick's Day, and last year around this time I was with Jeremy and Kristi, romping around downtown Chicago with all of the pretty green Irish-for-a-Day crazies, listening (and getting more excited than anyone probably oughta) to the bagpipers, and drinking Tullamore Dew. This year was more subdued, but still nice. It was seventy degrees outside, and Mike and I sat out on the deck of a bar for hours in the sunshine. Everyone had their dogs out and the locals were all done up in green-goth-garb. It was lovely.

It's been a hard month for me at work. At the coffee shop I feel torn between my desire to interact with the customers (who are the reason I work there in the first place) and the pull of the ever-increasing politics of the business. I can't seem to do anything right. No matter what. Last night I fell asleep and dreamed I was at work. I helped customers, I talked to my regulars, I had coaching conversation, and when my alarm went off at 4:15 I woke up and was surprised to find that I wasn't already at work. I got up and went in, and worked what felt like my second shift of the day.

As far as the other job goes... I can't keep it up much longer. My heart races as soon as I sit down in my car to drive the 14 miles to work. By the time I get there, my hands are shaking and I'm having a hard time breathing. There's no real reason for these mini-anxiety attacks. The job isn't stressful, not really. It's just waitressing. But even when I try to tell myself, Megan, you know your reactions, breathe, try to breathe through it... even then, I kind of wig out. I need to quit my job, but I've never quit a job before for any reason other than moving to a different state or graduating. Never.

I know I'm lucky to have jobs at all, even two jobs that occasionally feel stupid. I just want to, first and foremost, be healthy and happy, and also I would like to enjoy what I do every day. I also know that I am young and that I do not necessarily get to do what I want to do. Millions of people are unhappy at work. I am willing to work a job I am not passionate about if, in exchange, I have the time and mental-well-being to work at my writing. Right now I don't have that. When I talk to my friends, I feel guilty when they ask me about my writing because when I tell them I haven't written in months, they know as well as I do that I am screwing myself over with no real result or reward.

There are good things in my life, though. Mike and I went to see Umphrey's McGee last weekend-- a two-night show at the Egyptian Room. Both nights were amazing and we had so much fun dancing around like crazies and drinking terrible beer. I was recently in Michigan and got to see my buddies, and have gotten to talk to a lot of faraway friends in the past several weeks. It's springtime, finally, and I'm in loveloveLOVE and I can drive with my windows down and I'm reading David James Duncan's The Brothers K again and starting David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest and I have almost completely cut caffeine out of my diet and Neko Case's Middle Cyclone is awesome. Life is not so bad after all, it seems.


shalomshalom.