Life Abounds

It almost doesn't feel right, posting on The Beguiler. I almost feel like I should lay this blog to rest. Indeed, I have stopped thinking about it for some time now, as I'm sure all of you have. But I never took it down. I never completely let go. And maybe that's because I still believed I could put up something worthwhile. To be honest, I ran of of stuff to say. And I didn't want to write about just anything.

...Okay, sometimes I wrote about anything. Sometimes I may have actually written about nothing. But, I did it all because I have so many friends out in different parts of the world with whom I wanted to maintain contact.


...Okay, I don't have many friends, much less friends all over the world. Yet I do have a select number of friends with whom I wanted to maintain contact. With whom I still want to maintain contact.

But that's not the point here. I thought I could try to write a blog that didn't just give you a play-by-play of my daily activities. Whether or not I succeeded, well that's for you readers to decide (if you still remember). However, I feel like I owe it to the people who care to give an update, since the last one was sometime in September. To make it interesting (for me as much as anyone), I will write it in the form of a love letter written to a departed lover.

*Ahem* (cue romantic string quartet)

When we last met, I was fresh out of schooling, with an innocent outlook on life. Mine eyes were untainted by the pollution of the workforce, and I looked upon the world with a naivety that would later become a grand disappointment.

I fell away from you as I drew nearer to my job; I fear it may have changed me, sucked the life and humor out of me like an helium balloon into the lungs of the Machine, which mocked and laughed with its terrible voice - high and annoying, not that unlike Christopher Lloyd's character at the end of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The circumstances at my place of employment revealed themselves to be bleak only after I had the perspective from where I now sit, from the confines of my desk in my home state of North Carolina.

What I gained in experience, I lost in youth. And with youth, so I lost thee.

Yet, hope still burned beneath the veil of uncertainty. There happened a period of doubt, when I felt I would be discarded from my job for lack of work to perform. I therefore began the search for a professional employer who wanted, nay, needed my services in the land I was most familiar: that of fair North Carolina. Giving up on my skilled trade, I applied myself for positions any man could maintain. Yet there was one that I secured safe in my heart. A position at the enchanted Elon University which advertised all of the things which I knew catered to my skills. So, with a prayer, I delivered the application with haste.

Not a fortnight passed before I was called by the man at the University, fetching an interview. Naturally, I obliged to attend and was stunned, upon my arrival, at the beauty which lay manicured before me. Trees of many species, flowers and bushes, all trimmed to perfection as if prepared to greet me. And, ah! the people whom I met. How gloriously bright and delicious they were in their gentility. I am not ashamed to say I was quite entranced by their flattery.

The trip back up to Richmond following the interview was cold with apprehension and I shivered with anxiety. Days crawled by with infinite seconds as I waited ever patiently for the fated call declaring my status with the position I so desired. I paced. I prayed. I played a lot of Snood. And then --

The heavens answered in joyous agreement! And I began my new job the following week.

Many wonderful things have happened since, which is why I write to you now. I think I am ready to start seeing you again. I am not fraught with shame as I once was. And I also get bored whilst searching for mundane things to do. You may just be the missing piece of my wilting puzzle. Oh! wherefore did I discard thee, dear Puzzle Piece?

Wherefore?

In humble repose,
Jeffery of Yorkshire

If this isn't rocktastic enough, consider this: three months before I got the job, my darling niece, Clara, was born. (I'd post a picture, but she's so cute she'd destroy your monitor. I'll need Joey and Sarah to claim responsibility.) Then, they (Joey and Sarah) moved to Greensboro, a mere 30 miles from where Windy and I are now living. If you still aren't flabbergasted, check this out: During the first month of working here, I attended several interviews for an open position in the same office I'm in. It just so happened that it was a position I thought our dear friend Strauch would be perfect for. And although I knew he was tucked away in Chicago, I mentioned the job to him and he became interested. As did my employers upon hearing about him. He begins working IN THE DESK DIRECTLY BEHIND MINE in a few weeks.

Awesomeness abounds as Windy's art career has begun a sharp incline. She is no longer teaching and is focusing strictly on painting, and it is yielding amazing results.

Basically, I feel like I am along for the ride. So, I'd like to come back to The Beguiler if you'll let me. It may not be for visits as frequent (or infrequent) as before, but I want to come back just the same.

So consider this my return to a blog nearly forgotten about. Alas, it still breathes.