I was kinda in a really bad mood.

I do have moments like that (more than I’d care to admit), but after I calm down, a kind of melancholy then sets in. I really don’t want to be this angry with Him, but it’s hard trying to make some sense out of the events of the last few years, and since I’m the kind of guy who wears his heart on his sleeve, every bad thing that happens in life tends to cut me deeply.

There are times though when I suspect that I’m personally the butt of some sick, heavenly joke. I’d pray I meet someone at work for example who could be “the one” for me, and when I do meet that person, she ends up rejecting me and marrying another co-worker. If the answer to a prayer has to be no, fine, but why rub it in my face? Why humiliate me like that?

And that’s what life seems to be like these days: a series of prayers that not only go unanswered or rejected, but also seem to require some form of divine punishment for even daring to make them. Why?

It’s a simple question, but one that I don’t think will ever be answered.

Tags: abandoned, bad mood, blush, co worker, forsaken, God, hate, hated, heart, humiliation, joke, melancholy, prayer, prayers, unanswered, unloved, unwanted
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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“Gotta go report another break-in at the impound,” John my co-worker said.

“Being that we currently got an 80 year old security guy guarding the place, I’m not too surprised. What’d they take now?”

“Copper.”

I looked up. “What?”

“They boosted copper from some of the cables that used to power the old buildings we don’t use anymore.”

“Who the hell steals copper?? We have like $50,000 cars just sitting there waiting to be driven out, and they go for copper?”

“Hey, it sells. And they took their sweet time too. We found where they broke in, along with a cooler and some empty beer cans they left behind. I think they’re gonna be coming back tonight.”

“So are you gonna go stake ‘em out?”

“Nope, denied overtime.”

“Frickin’ A’.”

“They’ll send a patrol to drive by every now and then.”

I leaned back in my seat. “You know, I never would have figured to boost copper in an impound lot. I’d go in there and go, “Oooooo, motorbikes!” then drive out with one of those babies. Who would think to steal copper?”

“Hey, three dollars a pound baby.”

“Besides you, smart ass.”

John just shrugged.

Tags: babies, bandits, burglary, cables, cars, co worker, copper, hell, impound yard, job, left behind, old buildings, overtime, patrol, stake, stakeout, theft, thieves, three dollars
Categories: In The Coal Mine
 
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Maybe.

18 months of soul searching, seeking, knocking, begging for clear direction, begging for signs, begging for ANYTHING that might give me an indication that I wasn’t making the mistake of my life by signing up for law school, and now here I am… one day before the deadline, STILL without an answer.

I spoke to my supervisor about my intentions and how keeping night pay would be a necessity for me even if I switched to a day shift. One of my co-workers was still getting it even though he now works days, so I knew it wasn’t impossible, and if they rejected it in my case while he continues to collect night pay, it would clearly show favoritism, and they know I’d raise hell about it. After my boss spoke to his boss, he came back to me and said I would need to come up with a plan and a new schedule that would still keep everyone happy, and if I could I do that, maybe I’ll be able to keep my night pay as well.

I looked at him like he had gone mad and thought, “Isn’t that supposed to be YOUR job??” I couldn’t believe his response to my request had been to simply pass the buck to me.

So I went to my union rep, who told me she would call another union rep, who as luck would have it, was out with a broken ankle and wouldn’t be back for some time. After I kept emailing her, she sent me a testy response basically indicating that I was on my own.

I didn’t know what to do. Why couldn’t I get any straight answers from anyone? Why couldn’t I just have been told, “No, you can’t do it!” and then I could finally move on with my life? Why did I even have to be accepted to law school in the first place, and thus avoid all this grief?

I was now saddled with the burden of coming up with a new work schedule to accommodate 5 people, while also having to ensure that their work schedules would stay intact with as little change as possible. I also had to deal with one erratic co-worker who I knew could not be trusted to adhere to any schedule I propose, even if she might initially agree to it.

What a mess. With a broken and heavy heart, I called my coworkers together and explained the situation. We talked about it for a while without really resolving anything, and then I went to work on diagramming our complete work schedule to see how I could possibly fill in the gaps.

Some how, some way, I saw a possible solution that involved my coworker Mickey coming in a little later than usual on Mondays and Fridays to cover, which he agreed to. I put together the new proposed schedule with a letter, and left it on the desk for my boss to go over tomorrow, which of course is also the same day as the deadline to make my deposit.

And I know what will happen too. Nothing will get resolved, the issue of whether I’ll be able to keep night pay will still be in limbo, and if I make a deposit after the deadline expires, I’ll only be able to secure a seat if someone else withdraws and my name comes up next on the waiting list. I could easily be waiting all summer long before I’ll know anything for certain.

I’m beginning to understand now why so many Christians simply can’t wait around for an answer regarding these kinds of life changing decisions. Who could do this really? Who could be willing to wait and wait and wait while life passes you by and all of heaven seems to be as brass? Some people just do whatever the heck they want and assume whatever path they choose is automatically God’s will, yet without consulting with Him, or seeking His direction, or waiting to give Him a chance to guide them. And sometimes they’ll get blessed anyway, in which case they become even more obnoxious and convinced that because they prospered, they have been operating within God’s will all along. It’s a form of pragmatism that never did sit right with me.

I always thought it noble that I defer to God’s own desire for my life, and allow Him to guide me where He wanted me to go, instead of just simply doing my own thing. But I NEVER expected that this would have been the price I’d have to pay for clinging on to that belief, losing so much time and experiencing so much agony just in waiting for an answer that may in fact, never come. It angers and depresses me that this how I am rewarded for having what I thought were the noblest of intentions. I wasn’t arrogant in pursuing my own path. I wanted the Lord to lead me, to choose a career for me, since I felt He of all people of course would know where I’d be able to make the most difference, where I could do something worthwhile and meaningful. Instead, I’ve been left to drift endlessly, mourning wasted years and feeling abandoned by a Father who had promised He would never abandon me.

What kind of testimony can I possibly give now to the world? My very life up to this point indicates that it is unprofitable to wait on the Lord for much needed answers. We can but only direct our own life without His input or His guidance. We are in a way orphans, left to fend for ourselves, tossed to and fro by the storms of life, without hope of ever seeing calmer waters.

And yet, in spite of it all though, somewhere deep down inside of me, my soul is still clinging on to hope… praying that the stormy chaos of today will give way to a peaceful, joyful calm in the morning.

So let us see what the morning will bring.

Tags: answers, boss, Christians, co worker, co workers, coworkers, favoritism, God, grief, guidance, hope, idiot, job, law school, prayer, schedule, signs, supervisor, unanswered, union, union rep
Categories: Legally Speaking, Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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After weeks of despairing over whether I should attend law school or not, I eventually began to forget why I even wanted to become a lawyer in the first place. Then a few things happened this week:

A friend and co-worker of mine is currently dealing with an out of control boss who recently got in his face the other day. From what I hear, she was one unstable psychopath who got transferred to his department because HQ couldn’t deal with her. She had a history of micromanaging others, emotional outbursts and other inappropriate behavior. One day she was pulling her usual stunts and when my friend confronted her (nicely) about it, she went ape. Got up and wagged her finger in his face, literally screaming her head off. My friend was afraid for his safety, because not only was she acting completely unhinged, she was also packing a gun. Not a very healthy combination if you ask me.

So now my friend has to have a meeting with the higher ups along with union reps and other parties to sort this crap out. I asked him if he felt she was going to hit him when she got in his face, and when I did my mind immediately started thinking, “She may have assaulted him, since she placed him in an imminent apprehension of a battery. He has a legal cause of action here.” Suddenly, it was like several lights had gone on inside my head. I was beginning to remember.

Considering what my friend now has to deal with because of this incident, it occurred to me: what he needed was a good lawyer.

Then I had another friend who was applying to take a civil service exam as a typist. The exam only required one year’s clerical experience, and since she had been in the workforce for so many years doing all kinds of jobs, including those that required clerical skills, she figured there’d be no problem.

They rejected her. Took the application fee she paid and rejected her for lack of experience. !??!?!?! It wasn’t a mistake either. This is a woman with a college education, and she was barred from even TAKING the civil exam for lack of clerical experience?? She felt her civil rights had been violated.

Once again it occurred to me: what she needed was a good lawyer.

Now I remember why I wanted to be an attorney: JUSTICE. I wanted justice for these people. They had been WRONGED, and as I listened to these stories, I was the guy who wanted to make it RIGHT again. For me, being an attorney wasn’t about making money. It wasn’t about drawing up wills, or working corporate law, or working in a big time law firm so I could make partner after sweating blood for 10 or 20 years.

No, it was all about making things RIGHT again. It was about bringing peace where chaos existed, finding reconciliation between two aggrieved parties, defending the defenseless, and protecting the rights of the poor.

It was about JUSTICE.

I always knew what I wanted to do in life, and I realized that itself was never the problem. It was finding the proper medium in which I could fulfill these lifelong desires that had been the subject of so much agonizing and confusion. What field could help me make the kind of difference I was seeking to make? As I realize the answer to that question, I also realize that this is an endeavor that can only succeed if God blesses it.

Where there is no God, there is no justice. If I choose the legal profession, I need to be able to choose it with the knowledge that God will be int it, and that he will honor the desires of my heart to make things right again.

Tags: apprehension, assault, attorney, civil service exam, co worker, college education, crap, decision, job, justice, law school, lawyer, profession, psychopath, stunts, typist, ups, workforce
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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Certain events in the past have played a significant role in devastating my pysche, which by themselves really don’t seem like anything noteworthy, until you consider the context in which they happened.

For example, when I first started blogging, one of my secret desires behind my decision to blog, was that by putting my thoughts online, it’d give me an opportunity to meet a beautiful girl who thought the same way I did. Eventually, a reader who fit that profile DID start visiting my blog on a regular basis. Gorgeous, young, Christian and a staunch conservative, she was a rarity who might have been perfect had she not lived so far away. So what happens? She meets someone through HER blog, and they get married a few months later. What I had hoped so badly would happen to me ,happened to someone else instead.

Shortly afterwards, I met a pretty female co-worker who had recently joined our division. Now over the years, I had always fantasized about meeting someone through my job, where we’d end up working together and eventually falling in love. I even envisioned over what she might look like: long brown hair, beautiful brown eyes and a healthy mocha skin. We’d share the same interests and passions, while one personality smoothly complemented the other. A match made in heaven.

So when a pretty girl with long brown hair, brown eyes and beautifully tanned skin suddenly shows up in my division, I couldn’t help but take notice, especially since she was the first young woman to get assigned here in a long, long time (the kind of job done here is mostly filled by much older women in their 50s or 60s.) So after so many years of plague and darkness, I wondered: could she be…the one??

Alas, what I envisioned in my mind could not have been more out of touch with reality. We had NOTHING in common, which may have been aggravated by the fact that she had NO interest in me at all. While my passion were politics and religion, her passion was….boats. While I enjoyed visiting museums dedicated to history, her idea of spending the weekend involved attending the latest Bon Jovi concert. If I liked watching Fox News every now and then, she religiously watched the Real World on MTV.

Trying to have a conversation with her was about as invigorating and welcome as performing hernia operation on yourself using nothing more than a wooden spoon. I always had to carry the ball when we talked. She never volunteered anything, and when I couldn’t think of anything more to say, the air would hang in a kind of dead silence that could only be found at cemetaries.

Obviously, there were no sparks here. But what irked me more than anything was her total lack of interest in me. It wasn’t that she wasn’t a nice person, but that I barely registered on her radar. I would have rather she had been interested in ME, and I’D be the one who’d have to turn her down, not the other way around. It’s an ego thing, obviously, but it would have felt good to know that for once, JUST EFFING once, a pretty girl would find me interesting and attractive. Nope.

I remembered thinking at the time that the only thing that could have made it worse, was that she would fall madly in love with another coworker and eventually get married.

Welllllll, guess what. Not 5 months(?!?!?) since she started working here, she meets another coworker, falls madly in love, and is now engaged. What I had hoped so badly would happen to me, happened to someone else instead.

Are you detecting a pattern here? Imagine 20 years of this, enduring these series of unfortunate events, and you get my life. You know, it’s one thing when people meet and fall in love. I accept that, but when it happens like this, I simply can’t handle it. It’s like God is playing mind games with me, putting me in these kinds of situations where I have to endure getting speared in the most cruelest fashion possible, and yet still I must believe and accept that He is a loving God who cares about me. Yeah, sure.

This is why I am so angry at God, and cannot speak or pray to Him. It’s cruel the way I’m being treated: absolutely, despicably cruel. Maybe I deserve it though: in fact, I know I do. But I have seen some pretty bad people in my life get blessed in obscene ways that make absolutely no sense to me. I’m still trying to figure it out… still trying to make some kind of sense of it all. But I can conclude nothing except that God must truly and utterly despise me.

When I graduated college, I was filled with high hopes and expectations about everything, but the last 8 years since then has done its darndest best to utterly crush my spirit and squeeze every last drop of hope out of me. Today, I am a broken, confused and lost soul. Yet I’m still trying to find my way, still trying to seek answers for why things turned out the way they did, still trying to see some reason for it all.

In the meantime, I have to deal with the bitterness and anger I’ve been left with now. I had hoped so much that by this time I’d be in law school, if only so I’d never have to see the brown-eyed bitch again. Instead, I have to be forever reminded of what a failure I am every day that I see her. I hate her, not for who she is, but for what she represents to me: the reality that I will always be alone. I will never have a family, or anybody to love, because no one wants to love me.

To hell with you all.

Tags: 50s, 60s, beautiful girl, blogging, co worker, darkness, despair, fantasy, girls, God, loneliness, long long time, love, older women, passions, plague, politics and religion, pretty girl, rarity, reality, soulmate, unrequited love, women, women suck, young woman
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log, Romance and Relationships
 
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Just some random thoughts going through my head today while I sit here doing just about everything except what I should be doing, that is, working:

• After wandering around the Internet vainly searching for members of my kind, I’ve come to realize something: There ARE no members of my kind. I am… an anomaly, a glitch in the system. I can relate to no one, and none can relate to me.

• The sun is out, the temperature is perfect, it’s the last day of August, and this horrific summer is finally coming to an end. So why am I so bloody depressed??

• I can’t believe I’m still smarting over one of my co-workers getting hitched faster than you can say “Prenup!” I’m here 6 years and I don’t get so much as a nibble. She’s here 5 months and in that timespan dates another co-worker, falls in love, and gets engaged. All this in 5 months?? WT*???

Ok, back to work, or rather, back to avoiding it as much as possible.

Tags: 5 months, 6 years, anomaly, co worker, co workers, depression, glitch in the system, lonely, love, nibble, random thoughts, single, Sun, women, working, wt
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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