Today I've been reminding myself how fortunate I am.  It's too easy in today's world to get caught up in your own small miseries while others are going through your worst day multiplied by 100.  I've been taking for granted many things and people, focusing on the stress and the negativity that can so easily dominate my thoughts.  Lifetime habits are incredibly difficult to break, but I'm at least trying to mitigate this.

I've worked too hard to surrender, to drift on the personal thoughts that drag me down instead of seeing the whole picture.  I don't expect these thoughts to go away.  I have probably about twice the average person's ability for mental flagellation, so I have to work that much harder to stand up to it.  But there are so many things to be thankful for, and not just on Thanksgiving.

I need to re-frame.  Instead of being angry at my asshole neighbor, I should look at the fact that I can afford my own apartment in NYC.  Instead of being incredibly stressed that no one can back me up at work, I should be grateful that I have a job that challenges me, and gives me work of such complexity that it can't be addressed without my skills.  Instead of dreading family time, I should try to put aside old grievances and appreciate that I have that family.

I know it's Pollyanna.  I'm not going to succeed all the time; maybe not even the majority of the time.  But with all that's happened I have to apply hard lessons that are only learned through experience in terms of how much you can cause your own problems.  Sometimes I wonder what it must be like to wake up and not worry about the day from the second you open your eyes.  I know many people do it every day.  For me, I'll try to deflect the worry reflex and look at the best thing that will happen in that day, or at least try.  I think that might be a good way to start.

It's amazing the psychological impact that changes can have on an entire department.  Some of us are snapping more at small things.  Some just want to talk it out in terms of the changes that will happen and try to figure logistics.  Some have shut down completely.

As for department morale, what is that?  We didn't have much before this announcement, but after the sucker punch there's not even an attempt to have hope things will improve.  It's strange that there hasn't been any backlash, except I think we've all just been beat down and degraded so many times that you lose the desire to fight back.

I know that feeling well, having experienced it in personal life more often than working life, but watching my colleagues deal (or not deal) with that sort of apathy enforced by expending so much energy that you have none left is interesting.  I think in many ways that's why I've been a sounding board, and/or target of the snapping, since I can take it.  I can hear and understand, sympathize and empathize, and try to at least make it a little easier for those who haven't reconciled themselves to that apathy and lack of control.

It's not a net positive, but for the next two weeks, we'll deal.  As best we can.

At pool on Monday, one of my colleagues exclaimed that I have over 3,000 messages in my inbox, which are downloading to my iPhone and causing battery drain. I had free time tonight, so I started cleaning house, so to speak.

Just like when I was looking back at my old resumes, these emails stand as snapshots in time for me.  Who I was involved with.  What my positives and negatives were at my prior jobs.  The trials and tribulations of life; the celebrations, friends, acquaintances, breakups, job searches, apartment searches, and all of the other things that have encompassed my nine years in the city.  Mostly it's like every time you really look back through your progression through life.  You laugh, you cry, you feel every emotion known to man (and woman), while virtually reliving that time from your memories.

There's also a timing factor. Gmail first opened themselves up to people who were using Blogger (Pyra Labs at the time, before the takeover), so I was one of the beta testers back in 2004.  It was a new chapter in my life in many ways.  Those 3,000 archived emails chronicle that last terrible year in school, starting my career afterward, and all that has ensued since.

Would I repeat my actions?  Professionally, yes, since I was young and naive enough to take chances I wouldn't dream of now.  Do I have regrets?  Absolutely, mostly in personal relationships and responsibilities, but I've recently started trying to rectify some of these.  Trying to address my health, reconnect with the people I miss that fell out of my life, and mend what is broken, although I know that some things can't always be fixed.

I try not to be in denial about my life and the events that have occurred. However, reading what was written by myself and others reminds me how I abandoned some of them, as well as how some abandoned me. The turmoil that marked so many of those times when I was jumping jobs, dealing with dysfunctions. The straw that broke the camel's back, so to say, was realizing that even the marginally positive life I envisioned was never to happen.  It caused a visceral reaction that was a spark during my move to NY, fanned during my first two years here, then during the recession where nothing was certain, caused a full-on fire of maladjustments.

There were those who tried to stand by me and I pushed them aside, or those who wanted or needed me to be there for them and I didn't make the effort.  The times I was selfish and put myself first even though I should have been looking at what damage I was doing to others. The times when I withdrew and left them to deal on their own. The mistakes I have made in so many ways that I can't even chronicle them here.

Then there are the ones who stood by me and championed me even when I didn't have the ability to do so myself.  Who listened and sympathized, who helped me however they could, and have gone out of their way to make sure I was okay, even when I didn't feel it myself. The ones who have been my support and lifeline no matter what.

I'm trying to reconnect with my oldest friend, and I hope it goes well.  I admitted all of my faults and reasons why I stopped responding to any concern or overture of our friendship from her.  If that works, or even if it doesn't, I'll try with some other ex-best friends, since if reading those emails reminds me of anything, it's that they are wonderful people who I treated badly.  People come in and out of your life, leave their mark as you leave yours, but sometimes it's not too late to try to at least explain the circumstances from your point of view and hear theirs.  And hope for forgiveness.

I owe apologies, many for years of neglect or negativity, and it's time to start addressing that.  Maybe this is finally growing up, as long as I don't repeat the patterns that caused these disconnects in the first place. At least I hope so.

I've lived nine years in NYC.  I wasn't in the city on THAT September 11th, having just graduated from undergrad, recovering from hernia surgery, and living in New Jersey waiting to start a new job the next week.

I never experienced it intimately, other than visiting the following November, seeing the concrete dust still in the streets.  And the odor.  I have been in necropsy labs, and worked in a meat science department so I knew what "that smell" was.  I didn't share that knowledge with my friends who were there; most people don't want to know the reality and some actively block it out or deny it.

I wasn't there that day, so I can't imagine what it must have been like for those who were, but it's a pale shadow of the reality. It is imagining a terror that those who wasn't there can't really know, the panic those felt fleeing from the building, let alone those who never made it outside.  For many who survived it was so traumatic that the psychological and emotional scars are as fresh today in memories and flashbacks from that one terrible day. I hope that all those who are dealing or not dealing with their personal grief realize that many of us are thinking of you across the  nation.  You are not alone.

Now that I've had some time to let this sink in, I'm somewhat less upset.  There are far worse things that they can do to us, and in comparison, this isn't an impossibility.  There's also time; when we moved across the street it was a full 2 months past the original deadline.  In between I need to get things in order just in case this is the death knell of our department.

I went through my filing cabinet to clean out old bills.  I'm catching up on everything medical, dental, and vision related.  I'm re-establishing connections and putting more effort into those that I have in the city.  I'm still exhausted from the Summer of Sickness I experienced, but somewhere along the way I've gained a little extra energy, a little more positivity, and am trying to run with it while I can.

It's time.  It's time to really evaluate where I am and where I want to be, which scares the living hell out of me. I've made this resolution before, but it's time to pick myself up and start living again.  It's so easy to fall into a routine and unfortunately, in this world, particularly in my firm and my profession, we're the first targets to be expunged during staff reductions.  And yes, I mean expunged since we're viewed by our higher ups as an expense, not an asset.

Will it work?  Will I really change and take the chance of looking around, knowing that I'm leaving the smartest and most competent colleagues I've EVER had?  I don't want to, but sometimes it's worth testing the waters at least.