01.10.98 - Craving breaks in a repeating pattern

As a new month begins I find myself not feeling as positive and pro-active about my life as a couple of days ago. What I thought was another turn of the corner for me has turned out to be just more of the same... only different. Does that make any sense? What I am trying to say is that I'm finding it hard to keep up the energy and enthusiasm necessary to create a life environment in which I feel happy within myself. The outlook for getting my own place, for having a wonderful holiday, for meeting someone special, for getting a career I feel satisfied with just looks a little dimmer right now. I sometimes wonder if it is a hormonal thing or whether this just happens when a few things have gone wrong and I start to see a pattern. Oh God, I remember having this conversation about "patterns" in life with someone close to me months ago! Aaaargh, I hope it's not one of those 'doomed to happen' kind of things. See what I mean? Oh well... I'll keep taking the pills.

I spent most of today having a game of words and feelings with Pauline. "What the hell is he talking about?"... well I'll try to explain. As I am responsible for Pauline at work I must find her work to do and supervise the output of the office. Things have been so slack lately, partly because she is too quick and efficient at the job compared to her predecessor and partly because I have been too pre-occupied mentally with the database development to sit and go through more things with her. Instead of doing any of this we have been sitting and chatting. I really don't feel guilty about wasting this time at work when it forever feels like those dipweeds waste my time with their measly wages and.... ok I'll stop there. I fly off on a tangent sometimes. Hehe. Anyway we spent most of the day analysing Pauline's marriage, examining our own mental state on various topics including self esteem, our slant on relationships and our own strength to be who we want to be. Sounds deep huh? Well it can be and it's so refreshing to be able to talk to someone like that at work other than the usual airy fairy topics about who said what to who and who upset who and where people want to go for the Christmas dinner etc. Ugh... all that trivial office shit just gets too much at times. If you have a job that means you are out of an office most of the time don't complain about it. You are not missing much! The one thing I do feel edgy about when talking to Pauline is that some topics get very close to my heart and I feel an uneasiness at my social life and my working life converging on common ground. I want to keep them separate (perhaps that's why I avoid getting involved with people from work?).

As a side note something did happen towards the end of the day that made me smile. One of the hospital senior managers phoned up for some information on patients against a certain consultant's waiting list. The information she asked for was quite specific and concerned breast reconstruction patients. This information would normally only be available by me writing a report within Access or on the Patient Administration System and it would take a while to extract the exact relevant information. As I hung up the phone I realised that the information could be retrieved from the OLAP database I am working on very simply and quickly. I spent about two minutes setting up the information on screen and then phoned her back. I was able to give her as much (and more!) information as she wanted and while she did not seem particularly impressed by this I realise that is because she could not see just how I got the information and how easy it was. I was just thrilled to see the results of my hard work at getting this database functioning and useful. That is what I work for really, not the money. I need the money for other things in my life but as far as the actual work goes I do it for the personal satisfaction of a job well done and some sense of achievement.

I've stayed offline all this evening (apart from when I came home and downloaded e-mail and checked the RecruitNet site for a few minutes). Part of the reason was because I am expecting a phone call from two different people. One is an old friend that I haven't spoken to in ages and I was sure he would have phoned by now. The other was from James as he said the phone in his new flat would be connected by today. I don't know whether it is connected or not or whether he just hasn't phoned because he is mad at me. Right now I'm a little upset about not having heard from at least one of them. I wonder if I crave attention more than I allow myself to think. I have never really been an attention seeker and I really thought I enjoyed my own company as much as anything but just lately I've felt very alone and I want someone around giving me some attention. It's only natural I suppose for anyone to feel like that and I did try to surround myself with friends only I came a bit unstuck with that plan. I've had a taster of people being close to me and I want more. It's like dipping your finger in the chocolate, tasting it and then wanting more. I'm a very impatient person too and I swear it's killing me to be on my own with no attention right now. I get attention from good friends online but it's just not the same thing. They are not a part of my 'real life' as much as I want them to be. Even when they are in my real life at some point their online persona is not and I crave their attention in real life.....

Well James just phoned so I am feeling a little better. He is not mad at me and we had a great big long discussion about loads of things. I explained that I felt restless in my life and he said that it was my age. I had never really thought of it in as simple terms as that but I suppose it's true. My limited life experience is bound to mean that as I discover new things it feels uncomfortable or makes me feel restless. This is perhaps why the highs and lows in my life seem to be very frequent as I may be over sensitive to them (hell I am over sensitive to everything else!). Well I still feel restless but for now it's enough to just settle back in my computer chair, log on to upload this and then chat to some people. Catch ya later!

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