Day 68: Quiet

So there are five beings in this home and four of them are asleep. It's quiet.

Just applied for a different job at a place I've already been turned down once. Gotta keep at it, right?

Yesterday I felt like I had at least perhaps lost some weight. But this morning I wondered: how much of that is mental? And how much of that is psychological in the sense of feeling smaller, feeling diminished?

Because this thing erodes you in ways. It'd be nice if it helped you lost weight! And I remember a friend talking about the "3D" diet: divorce, disease or drugs. I'm grateful not to be using any of those methods.

But a trauma brought on by stress and worry can indeed manifest itself in physical changes. Both WebMD and mayoclinic.com verify this; WebMD says 75-90 percent of doctor visits are related to stress. That seems high, but on the other hand, would it be shocking if that were true?

Are you stressed? I bet you are. The economy, debt, responsibilities, work, traffic, family issues, health issues, psychos with bombs and machine guns... Fear causes stress and everyone's worried about something. Or multiple somethings.

If there's an upside for me it's that somehow I tend to believe that things will work out. This isn't "faith" per se... I don't think some benevolent hand is going to move me or move events to a pleasant denouement. It's just a belief that I will do the things I need to do to get my life where it needs to be.

I've been laid off before so I've done this... looked for work, gotten turned down, finally landed something. When I think about all the job prospects I've courted and all the times I've been rejected, it's astonishing. It has to be in the hundreds. I remember one day applying for 18 different jobs. It was more of an exercise to see how many I could crank out. I don't think that's the best approach because you're only doing the most cursory attempt to make a connection. It's actually harder to send two or three really strong, tailored applications than to carpet-bomb 18 in a day.

OK, I've run this horse as far as it will go. Maybe today's the day.