Back From California

My job interview did not go well.  While I was able to do well on the first two technical interviews using the web and phone, the plane trip, etc., was too much for me really.  I sobbed about my daughter, now gone over 3 months for most of the flight. I have a lot of things on my mind. Being in the city struck me the wrong way. My affection for my current work was heightened. I didn't care to prepare further.  As a result I was unable to focus, I over thought the problems which were similar in nature to those I'd had no trouble with. Afterward I was wraught with intense grief, and faced the reality of the fact that I had used focus on that to hold back a lot of emotions.  There was nothing I had not faced in kind, but there was a lot of intensity ducted to resevoirs which inevitably fill with unprocessed emotion,  and fester, not unlike a chemical waste pool.

The company in question, which had contacted me with severely odd timing, just shortly before my daughters death, offered me another chance in the future even as they explained I had not done well. They said I had done especially well in the first interviews and so perhaps it was just a matter of timing, and I was encouraged not to give up. At first I thought they were just letting me down easy, but the recruiter emphasized that it's often a matter of timing, and to please keep in touch.  I told her not to worry, I liked my current job and I appreciated the timine.  I slept on it and realized obviously it was a matter of timing, so I explained my situation and she said to contact her whenever I felt ready.

I am not sure what I will do, I now realize I need to focus on processing this loss and I still don't know exactly what that means in practice. I am also not sure I want to go in that direction, the environment of the city is not particularly calming, the bustle of such environments can be invigorating or wearing.

At any rate all that is somewhat obscured by the fact, which I discovered, that  I was using the interview to cope with the loss of June.  I had thought returning to California would be good for my daughter, this company had contacted me prior to her death, and so there was also an element of holding on to things that we shared, things that existed when she was still around.  And there was a perfect excuse to take a break from mourning for a few hours and prepare for the interviews.

After the interview a lot of that was let out in the form of raw emotion.  It's unprocessable in words and logic, it's just stuff I cry through, memories I repeat and the like, powerful unnamed courses full of energy. Very slowly some sense seems to come from it, ideas that do have words and logic, but this feels due to be crashed into chaos again.

I also lost $500 in Reno, friendliest little city in the world. I was trying to blow $1000 so I really came out $500 ahead. That's huge for me, I like low stakes gambling and usually keep my losses to about $100.  It's largely statistical after all, which means predictable in the long run.

I feel the spiritual value in casino gambling is that one has the opportunity to face loss.  While there is localized victory, for those with the broad view, those are still a part of a greater loss.  However, the emotions through all these experiences are very interesting, and touch the gamblers basic instincts on chance.  I like craps, roulette and to a lessor degree these years, black jack. In each of these games you also face how other people face loss and victory, an emotional dynamic that much of the time is quite palpable and on everyone's mind.

My trip was a spiritual journey about loss and I feel much relieved, though also weary, from it.