acceptance

So according to my "research", admittedly less than 2 minutes of looking at google entries, their are apparently five stages to grief. These stages are:
1) Denial and isolation
2) Anger
3) Bargaining
4) Depression
5) Acceptance

For those who may have read my previous posts my grief is over one of my jobs, but I think, mostly in the space of a single evening I have reached the end of the five stages. Either that or this is actually all part of the denial of stage one, in which case I seemingly have a long way to go, but I will let you be the judge of that.

In stage one I did isolate myself from most people and tried to tell myself that there was no problem at all, that it wasn't so bad. Then I found out that I may have to work more during the school holidays for various reasons. Anger came pretty quickly after that.

So anger it was then. I think I reached a peak when last night I tried to get my D&D group, for which I am currently the DM (dungeon master, a role that combines the "bad guys" who the players have to fight, with a sort of g-d like figure who controls the world) to storm a dungeon named after my workplace and populated with various monsters that bore names suspiciously close to the real world names of my co-workers. One of the players however rebelled at this pointing out that my co-workers had done nothing to deserve being savagely slaughtered by a group of brave heroes and I was in fact just angry at myself for my inability to leave this job. OK, I can live with that, out went storming the workplace, instead ripping off a number of sci-fi and fantasy events I am sure, although none specific come to mind, the heroes journeyed into my subconscious mind to rescue me form a magically induced coma by defeating my inner daemons. Again defeating parts of my own psyche may possibly have revealed a bit of self loathing and some masochistic tendencies, but hey it was a good idea and the players seemed to enjoy it better than the idea beating up my colleagues. Of course it did mean they were beating me up instead, which may just be a sign that I moan about this job too much, again comments on this are welcome.

Maybe this helped me in the real world as I quickly moved on to stage two, bargaining. I began by trying to convince myself to study again, or to become a qualified teacher, or open my own shop, any thing which I believed would give me an excuse to leave my current job as soon as possible. Unfortunately after a conversation about it I became rather depressed at the thought of one again having to do coursework essays as well as study things such as using ICT in lesson plans. (I didn't even know what ICT was and had to ask my D&D players to explain)

So with the bargaining having failed I moved on to depression and thoughts of suicide. I was wandering, and still am if any one wants to answer as a comment, that if reincarnation does occur will only part of my soul return to earth, if so which part, will it be me and therefore will I have to repeat this whole exercise again with the knowledge that I did not do it right the first time. Or will it be an entirely new person, while my soul does its time in hell before sitting down to a nice golden table to spend eternity studying the mysteries of the Torah? Also on this note the actual act would have to be carried out using a gun, pulling the trigger does not seem so bad, and its the most reliable way to kill oneself. But Im not sure I want to die, once school term starts again its only 2 days a week, surely I can handel that, right? (seriously I want to know)

So we come inevitably to acceptance, stage five. I dont know what I want to do in life, but somehow it does seem to work out. I even have some proof of this in the fact that my other job grew form being once a week to three days a week and involved teaching more and more. So I will do this job, I dont enjoy it, but its not the end of the world, and I wont let it defeat me, I will do it till the end of the academic year when I will move on hopefully to something I find more suted to my personality. I intend this therefor to be the last post in which I moan about this job. I will go to work, with if not a positive mindset, certainly a less negative one, and I will get through it and survive.

Even as I write this though I still feel the weight of depression on my shoulders and I am forced to consider that my new resolution may just be stage one, denial, showing itself. But it might not be, that weight I feel may be resignation and apathy, things I am able to live with and accept, only time will tell I think. That is another thing I have going for me, time is an ally, eventually all things pass, even though one cannot see the end it is always there, getting closer and closer. Only g-d is eternal, and he is good, unlike my job.