Inching Closer and Might-have-Beens

One week from tonight I will feel a lot better about half of my life. I will have put in my first day at my new part part part time job. For anyone reading this from my current place of employment, I want you to know that I may make comments about how small a job it is in terms of time and pay, but that I fully respect the importance of the position and have every intention of taking it every bit as seriously, perhaps even more so, than my last position. As long as there are kids there who need a music teacher, I have a job to do. And I am grateful to have that job, however small it may appear to outsiders. It will be as big to me as it is to you, and as big to me as it is to them.

At the same time, I confess that I have started wasting time looking at the real estate websites in various places I interviewed across the country. It still stings a little to think that for a period of 3 months or so I had the world thrown open to me and could have been in a completely new place right now...and yet here I sit. Same old same old.

I feel quite alone these days. I have no real peer group anymore. There were a few good friends at my last position who stepped me through the dark times and I owe them more than I can ever repay. But most have drifted back to their lives and so it should be. Maybe one or two of them will stand a chance to keep a friendship beyond that, but I expect it will all fade away in time. Ships passing in the night and all that.

So I soldier on with my family and a few scattered friends, as it has always been and probably always will be with me. I like to think that given the chance to start over in a new place, I might somehow do a better job of laying down roots and developing these friendships I am missing...but probably not. I've never had the knack for it. And I fully admit that I have to a certain extent created this situation for myself. I am by nature a selfish person. Every amount of giving that I do has been something I've had to learn to do. Like others might marvel at innate musical abilities, I marvel at innate selflessness, because I sadly do not possess it. So, like an earnest but hopelessly untalented musician, toiling away in the bottom of the section in the school band, I slave away at being a good person hoping to get a few things right and not screw up the whole piece. Doing my best, people. I at least know when to stop playing if the music is too tough.

I love my life and wouldn't trade it for anyone else's. But at times it can be hard.

And by the way, it should be noted that Steph and I are developing and hoping to deepen a friendship with another family - you know who you are. We hope there can be more time spent together, and more often. I think we are both better people for being around you guys. So, don't feel like I'm overlooking you with what was said above. I consider what's going on with you guys a bright spot in the murkiness of my social life.

So anyway. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers. I have a feeling I'll have more to write about this week.

Matt