I should be happy
I’m aware of the fact that when I look at my life from the outside, it’s the bees knees. I have a good job where I’m appreciated, get paid well, have decent benefits and a reasonable level of security. I have a nice house to live in that sits on just under five acres in a nice area just outside a really nice place to live (Bend, OR). I have two Toyotas–a truck and an SUV–with less than 100K on the odometer that still look and drive well and don’t need much more than oil changes, gasoline and semi-regular cleaning. I have a wife who loves and cares about me and two wonderful, healthy, smart little girls. I have my health and a college degree in computers. I have friends and hobbies. I’m far far better off than where I started in Florida when I first left home, and (after 10 years), I finally feel like I’m doing better financially than when I left the military in 2001/2002.
Stuck
I’ve been in my current job for over five years now–longer than I ever worked anywhere else. Up until about six months ago, I was totally OK with that. During this economic downturn, though, we’ve stopped doing lots of new things and have switched back to essentials. Focusing on keeping things going at the current level. Innovation and new ideas are coming from Salem now and are centered on ECourt. I always knew things would get to this place, but it doesn’t make things any easier now. I’m well past the point of being content with basic help desk work and prefer to build new things and solve business problems with technology. I’m not doing that much anymore and don’t have any faith that I’ll get to do that in my current position anymore ever again. Jobs are scarce right now and my pay is good here. I’m used to (and need to) making my current amount of money every month and can’t afford to work a lower paying job. And honestly…I’ve worked for a long time to get to this level and it would suck to take a job where I make less. I feel stuck in my job.
Why not move to a town with more opportunities? Glad you asked. My wife’s family is here. Our kids love it here and have lives here. My wife has a life here that she enjoys. We love where we live (and worked hard to finally get to where we are). And the options for moving suck. Basically, it’s move to a big city in the valley and do the city thing again. I guess I’m spoiled. I don’t want that anymore. I like living where I do. It’s big enough to be interesting but only annoying occasionally. Since moving really isn’t an option (even if I didn’t like where I live, the rest of the family gets a say), I feel stuck in my home.
One of the ways I’ve added change to my life is my hobby: motorcycles. I buy and sell them all year long. Ride them. Work on them. It’s an escape. A way to change unimportant things. While it isn’t necessarily cheap, it’s less expensive than lots of other things I could do. Over the summer I bought (another) sidecar motorcycle. The bike is funny to ride (notice I didn’t say fun) because of the looks you get and how different it is from a “real” motorcycle. It’s closest to fun to ride when I have a passenger, but most of the time, it’s just me. Up until a couple of weeks ago, this wasn’t a big problem because I had a second “real” motorcycle. Due to some vet bills that punched a large hole in our savings, I sold the bike and put the money in savings. Now I’m down to just the sidecar bike. I was doing OK with it for a while until I realized last week that it didn’t give me what I really have come to need from motorcycles: a way out of my current situation (or at least the promise of that). The sidecar bike is slow and unreliable. It won’t do the speed limit going uphill (confining my riding to the High Desert) and I’ve had more trouble with it in the 4 months I’ve owned it than I had with the motorbike I just sold during the 3.5 years I had it. The only place I ride it is around Bend. When I had the other bike, I went places and even in the winter we’d occasionally get days that were nice enough to ride (I rode on my birthday last year for the first time ever–that’s Jan. 26, right smack dab in the middle of winter) and I’d hop on the other bike and ride up to Terrebonne or Prineville or some other spot several hours away. I don’t even have the promise of that in the foreseeable future now. I’m stuck in Bend.
Over the weekend we went to a horse show with the girls. It was fun for them–and fun to see them, but it was also a lot of work and expense. At home before and after there was a lot of work and expense. With horses and land, there is a lot of work and expense. I helped put us where we are and agreed to the whole horse and land thing, but it’s a lot of work and expense. So much so that I don’t feel like we can afford to buy me a replacement motorcycle (after all, the whole reason for ditching the last one was to put money back in the bank). So I’m stuck with the motorbike I have that isn’t ever going to be what i need it to be.
Bring the funk
So all of this stuff hit me in really big way at lunch time last Thursday. The more I thought of it, the further down I got. My wife was done with me over the weekend. I don’t blame her. Monday I came to work and made it 2 hours into the day before I asked for a half day–partly because I kind of got into a–something–with Theresia. Luckily I was able to go home and find some constructive work to do (horse pens) and somehow get into a better place so I could have a good–no great–time on Halloween with my family. I’ve been mostly better since then, but still managed to have another–something–with Theresia yesterday. The kind of thing where you just stop talking and the silence hangs in the air of the office you share like some kind of anvil just waiting to drop and flatten you. Yeah, like that. Today hasn’t been too bad. No head butting. No silence. I went down and talked to Dan about it all a bit. He’s kinda like the local shrink. I go to Cafe Dan (he has an espresso maker that we keep stocked) and have coffee and chat.
During all my funking around, one of the things that has drug me down most of all is the fact that I know I should be much happier. I know I’m fortunate. This shouldn’t get to me. I feel stupid for letting it–and I sink further into funkiness.
I found a motorcycle on Craigslist for $6K last night. I looked at it, read about it. Found it at the dealer’s website and read some more, looked some more. Had a dream about it last night. And I wonder…could it be as easy as spending money I don’t have to acquire something I probably don’t need? And before I even finish wondering that, I already know the answer. But that doesn’t keep me from fantasizing about it.
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