One year now

As promised to myself, it's been a year off from the sturm und drang of the corporate jailtime. The anniversary was recognized and a moment of silent respect was honored, but the reminder of what was, all the horrible tension of the recurring nightmare regained its last gasp of terror at a Costco checkout. The harried but stoic clerk was pacing herself ahead of the oncoming conveyor overloads that should have been left on the warehouse carts. She had an added step to remember for each transaction, a monotone assigned appeal for donations to a local hospital famous for saturating the local airwaves as the childrens' savior. Of course this is the same gestapo that laid me off my favorite year and my natural reaction was to say "ya gotta be kidding". Sudden eye contact lessened the venom spew, but it got her a moment away from the robot response to "I already gave". Before i could offer sympathy for her position of indirect pimping for the heartless thieves (not Costco), she said it wasn't the first time that day she heard an unkind response. I got out a couple more 'never again's before wishing her a good day, and then felt a strangely benevolent compassion, as if i've been elevated from the ordinary world, free at last to wallow in my own crapulence. I'm liberated from reserving judgment, from holding back the bile of the captive everyday execution of BS.

It's been a good time off, and there is no apprehension in sight. Things are as open and afloat as this time a year younger, in fact better than ever. I met the dreamgirl of my life because i was free to walk in the slow lane of my favorite path. That wouldn't have happened if things were as they were two years earlier. She wasn't as far along the way nor was I. None of what's grown would have been cultivated as consciously nor would it's precious nature been recognized. Solutions come more naturally with accumulated experience and the more time exposed to the day makes it less a shock and dilemma that demands attention in what we can recover around the giant dent of the 8 to 5 workday. Time to sort out the unexpected is far less panic with accessibility and the cushion of more reaction time. Thoughts are more fully formed rather than compressed to fit the gaps. The misfit nature of unemployment is no longer a whittling project of conformity to the gray swirling masses with printed credentials. The square peg naturally fits the corresponding hole. I just love it.
Feels like home wherever i go..