Tonight at work I realized that today, the day that was today, meaning September 18th, was in fact Liberation Day, the holiday that I made up for myself and that only I have reason to celebrate. In case you've forgotten, Liberation day marks the anniversary of me quitting my horrible job at Providian and starting off on a life that I didn't absolutely despise.

Two years later it's hard to look back on the life I had before that day and realize that I actually did live that life. And I'm talking employment-wise here more than anything of course, but to actually think that for eight years I sat at a desk in a room full of fluorescent lights and stale air, tethered to a computer by a headset, and answered phones for hours on end talking to morons from all across the country. I did it for so fucking long! I can't believe it, I mean I could never picture myself doing something like that again. That kind of dawned on my the other day when I delivered a pizza to the cab place and walked past the dispatch office and there were a whole bunch of people hooked up to headsets. I physically shuddered. I just couldn't picture myself doing that again. And to read some of the things I wrote during that time, I mean you think this shit is fucking nuts. Jesus, you should have heard me then. I think I mentioned this before, but I found a letter I had been writing to Jennore sometime during my employment at Providian, during a particularly bad part, that I luckily never sent her. I found it a while ago, I think before I moved or something, and I just sounded like a raving lunatic. Having jobs like that makes you nuts, that's all there is to it. But more than that, I had the feeling that I'd never ever be able to escape. And sure, I'm still in a position where I'm wondering what the hell I'm going to do with my life and knowing that I can't do this forever, but at least I'm not in a state of constant misery while I'm wondering about it.

The day I left Providian had a profound effect on my life. It really changed everything for me. It's like I ended one phase and started a whole new thing that I didn't know was there. When I left, they asked, "What are you going to do now?" I said, "Fuck, I don't know. I'll deliver pizzas for all I care, just as long as I'm not doing this. And I've got to move out of this fucking state." Well, we all know how that turned out. I really don't know what my life would be like now if I hadn't left there. Well, I guess I would have left eventually, because Providian is in the fucking toilet (tee hee) and they just closed down their Salt Lake call center. But who knows what my life would be like if I'd stayed until the bitter end. Actually, I don't think that would have even been a possibility. At that point, the work hatred in my mind had reached a critical mass, and under no circumstance could I have ever been able to stay there. So I guess my life has turned out exactly like it should, eh? Yeah, that sounds pretty good to me. And you know what? It's only going to get better. I mean look how much things have changed for me just in the last two years. Sometimes I get stuck in this feeling like I'm getting too old and if things don't change now they'll never change, but that's all a big pile of bullshit. Life can change in a matter of minutes, it's all about doing it. And I've got a funny feeling lately. The feeling of change, not necessarily big major life changes, just some changes in thought and perspective, the feeling that new things are going to happen. The feeling that I'm going to learn a lot and things are just going to get better than they are.

Life is a fucking bitch sometimes, and everything is trivial and silly when you really look at it, but I'm still glad I'm here. I'm trying to learn how to let go of all that silly shit and just flow with it. Right now things aren't perfect, and I'm sure for a person like me they never really will be, but life is still pretty damn good. I'm glad to be alive. I really am.