Coming to Terms

Compromise is an inescapable part of life. It would be naive to assume that everything would go just the way we would want.

Let's face it, one is going to have to deal with things that one would rather not, and that's where coming to terms comes into play.

For instance, take my job. It's not an ideal job, but it was the only one I could get. And there were a lot of adjustments I had to make in my own life, and with what I would put up with doing, in order to get a steady income and, more importantly, health insurance.

The biggest adjustment I had to make was working nights. Not only did the schedule wreak havoc on my sleep patterns, it also caused me to gain weight because of the way it screwed up my metabolism. (Weight gain is very common in people working nights.) Even eating one meal a day and taking the puppy out for exercise very day did not keep those extra pounds at bay.

The other adjustment I had to make was dealing with vulnerable people in a very intimate manner, such as assisting them to go to the toilet and cleaning them up when they were incontinent of both bladder and bowel. It wasn't not easy getting up close and personal with their private parts.

As such, my first month on the job was a difficult adjustment to make.

I was miserable.

I hated my job, hated and resented the fact that I had to turn my life upside-down and get into the piss and shit-filled trenches just so that my husband could have health insurance (because I sure as hell didn't need it; I was as healthy as a horse).

My bad moods, which I took out on my family, increased. And I had anxiety attacks every night just before leaving for work. And if it weren't for my friend Ann, who kindly offered a free Emotional Freedom Technique phone session, I probably would have become a basket case.

I had my phone session a couple of hours before leaving for work, and frankly I did not really feel anything profound during that session. But, while driving to work that night, I did notice that for the first time I did not have an anxiety attack.

Thus began my gradual journey in coming to terms with a job I couldn't stand.

And the funny thing about coming to terms is that after awhile what seemed absolutely odious didn't seem all that bad.

Sure, I still hate dealing with patients' personal excretions and doing cleaning (another task that was part of my job description), but I also realized that this job was not all that bad. In fact, it was rather easy.

I've gotten used to my nocturnal schedule. And my coworkers became my co-conspirators and friends who shared the common bound of a nocturnal world that the rest of the population was oblivious to.

In other words, I came to terms with my job.

I witnessed the same process with Ariana.

She took on a temping job at a call center, something she had absolutely no interest and desire in doing. She hated her job, too.

The first indication that Ariana was coming to terms with her job was when she said that even though she didn't like her job, she realized that her communications skills were improving. And that was a good thing.

Now that she has gotten more capable and confident in her job, and made friends at work, that horrible job was no longer all that horrible.

Whereas before she had no desire to work at a call center, she is now planning on applying for permanent full time work at another call center that is more progressive than the one she is currently temping at.

And in the meantime, she is regaling me with tales of tragically comical idiot customers, her personal accomplishments as well as her blundering boners, and the cast of characters at work.

Funny how once you accept a situation you can move on.

As successful as I have been in coming to terms with some aspects of my life, I still have challenges in coming to terms in other areas of my life.

The most prominent area is that of our frighteningly tenuous financial situation.

I am resisting to accept that our current situation is going to continue for an indeterminately long time, even though there has been nothing to indicate that there would be a light at the end of the tunnel.

And my resistance is supported and reinforced by my fear that such a bleak future will eventually become a firm and inescapable reality.

But at the same time I wonder if my not being able to move through this most undesired state is keeping me from achieving a more desired state. But I am still not ready to come to terms with coming to terms about my current struggles and their projections into the future.

The future is too scary to contemplate from this present perspective.

Another thing that I have not yet come to terms with is my feeling that I where I live is actually home.

That the east coast is no longer home to me has been relatively easy to accept. In fact, I was eager to leave that life behind, for, aside from family and friends, that area no longer had anything to offer.

However, even though I love Texas and would not want to live anywhere else (except for southern Arizona), I still have not yet gotten to the point where I can consider myself to be at home.

Ariana feels the same way, and she has been here 3 months longer than I have.

She and I discussed this matter, and we both felt that perhaps the reason why Texas didn't yet feel like home was because to us a home always meant living in a house with a backyard where we could have privacy and take refuge both indoors and out.

After living in a nearly 3000 square-foot house on one acre of land for the past 25 years, having 4 adults crammed into a 4-room 880 square-foot sardine can apartment with a patio too small to accommodate a couple of deck chairs hardly meets my definition of "home."

But with our current situation, being able to have a house that we could call home does not appear to be in the cards for us.

And it's that fact that I have had difficulty in coming to terms with. I have tried all sorts of mental gymnastics to enable me to accept that home is that tiny sardine can apartment, but it still has not clicked.

But on the other hand, I do like living here. I've come to terms with Lubbock being a rather unattractive city, and despite that fact, I have started growing fond of it.

I have grown fond of living in west Texas, in the middle of nowhere. In fact I prefer the desolation of the high plains to the claustrophobia of a congested area, no matter what that area may have to offer.

Each day brings new pleasures and new encounters with a people whose openness and friendliness never ceases to amaze me.

And that openness and friendliness is the Texas way.

From day one, perfect strangers have gone out of their way to help us. People I don't even know have easily conversed with me as though we have have known each other all our lives.

I have never found this degree of bigheartedness back east. For all its political and religious conservatism, Texas is a mighty accepting and welcoming state.

So, while I have not yet come to terms with a tiny cramped apartment being home, I have come to terms with my wanting to make Texas my home.

The people here are special.

It was good people at work that helped me come to terms with a job I couldn't stand. And perhaps it'll be the bighearted people of Texas that will help me come to terms that this place is indeed home, even if it happens to be a cramped sardine can apartment.