AULD ANXIETY

So, I'm not good at this social media stuff. Never was, and probably never will be. I don't post much, and when I do it isn't anything very good. I think I'm holding back because I'm convinced that no one wants to hear what I have to say. Starting as far back as grade school, really. I don't recall ever being picked to be "leader" for anything. I didn't have many friends, maybe one or two at a time and they were the "fringe elements" of elementary school, and I wasn't even that close with them. As a "manager" at a local hotel, my suggestions were consistantly dismissed by the rest of management, and sometimes viciously challenged. I won't even go into the hellscape that passed for middle school. Let's just say I learned to shut my mouth early on and let the others make the decisions.

So, that whole mess followed me for a long time. I told myself it didn't matter. I told myself that I didn't care if my YouTube videos got views or not. They were just supposed to be "home movies" that I posted just in case the family wanted to see them later on. And I had a channel, the default of having a gmail account. And, it was actually fun to make them, what few I made. My children had fun, too, for the most part. But, and you probably already sensed it coming, but it kind of hurt when my daughter started posting and exceeded my viewership by factors of ten. My personal best: eight. Eight! To be fair, she's a much better YouTuber than I ever will be. She posts regularly. I do not. and, lately my contribution to that piece of social media are the occasional like on another's comment, and a random comment of my own on someone else's video. Well, not on the video or its quality, but on the context of it. And not anything that bad, either.

Why am I over explaining that?

So, a side note, and one I need to share before we get back to the scheduled mope-fest: I am so bad at this socail media stuff that I just now discovered that the Tab function works on this very website, and I spent the few seconds prior to typing this paragraph correcting the beginning of every previous one. See? this stuff just doesn't come naturally to me.

I think I could blame my age and upbringing. After all, I'm over fifty, and I didn't grow up on the amount of technology we have today. I'm a pencil-and-paper-man, not a powerpad kind of guy. Don't get me wrong, though. I LOVE technology! Just ask my wife how many tablets I've gone through, how many deskktops, how much I want a smart watch but cannot afford it. And I love using a tablet or laptop to write on. It's infinitely easier and more convenient to use a device rather than a wire-bound notebook. Yet, when it comes to sketching or any type of art -and there's been little enough of that in my lafe lately, let me tell you!- I have to use pencil, paper and eraser. Those sketching programs are just too frustrating for me!

So, I don't exactly know if I'm a "Boomer" or not, and I don't really care if I am, but in a lot of ways I feel like one when it comes to social media. I tell people that I don't have time for FaceBook or my own website, but the truth is that I don't have the amount of time it would likely take me to figure out just what the heck I'm doing on it, how to do it, and how to get good at it. I think a month-long intensified course in FaceBook 101 would just about get me caught up with the family cat when it comes to that sort of knowledge. About a good solid semester should do it. Maybe.

Okay. Don't believe me? Fine. How about an example, and a terrible admission. I keep getting notifications about people or companies or whatever and whoever they are "submitting" a "contact" at my site. And, I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS! I go to the site, look up messages, and they are there, but the messages are one word. There's contact information there, who sent the "request" and their email address, but I have no idea what to do with that information. Am I supposed to contact them back? Am I supposed to tell them something? Is it rude if I don't? The first thing I thought when I saw the first one was that it must be some sort of scam. But then others came in. And more. There's about a dozen or so now, and I have no idea still what I'm supposed to do.

Okay, to be fair to myself, I did try to respond to them. I tried to put them into a group email, I really did. I wanted to thank them for their interest and tell them that I was new to this so they had to be patient with me if I didn't respond to them as often as I should. I really wanted to. But I couldn't figure out how to put them into a group email. I couldn't even figure out how to put them into a group at all. And the funny thing is, somehow I'd managed to put my sister into a "group", but since then, I've completely forgotten how. And, it seemed time consuming and frustrating to email them seperately. Where would I have the time for that, what with trying to write a novel, take care of my kids, work full-time at an "essential" box store, and breathe. At the time it was too much to deal with, and it still is, so I put it aside until I could find someone to tell me how to do it.

I haven't found that person, yet.

Now, I have more on my mind than ever. The house is filthy, and I don't have any help with that. Although, if you want to practice your apathy, then let your house go to hell. Let it get so dirty that walking across the floor makes your feet feel gritty, like you're at the beach, and dust flies everywhere when the AC turns on. Then, look at it every day and tell yourself you'll do some cleaning later that day, and then let something distract you from it until you forget that you were going to do it. Though, I guess that's more an exercise in procrastination than apathy, with a little absentmindedness thrown in for good measure.

And, I have to keep up with this blog, this website. But when it comes to that, out of sight, out of mind. The only thing reminding me I even have a site is the consistant, weekly email reminder that it still exists, and would you like to see the stats showing how much you're disappointing your three readers and mostly, yourself. Just another thing I needed on the list of failures.

The heck of it is, I've been off for the last week due to things I won't go into here ...oh, heck! Why not? Let's do it! We're friends here, right? Okay, here goes. I had to take the week off because I answered a question truthfully on a company questionaire. The box-store asks its employees four Covid-related questions before they are allowed to start their shift, every day, every shift. It's repetitive and redundant, and absolutely necessary in these days and times. One of them, the first one, is whether you have had any of the symptoms associated with Covid, including shortness of breath or dry cough. I had a cough, so I answered yes. And, because I answered yes, I had to take a week off before I could return. And I have to still take the assessment and answer the questions before I can resume working. Today is the day I'm supposed to be able to return. We'll see how that goes.

Although, I won't be disappointed if I am not allowed back. Granted, the work is easy, and it takes very little brain-power to do, but it still gives me anxiety just thinking about going back to that place. Most of the people I work with aren't interested in working. My proof? They disappear often, without notice, though I guess that's the definition of "disappear". It feels like they vanish the moment I appear on the floor, and from that moment on, I very rarely see them, unless they are told by management to get back on the floor. As such, I'm stuck there, working without a break until my lunch time, and that rarely comes on time. Meanwhile, the rest of the store gets the breaks they "earned", as well as lunch at a decent time. I very rarely get a fifteen minute break, and then I have to wrest it from the day. To be fair, there are a couple of people worth their salt and I enjoy working with them; at those times it feels like I'm working with a team, and not just for the others. But, I don't know if I'll be working with the good workers, or the bad ones. I never look forward to going in there. I don't want to go there anymore. I hate it there. But I have no choice, if my family is going to eat, and if we are going to have some sort of healthcare, as shitty as it is. (I don't like swearing. It's lazy, and I want to write things that my kids could read and be proud of. But that's the only word I have to describe the type of healthcare Big Box Store has bought for its employees. And, I don't care what my fellow employees say about liking what they have. It just makes me think they just don't know what's really available out there. And before you say I should just buy my own insurance, let me ask you: Have you seen the price of insurance lately? What do you think I am, a millionaire?)

So, I've been off for about a week, and I took advantage of that. I wrote like I've never written before. Every morning, I wrote as much as I could. I even got up at 5:00 AM, sometimes 5:30 AM, to give myself the most amount of time. I wrote so much that I progressed at least three chapters in the book, and had to recharge my BluTooth keyboard several times. (This thing's supposed to last over a month on one charge, and in the past it has proven that to be true. I believe that recharging it so often lately is a testiment to how much I've used it lately.) And, the best part is, I like what I wrote. When it's finished, it only needs a polish, and not another complete rewrite...so far. But, despite that, and despite leaving the afternoon free for other pursuits, I didn't pursue other pursuits. Unless you count playing MineCraft with the kids a pursuit. Or fixing lunch and dinner every day a pursuit. Or making sure the kids took their showers, and reading them to sleep at bedtime. And listening to my wife's problems. And taking care of the cats' needs, and helping feed the hamster and changing its bedding and cleaning its tubes. And mowing the lawn (once). And in all that time, would you think I would take some of it to work on the website? Or look at FaceBook? Well, I did, but only for a minute or two. Then, I got frustrated with it and set it aside for "later". And, like "soaking" a pot under the sink, I never got back to it. But for that brief moment out of hte rest of my life, I had a respite from the Box Store, and that part of my anxieties faded a little bit, though it was doomed not to last.

So, I'm riddled with anxieties. My little secret, if it ever was a secret at all. If it wasn't, that makes it all the sadder, because no one, not a single person, picked up on it and offered to help me. I have this weird belief that everyone just assumes I know everything and don't need help. The truth is far from that. I would love some help every once in a while, but not from someone that has no clue what they are doing, and not from someone that wants to change what I've done to suit their own agenda. Or, outright steal it. That's what I'm afraid might happen if I just ask for help. That, or no one will come to my aid. That's happened at work already. Once, I even called over the radio five times and the P.A. twice before I could speak to a manager aobut getting my lunch, only to have that person not deliver on their promise that they would send someone over to relieve me. I got in trouble for not taking lunch, and I very angrily wrote on the write-up EXACTLY what had happened. I'd like to say the manager got in trouble for it, and that it never happened again, but that would be lying. I don't know if that person had gotten in trouble, and it definitely happened several more times, adding even more to the anxiety I feel about the place.

Yeah, some compitent help would be greatly appreciated once in a while. Until then, I slog on, trying not to let everything get to me. Using writing to relieve my tension and my worries. And, now that I've ruined your day as well as mine, I'll sign off. There isn't a whole lot left to say, anyway. Hopefully, next time the post will be lighter, happier. Hopefully.

Hey, at least I got a lot of writing in. That's something, right?