Wellbeing

A secret no more

Here and there, now and then, I’ve been dropping frustrated tweets about a secret I wasn’t keen on keeping. It feels like it’s been months. I think it HAS been months. But starting today I don’t have to keep it secret anymore. Cheryl got a BIG promotion a couple months ago, but couldn’t tell anyone. She’d been promoted to a pretty high position, but the telling was reserved for someone…
Read more
Wellbeing

I'm shocked!

I’m shocked I tells ya! Shocked! And if iOS 8 auto-corrects my slang one more time I’m gonna give it a heave. I talk about depression a fair bit, especially here, so you can imagine what my self image is like. Well, today someone called me “happy-go-lucky.” Let me tell you – that doesn’t fit my self image. I think I mentioned trying to be positive in one of my…
Read more
Important Stuff

John moves on

An open letter to my coworkers at the Largo CSE office: It’s Sunday morning, December 29th, and I’m sitting in my new home in Orlando. We’re mid-move and I’ll be driving back to Dunedin this afternoon for one more week of work in Largo, but I’m already feeling nostalgic. I drove past a vacant building this morning. It used to house a non-profit job training program…
Read more
Kitchen Sink

Exit

I looked up on my way out the door this afternoon. There’s an exit sign pointing to the parking lot as you leave my office. “Tomorrow will be the last time I look up at that sign.” I thought to myself. Tomorrow will be my last day at work in Clearwater. I’ve worked there since the fall of 1996. Seventeen years wouldn’t give a lot of folks pause, but if you were to…
Read more
Wellbeing

The disappearance of John

It’s been a while, eh? In terms of writing and this blog, I’m in a funny place. I know a lot of people who are sick, injured, or feeling the pain of life beating them down. I say “a lot,” but it’s not… exactly. Everything’s relative, right? But whether we’re talking raw numbers or just percentages, I’d like to be a voice of reassurance. I’d like to be strong, spouting words of…
Read more
Wellbeing

Life changes

Catching up… How long has it been since my last post with substance? By any measure it’s been a while, so I thought I’d bring you up to speed on my life (a melodramatic adventure sure to keep you reclined in your seat). If you want to skip the whining, I don’t blame you. Skip down to where it says: “The Good Stuff.” Relative to my life, there’s a lot of…
Read more
Wellbeing

Thankful for Thanksgiving

My glass is a third full this morning and do you know what that means? Yep, I’m giddier than a tweener with a back stage pass to meet Justin Bieber. It’s Thanksgiving week and that means I’ll be enjoying my longest stacation in a year. Vacation, you ask? What does THAT mean? I’m working this week, so I’m one of the lucky few to enjoy open roads and incredible parking…
Read more
Wellbeing

Feeling safe until I don't

Work is a safe zone. It’s one of the few places I can speak freely. It’s one of the few places I feel competent, where I can act and speak with confidence. But it’s fragile state. It’s not just the people I work with, though they are great (my second family). It’s the setting. It’s the subject matter of most discussions, or the ones most likely to come up. It…
Read more