So I've finished my 1st week making sandwiches [View All]

[northernlights]

chop veggies, carry water.

I found myself wondering why the universe is doing this to me. After a couple days, I had an answer.

On my 1st day working on the counter at Subway, Lance from the post office came in. He saw me before I saw him. I looked up and started to smile and say hello, but he was jerking his eyes away. He very carefully did not look at me or acknowledge my presence. I don't know if he was embarrassed or contemptuous or what. But -- ta da -- it didn't matter. I felt nothing. Whatever he was feeling passed right through me. There was no pride wound to touch.

On my 2nd day working on the counter, I was making a sandwich for a woman about my age. I apologized for my slowness. I could see from her eyes that she was a buddha of compassion. She kindly said she wouldn't know how to start a new job now. Over veggies, I quietly told her how I used to me over $100K, how I'd lost half my life savings, how a former colleague had stolen my identity. We choked back tears together, and she said she would pray for me, that she and her DH would pray for me, and I pulled myself back together. I felt that wound for a day...and then it was gone. She took that pain on herself, to spare me.

By the 3rd day, I noticed that the only thing that was bothering me with people was the 2 young men that work there, the way they were bossing me around. I meditated on it, and realized they reminded me of my father when I was young. And then realized that inside, they felt like losers and so bossed me around to feel powerful. Or were mad at their moms, and taking it out on me. And they stopped bothering me.

I just. don't. care. I work totally in the moment. What I mostly feel right now is physical exhaustion. Tomorrow a couple hundred bucks should appear in my checking account. I was going to use it to buy hay, but last night my kitchen sink faucet, which had been dripping, totally bit the dust. As in, broke off in my hand!I managed to kluge it back together, and am now avoiding using it, but will have to do dishes tomorrow. So plumber comes 1st. I have ~10 days of hay, and can buy a couple bales of hay if necessary to tide me over until the next payday or tax refund, whichever comes 1st...

In the meantime, I got a call yesterday from the firm doing the background check. The work is outsourced...to India. He misread a handwritten #5 as a 3 (my experience is that Indians tend to write those 2 numbers out a little differently than here) on my application. I snapped at him a bit, but I was very annoyed to be getting a call from India that took a job from an American. An American who would know the difference between a #3 and a #5, and would look at the typed resume to confirm.

Tomorrow is my day off. Then it's back to chop veggies, carry water...until I finish whatever it is the universe has sent me here for.