Chapter 98: The Sun Is Always Blinding Me

Today was a fairly interesting day. In comparison to the rest of the past week, it was pretty relaxed. It didn’t start out that way, though. I woke up at 7:15am. That was terrible, considering I was due to work at 8am again. I got up and immediately went into the bathroom and instead of just brushing my teeth and washing my face, I also went ahead and got myself all dressed and ready to go to work without having so much as smoked a cigarette yet. I figured if I stopped to eat or smoke or have a cup of coffee I’d wind up running really late, so I skipped it all. By the time I was dressed and ready, it was 7:40am and I knew I didn’t have much time. I did last minute things like put on my shoes and fill my spill-proof cup with Kool-Aid for the day, (yes, I drink Kool-Aid at work every day.) Then, while I waited for my sister to come pick me up, I smoked a cigarette. No breakfast, No coffee – just smoked. That was all I had time for and was highest on the list of priorities this morning. It’d been a couple weeks since I had skipped breakfast and I was a little nervous about how that would effect me throughout the day, but eating takes more time than I could afford this morning.

My sister arrived to pick me up a little later than usual, at around 7:55am. Unfortunately, the ride to work was spent relaying a story of the really terrible night she had last night. Her girlfriend’s mother died last night, which is a very complicated thing. They had a very complicated relationship and I wasn’t sure how to appropriately react, so I just said, “That’s terrible.” When I bumped into her later I said, “I’m really sorry to hear about your mother.” She didn’t really respond to that and changed the subject pretty quickly. Apparently, one of their dogs died last night, as well, and there was a lot of drama surrounding that, as well. Still, she was at work today and seemed to be trying to focus on anything, but that. It was certainly a downbeat way to start the day. I felt really bad for both her and my sister, not only because of their losses but because they have both been working so hard and seem to be having a rough time with it all – they really didn’t need all this extra stuff added on top of all the stuff they already have going on. It was a very somber ride to work and I didn’t really know how to respond to any of it. Combine that with the fact that I didn’t have any caffeine this morning and was exhausted and I didn’t have the best morning in the world once I got to work. I spent the first part of the day being very quiet and keeping to myself for the most part.

On my first break today, around 10:30am, I discovered some other news that really shocked and saddened me. As has become pretty evident to anyone who has followed this blog, I am a bit of a fashion person. I have a little bit of a passion for clothing and love keeping an eye on the latest and greatest, freshest and most innovative designers out there. Much like my sister and her girlfriend, the fashion industry suffered a pretty tragic loss this morning: Alexander McQueen, creator of some of the greatest fashion moments in recent history, committed suicide late last night or early this morning. He was only 40 years old. This was really a horrific story and I spent a good portion of the day after that point thinking about this. What must have been going on in this man’s life? He was relatively young and possessed such a captivating and immense talent. What would possess a man of such vision, talent and success to take his own life? From what I have read, he had recently suffered two very big losses in his life; his mother and one of his best friends had both passed recently. I don’t know how I would react if my Mother were to pass, but I know that I would be a giant mess for a very long time. Thinking about that, I really have no idea how I would carry on. I’m sure I would find a way, though. I can’t imagine that I would go so far as to end my own life, but I can say that pretty comfortably not having had the experience. I don’t know. I don’t even want to think about it anymore. My Mother is perfectly healthy and nothing but good things are going to happen for her any time soon. Still, I can’t imagine what that must have been for Mr. McQueen and, putting it in that perspective, can kind of understand what he did. I mean, I can’t really understand it but I can see how things could possibly get to that point. It reminds me of the song “Void” by Darren Hayes, in which he asks the question, “Doesn’t anyone fill the void? Doesn’t anyone kill the noise? Doesn’t anyone take the place of you in my heart?” I believe that this song was written about a relationship and about somebody who is still living, but I feel like such a powerful concept of having a genuine void in your life is such a powerful statement and one that I couldn’t imagine having for anybody who you don’t share an immense bond with; a bond like the one between mother and child. I don’t know. Still, I feel like the fashion industry, and the world as a whole, lost such a huge source of light today. It is a very sad day, indeed.

I spent a good portion of this afternoon reading the Yehuda Berg book from the signing a few weeks ago, called “The Power To Change Everything.” This book is pretty amazing, much like the rest of Yehuda Berg’s books. This book really speaks to something I have believed to my core for quite some time now: That the only way to create true, lasting change in this world is by creating change in yourself. The more light you give out to others is not only the more light you will receive but the more light you will create in this world. When you make these changes in yourself the light you have created within yourself will be reflected onto every person surrounding you and the more those people will be inspired to become a light themselves. I know this may sound very “bleeding heart” or optimistic, but I don’t see why there is anything wrong with optimism and positivity. I don’t know how or why it happened but somewhere along the line people started viewing these things as negative traits to have. These people are what we call cynics. In a lot of ways, I used to be one of them. I am still, about some things. However, I have come to believe that cynicism is one of the worst traits a person could possibly have. The actual definition of cynicism is “An attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of others.” I can definitely understand where it comes from and why so many people feel this way, but I also feel like it is well worth fighting against. I just feel like cynicism is just another word for a lack of faith. Maybe it’s not a lack of faith so much as a lack of hope. Hope and faith, I think, are two of the greatest qualities a person can have. I feel like there is nothing more important in this world than having a simple belief that things can improve and that you can somehow have everything you could ever possibly need in life. The only thing more important than that, in my opinion, is certainty. The most important thing a person can ever achieve in this life is certainty that they already have everything they could ever possibly need in life inside of themselves. I think that is the greatest way one can become a light in this world, and it is something that I strive for every single day of my life.

On the topic of light, I am kind of working on a photoset experimenting with light. I’ve got a few pictures I have taken so far where I have managed to create these effects where it looks like I am surrounded by white light. I love the idea of that and the visual is something really cool and interesting that I’d never experienced before. I just love the whole concept of being surrounded by light – it has a very spiritual connotation. There are so many spiritual concepts that involve being surrounded in light. In many cultures that is considered how one leaves this world, while in others that is how one enters the world. I like to think it is both, honestly. Aside from that, there is also the Kabbalistic concept of Light, which represents the creator and all of the wonderful, positive feelings we have in life. All forms of joy, wisdom, creativity and positivity are encompassed in the term light. Essentially, light equates to God and I love the idea of being surrounded in it. That is kind of how I look at life, in a lot of ways. We are surrounded by light at all times, even if we can’t always see it there. In fact, I think sometimes it is there so much that we are blinded by it and let it go to our heads. This reminds me of another Darren Hayes song, called “The Sun Is Always Blinding Me,” which says, “The sun is always blinding me with her light, the day is always hiding behind the night, and one day everybody will be light, Go on and blind me with your light.” In fact, I think I may have just found my inspiration for moving forward with that project. In fact, I have probably just found the title for it, as well. “The Sun Is Always Blinding Me.” It’s kind of perfect. I’ve just become so much more excited about this concept than I was before.

We found out today that Maryland should be back up and running tomorrow. I am still going in at 8am because we may still be taking their calls in the morning, but I am definitely getting off at 6pm. We are going back to our regular closing time. They may still offer overtime within our regular hours for the rest of the month, though, which would mean working 8am-6pm every day for the rest of the month. I am completely down with that. That would equate to an extra 1.5 hours every day, and an extra 7.5 hours a week. That would be adding an extra 15 hours of overtime to the paycheck, which would be well worth it. If we were moving forward with 8am-8pm, I would probably still do it but I don’t know how well I would hold up during that time. 8am-6pm for two weeks, though, should be pretty easy and will make for a second really great paycheck. I am pretty relieved that we are only open until 6pm tomorrow, though. If we had been staying open until 8pm, I would definitely have stayed but now that I know that we are not I am very glad for it. It will be nice to get back to coming home at 6pm and having a little bit of time to myself each day. It’s funny because I never really thought I was one of those people who needed time to myself, but this whole experience the past week has reminded me that I definitely do need a little bit of it. I have missed it a lot and will be very glad to get back to having a little bit of it tomorrow. It’s been a very long week, but a week that will surely be well worth it come next Friday when I pick up my paycheck. I do intend to take March 1st off, though. It is a Monday, so that will be a 3-day weekend for me and will be the day first day that overtime ends, if things go according to plans. That will be really helpful, I think and will give me a little extra time to work on other things, like photography and finding somebody new to teach me piano. Plus, it’ll be an extra day to decompress from what is sure to be a pretty rough next two weeks. It will all be well worth it when the paychecks come in, though.

I could not be happier that tomorrow is Friday and the weekend is nearly upon us. I am pretty excited for this weekend, honestly. I am going to open a bank account, as I discussed in yesterday’s blog, which should be a good thing. I am also going down to Fort Meyers for my brother’s girlfriend’s housewarming party and hopefully buying some cuppy cakes. Sunday, I am hoping, will be a day of rest. My only plan is to just lie around and watch movies with my Momma. We’ll see if that pans out as I am planning, but you know what they say about the best laid plans. I’d kind of like to go out to the movie theatre on Sunday. There are still a lot of movies playing in town that I would really like to see. “A Single Man,” and “Valentine’s Day” are both playing at the Hollywood 20, and “Precious” is still playing at our local indie theatre, Burns Court. The Dollar Theatre here in town also has “Nine” and “Me And Orson Welles,” both of which I have been pretty anxious to see. I don’t know if I’ll wind up going to the movies. I kind of like the idea of picking up more 3 for $20 DVDs at Blockbuster and watching at home just as much. We’ll see, I suppose. No matter what, though, the weekend should prove to be a lot of fun and a lot of relaxation time. I am extremely excited for both! For now, though, I need to get to bed. It is 12:10am and I still have to wake up at 6:30am tomorrow. I am not skipping breakfast again tomorrow because it sucked today.