Did I make a mistake?

Three weeks into a new job and relocation, I feel like I'm in a PTSD shellshock free-fire zone.

I'm making mistakes at work, and getting yelled at, and this past week, have made more. And, a couple of them have been kind of big. And have had domino effects.

I knew, when I was considering coming here, that my ambivalence was in part not due to fear of change but due to past perceptions of the place when I interviewed for anther job with this group of small papers in 2009 and for this job.

But, wanting to get near a big city, having fears of being "stuck" where I was and other things ... led me to think that some of my ambiguity was other things, like general fear of change.

And, some of it was fear of getting more and more stuck back in Odessa the longer I was there as I got ... older.

But, I'm awake, alive, reasonably sane ... and sober. And ... I still have a reasonable possibility of saving my hide, if I don't let the stress get to me any more, or the idea of stress.

Sometimes the 'trouble' does never happen

Mark Twain has a famous quote, which has been botched a bit here and there, but which I believe is authoritatively rendered as, "I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened."

Well, I can personally relate to that.


I had a notice from the Postal Service in my box Tuesday night, to sign for a certified letter at the post office. My mind was racing.


Did my old apartment complex suddenly decide it wanted additional money from me somehow? (Even as I have two noncertified letters, one from the complex, one from the parent company, both of which came in the last week, on my table. But, I know what I signed, and signed for, when I moved.)


Did that traffic ticket I got lawyered out of two of three counts, but paid the remaining one, have the money order incorrect? 


Something worse?


Well, it was from the Dallas County Sheriff's Office, which made me more nervous at first, since they're the folks who pulled me over in 2009.


What was it actually for?


I had a applied for a PR job, public information officer, with the office. I was being notified I didn't make the final cut - notified by certified letter.


I've played Twain's quote in my head many a time, but never before have I had this concrete of confirmation.

Poem: Too soon to tell

TOO SOON TO TELL

A new job.

New bosses. New responsibilities.

Not-so-new computers.

Anger. Antsiness. Impatience. Control issues.

Was this the right decision?

Did I choose wisely in coming here?

Per Zhou Enlai,

When he was asked about the success

Of the French Revolution:

“It’s too soon to tell.”

It’s too soon to tell.

My mind will be a jumble

And even a bit shell-shocked

For more than a month.

Will weekend visits to Austin help?

To the degree they do,will they be worth the price?

It’s too soon to tell.

Was it just fear of change?

Or was my intuition correctly ringing out

A blaze of three alarms or more?

Should I have suffered

Through yet more feelings of being trapped,

Through low-grade ongoing anxieties,

Rather than the potential of high-voltage unknowns?

It’s too soon to tell.

When I left Dallas for Odessa,

The first domino of moving to fall in this chain,

After two months of unemployment,

Anxious over job hunting,

And recognizing the severity of the recession,

Yet loath to move

And depressed as I drove across the Permian,

Was it good or bad?

It’s too soon to tell.

Good and bad are relative, and utilitarian;

I did nothing “wrong” any of these times.

But I made decisions

In uncertainty, without knowing even

Rough percentages on outcomes.

And, so, in that utilitarian sense,

As to whether these choices were good or bad?

It’s too soon to tell.

December 26, 1963 – was it good or bad?

It’s too soon to tell.

            Jan. 3, 2012