Friday, December 4, 2009

Cloudy and cold

There isn't anything terribly important to note, just spending my day off listening to intermittent Christmas songs that plays between my regular songs on the iPod. We are watching our budget so staying home seems to be a pretty good solution, although it does drive Elaine up the wall. It doesn't bother me quite as much, because from Mon to Fri all I ever do is to work, and then linger with exhaustion until bedtime so I could do it all over again. Elaine took Zoe to World Market to window shop a bit, and I'm just hanging out at home with the boy. While he's playing Legos, I'm on the iPod tapping out a blog entry.

November came and went, and now it's weeks before Christmas and it's hard to fanthom. We are maybe seventy percent complete on our shopping, and for me only one more paycheck to go. Elaine and I are both exempt from gifts, since we both got our gifts early with the TV and the couch. We are cutting down on kids presents this year, being how their toys have such a short life cycle, we decided to instead save that money for a trip to Disneyland instead. Of course, none of that money is there anymore, but I suppose sometime in March or April we will go.

It is a little tough to think of myself as a college graduate, and everyday I go to work I get reminded of that everyday. I have to swallow chunks of my pride everyday, when people with less schooling running the show. I dunno, I'm having this mid-life crisis whereby I don't know what I want in life anymore. My ambitions got smaller and now it seems that my short term goal is to make it to the weekend, and my long term goal is to look forward to the next holiday. My imagination is stifled by stress, fatigue, and constant refereeing. In a lot of ways, I am content with the life I have, with a wife who loves me and sticks by me, two good kids, and a pretty good dog whose worse moments comes when she's bored. Hey, if I could chew on walls, there's no guarantee I wouldn't do it either. But in a lot of ways, I'm sad as well. I don't know what I'm contributing to my legacy. Even my wit and smartassery isn't documented, so it's not even like I could coast off that. I don't write anymore because I'm making excuses, and indepent filmmaking slips further from me. My equipment is old and falling apart, and my willingness to work with actors was lessened with the last project. I just don't know what I'm doing most of the time.

2 comments:

Joseph Pulikotil said...

HI Diego:)

Seasons's greetings:)

It is very interesting to read your post. All of us went through this midlife crisis and survived.

It would be a good idea to look for another job which will be more interesting and exciting. Of course you have a family to support and therefore you cannot take risks. But it will do you a lot of good to look around.

In my case I worked for thirty years for one company with all the boredom and monotony because I did not want to change jobs and take risks. In the end I ended with hardly any savings and low salary. Sometimes my juniors got promoted over me because the management thought that I will never leave under any circumstance and they treated me like a fixed asset.

Now my children are earning ten times more salary than what I was getting and they laugh at me saying what sort of work I was doing all these years with such low salary. They do not understand how much sacrifices I made to bring them up, provide for them, educate them etc. Anyway that is old story. I am still working at 62 and wondering what will be in store for me. But faith in God has given me strength all along. I count my blessings. I have a house, I have brought up three children who are doing well. I am sitll working to earn some money. I am not idle. What more can a man want out of life?

Have a nice day Diego:)
Joseph

Diego said...

Thank you both for your kind comments. I appreciate your feedback and stories, it gives me more perspective and gives me more to chew on.