It is 5:56 AM on Monday, May 8th. It is a little later than I’m used to for a blog post; the household is going to wake up in about thirty minutes so I don’t have too much time.
The weekend went quickly. Friday was Cinco de Mayo but we stayed in and did nothing special. Brandon and Peter sent me messages around 8:00 PM telling me to come up and have a drink with them. Their families had gotten together for dinner and by that time they had had some drinks and wanted me to join. I was already in bed and my phone in another room and so I heard the message notification but did not get up to go check the phone. For me, my day was done and any messages could wait until the morning.
Saturday was ‘parents day’ at the Japanese school and my wife was also volunteering that day so left early with my oldest to go to school. My youngest and I first went to the e-waste recycling and finally got rid of the old light fixtures as well as a ton of other random electronics. Then it was to the dump to discard all that wine bottle packaging. I wasn’t sure if they would take it but it was considered cardboard so they did. Then it was to the Japanese school to watch class with the other parents.
Afterwards, my wife had to stay as she was volunteering so my youngest and I came back home. I had almost forgot but the library was having a ‘free comic book’ day so we went down there and picked up a few. That was pretty much it for Saturday.
On Sunday the main event was to clean out the garage. I had gotten rid of a lot of junk on Saturday so now it was time to finish the job. We took a trip to Daiso and Target for storage containers and now have it looking pretty nice. I just need to make one more run to the recycling station and perhaps pick up one or two more containers and then it will be perfect.
So now it is Monday morning. I’ve always enjoyed May as it was when the weather started turning nicer back in Ohio, was my birthday month and also school would soon be ending and summer vacation beginning! It was a wonderful feeling and I’ve caught a few flickers of that now. Unfortunately it is only a few flickers due to work stress and anxiety. As I correctly predicted this year is going to be tough and although my numbers have been great the first couple of months, there might be a downward trend for a while. Some of my accounts are getting hit with extremely low pricing from competitors, lower than we’ve ever seen so there will be turbulence.
Even though this job isn’t demanding in terms of always having to be at an office there is constant stress to perform, and fear of losing accounts. It is this stress which prevents me from really enjoying the month of May as I’d done in my youth. It is a constant pressure weighing down on me and I’m getting tired of it. I am going to have to change my mindset, learn to feel those feelings that I used to have in this beautiful month again. It is going to take some mental gymnastics but I think I can get there. Life is too short and too beautiful to always be worried about something.
