Opportunity at an Inopportune Time: A Short Ramble About My Night of Not Sleeping, My Dog, and a Job Interview

I had planned on taking today off from writing but I can't sleep so I thought this might be a good time to put together a rambling, barely coherent, stream of consciousness about what is going on in my life at the moment.

I am normally a night person and I typically like to crawl off to bed sometime after the sun comes up. However, I was lucky enough to be selected for an interview for employment in a position that would be a legitimate career and that is something that I cannot pass on. I don't like to go into my financial troubles but it is enough to say that things have been a little rough for a couple of years. It would seem that an education in English literature isn't the most marketable thing in the current job market (I knew that when I chose it, though, and I have no regrets). Anyway, I found myself trying to go to sleep twelve hours too early and while I managed to nap from midnight to three, it turned out to be an impossible task. It was not the early night that caused all of the troubles, though. It contributed, without a doubt, but there is more than the time on my mind.

I am overwhelmingly sad. I wrote about my dog and his coming death a while back and that situation is only worsening. He is old, he is sick, he is entering the last days of his life, and that is something that I am powerless to prevent. I have been trying to make him comfortable but that is becoming impossible to do. He can barely walk and he stopped eating the day before yesterday. Now I am at a point where no matter what I choose to do, I will be left feeling guilty. If I try to prolong his life, I feel like I am causing him to suffer for my own selfish desire to not experience the sense of loss that will arrive as he leaves this world. If I help him end his suffering, I fear that I am shortening his already too short life because it hurts me to see him in pain. This is a dilemma that was on my mind and tonight, as I was lying in my darkened room not sleeping.

I am nervous. I suppose that is a normal response for someone who must walk into an important interview in five or six hours (from the time that I am pecking this sentence out on my laptop) but the situation with my dog is increasing the general "icky" feeling that has been building since I was notified about my interview, yesterday morning. I have said this before and it is still true now: I am always suspicious of good things. I know that this is not a positive character trait (though it does have its moments) and it is something that I have been trying to work on but it is nagging at me and that helped to keep me from sleeping too.

I am hopeful, despite everything, and that leaves me feeling a little guilty. I can't help but to feel like this opportunity has come at an inopportune time. My dog is dying. My grandfather is dying. My grandmother is senile and needs help and will need even more once my grandfather is gone (he is a tough old man so he may hang on for a while still). My father is getting old (he is 63) and he is starting to have a hard time when it comes to helping my grandparents. My aunt and uncle are not willing to pull their weight and my cousin is off in another state blissfully living his own life. My presence and my availability (I am currently self-employed so I have been able to set my own scheduled) have been incredibly valuable in these difficult times. If I get the job (and I really hope that I do), I will have to sacrifice my ability to help my family to the extent that I do now for the stability that I need to be able to continue helping them in the long term. Taking the job is the correct choice, of course, but it is still somewhat painful to make it. I think my chances are good (I was employed as seasonal worker by this organization in the past and I left on extremely positive terms) and that gives me hope for my future (which is something that I have been struggling to maintain, lately) but I feel like it is "tinted" by the guilt that will come with my absence from my home life. However, I believe that I will be able to do far more good with more money than I could with my presence alone (my grandparents and my dad could really benefit from having a maid to help out with house work and I might be able to afford that for them, if I get hired).

What would getting this job mean for my aspirations as a Steemit author? Not much, I hope. The hours may be a little long and doing five or six posts per week might be a tall order (because I refuse to sacrifice quality) but I think that I can still write three posts per week without too much trouble. I know that this is not the best posting frequency but it should (I hope, anyway) be enough to qualify me as an active member of this community. If I am lucky, I might actually be able to invest some of my own money too, which is something that I have been wanting to do for quite some time. I really love this platform and I like the friends and acquaintances that I have found here. I have no plans to abandon this site, job or no job. If you like my content, fear not because I will keep coming back as long as this place exists.

I suppose that I should leave off here (I only have four hours left and I need to edit this and get ready to go). I apologize if this post was not up to par with my other work (I did warn you that this was going to be a ramble). Writing about myself is not a talent that I ever really cultivated. I like to cover the issues that I believe are interesting and my own life is usually not one of those things, in my mind. I will be back tomorrow or the day after (I may end up passing out for the rest of the day when I come home so that will be the determining factor) with some of my usual content. Wish me luck, everyone.

Peace.

With the exception of the picture of my dog (which I own), all the images in this post are sourced from the free image website unsplash.com.