ILLNESS

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03:07:2005 Entry: "Ann : Bye, Bye, Past Life"

Bye, Bye, Past Life

The other day Stan and I drove by Depressions Widget Services (see this entry about its big layoffs), which is only 2 blocks down our street. I noticed something different about the front door. There was a sign on it. It said "for lease." I'd been noticing that in the nights and evenings recently, it hadn't been filled with the glow of late night shift workers busy in their cubicles in front of their monitors. "Depressions" is no more. When I visit its website, (which was never spectactular, which, for a widget service of its type, I would expect web mastery) it now directs to Acme Company, the company that took it over, and then layed off workers.

When we first visited Madison in June of 1989 after I got accepted to grad school at the UW (short for Utter Weirdness), we found a flat on the east side. When we moved in a month later, we had no jobs. We hit the streets. We knew no one. It was a very odd time, one I wish to never experience again. I was looking for employment in the Widget field, as I'd had experience with it working for Stinko's back in Colorado. I interviewed with Depressions. I hoped so hard to get employed there. It was only a couple blocks away from our flat. The irony is when we found a house to buy a year later, it was only a couple blocks away from our flat, and Depressions. It was as if it was meant to be. For several years my life revolved around that area. But in the mid 90s, I didn't appreciate it so. I felt colder and colder working there, and they wouldn't let me use the space heaters because "they would cause power surges with the computers."

I'd had it. I was ready for change. I quit and went on first as a homeworker and then a freelancer. Eventually the freelance work dwindled. No matter, I had my own life now. I didn't need Depressions as my paycheck. I felt so liberated. I feel so fortunate that I quit before it got bad...really bad. I feel bad for the people I knew that still worked there and depended on it, even though I hadn't seen them for a long time: since I stopped working there except to bump into someone in a grocery store or on my way to the post office.

My life as I knew it when I first moved here has been shedding its skin. Little by little, it's been peeled off and the skin that's grown to replace it is hardly recognizable. The people I used to know I have let go (that was in the early part) or they have moved...lost touch with. Honestly, I miss no one. I don't miss my former social life. Parts of it were fun...with Tim and people he knew. But where are they now? Vanished. They became someone else, or in Tim's case, virtually an invalid.

The irony is I still have Colorado. I get more social life there when I visit than the whole rest of the year here. That part, the place I moved from, has stayed the same in that regard, and the place I moved TO, has changed.

It's as if the whole move to Wisconsin was some strange journey, not a physical trip but more a soul journey. Not a trip up the river into the heart of darkness as it appeared from the onset, but a trip up the mountain. After all, I do live on a hill. And now I am the hermit.

----

Two years ago today, Hieronymus was put to sleep after a very sad, but fortunately very quick illness.

4 Comments

The snake in an infinity sign - like shedding it's skin and renewing life again and again. In case it matters, my name is Willard, and as far as missions go I will never want another one. It has truely been a soul journy and the new skin showing through beneath the old is very beautiful.

Posted by Stan @ 02:17:2005:07:36 PM CST

Your name is not Willard...it is Stan...it says so in the "posted by" area in your post! If you really were Willard, I would have a post by Willard! You're just an errand boy come to collect the grocery bill!

Posted by Ann @ 02:17:2005:08:10 PM CST

I want to say something about the past and stuff, but I don't know what. So.

"Two years ago today, Hieronymus was put to sleep after a very sad, but fortunately very quick illness."

Time goes too fast.

Posted by Nico @ 02:18:2005:04:53 AM CST

"Time goes too fast."

Yes it does.

"...And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun..."

-RW/PF

Posted by Ann @ 02:18:2005:09:53 AM CST

By Ann @ 13:05 AM CST:03:07:05 ..::Link::..

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