Slow day at work today which is nice, and yet I still got over 10 requests done, which is pretty much my benchmark for an average day. The cookies were a big hit again this year, and as the new year is getting close to starting, I'm thinking of resolving to lose at least 10 pounds. I usually don't do new years resolutions, so this is different from what has come before.

I'm trying to think back to when I stopped making resolutions, and I think it happened in grad school. So many things had gone wrong and things seemed so hopeless that I just gave up on a lot of things, including trying to plan for the future in any meaningful way besides career (I was fully determined to graduate though, even with having mono twice in one semester for about 6 months total).

I've always put my work ahead of myself, and considering I started working when I was 14 that's saying a lot. I look back on my Social Security statement and every year since then I've had SS eligible income, with the exception of one year I was getting college credit for working in the lab, and one year I was fully on scholarship (apparently doesn't count toward SS, which I was surprised to find out). I think part of my frustration is that despite all of this, I just don't have the earning power I wanted.

Like everything else, it's pretty much my fault. I chose a field that doesn't make much compared to high-earning professions, and the benefits that used to offset lower paying occupations like teacher, police, etc, have been gutted, leaving me with a constant current of dissatisfaction. Don't get me wrong, I love that I learn something new every single day and that I know I'm extraordinarily good at what I do, but it would be nice to know that I'm being compensated fairly for the work I do at twice the rate of my colleagues.

What I would like most, however, is to have a fulfilling life outside of work. I've immersed myself in my job so long that making contacts outside of that is difficult. That's another thing I'm hoping to rectify next year, and hopefully I'll meet someone good, someone who I really relate to, and can help me break out of the shell I've put around my life to protect me from the emotional tsunami that has defined the past 5 years. I have to remind myself; there's always hope.

It's been a long time, a VERY long time since I posted here. Almost 4 years, indicating to me how fast time goes. Pretty much everything except my job has changed, which is about 50% good, 50% bad overall, which leaves me in a quandary. Still smoking, although with intentions to quit (no timeline yet though), and a massive amount of changes personally. I've been stable in terms of apartment changes since 2009 which is a godsend minus my neighbors who, I swear, can stomp the loudest I've ever heard, but the security of my job at least gives me some comfort. Over the years I've been the consistently highest producer in my department, and yes, some years, even globally, but there's been so much clamp-down on salaries I've barely been staying even with pretty much anything which involves inflation (which unfortunately is pretty much everything!).

Looking back at my entries on this blog when so many things were in flux and I had the chance to motivate to a better job; when I took the major leap to LIB, I don't think I could do it now. The recession along with my experiences have instilled an entirely new layer of caution and fear that wasn't there before. At one point I thought I could take on any new assignment, that there was really something to be said for taking the chance and trying to better my situation. Now I don't see a scenario where that would necessarily apply.

After all, I was one of the lucky ones. The ones who kept their jobs, who got the permanent position, who got some of the perks being given when available, who managed to find the affordable apartment. And yet, when it really comes down to it, is that really worth it? Worth the stress, the diminishing of benefits, of health procedures delayed due to ridiculous premiums, the pain of watching the safe landscape change, the layoffs, the deaths, the toll that it takes on everyone I've known with few exceptions?

There is so much that has happened. I'm thankful Obama is back in the White House because the alternative would have been a disaster, but I still don't see an easy road ahead. After 4 years of this economic climate and the stress it brings, I can only hope for a future where things are more secure and fair. I think the first year was hard, the second excruciating, third mitigating, and fourth numbing as the emotions and experiences of the whole time period crescendoed and ebbed back to an exhaustion. It's time for America to rest. And its workers.