Well, the year is new and the job is old. I think I am ready to step my job search into high gear now that the holidays are done. I’m pretty sure that I could bear living with my sister and brother-in-law for a month or two despite how disgustingly affectionate they are. I think that the rest of my family is considering making the move to Albuquerque as well. My gut tells me this is the right decision. I hope that my gut is right and that things will move swiftly and smoothly.

The holidays were good. I didn’t want to come back here I just wanted to step right into a new life. I feel myself fading from this place. The feeling is so strong sometimes that I wonder if other people notice it and that maybe, I appear semitransparent like a movie ghost. My boss keeps making plans for my future projects and I want to tell her there is no point, but I keep quiet since this is better played close to the vest.

Miss Kitty remains pretty sad although I have told her there will be no crying in 2004. I’m sure that this edict will not be followed, but I am hoping for a little perspective here. There are so very many with lives so much worse than anything that Miss Kitty, her grandma or I have ever even imagined and I’m sick of the constant self-pity. I believe that Miss Kitty’s husband will be home relatively soon and I keep reminding her of this. I’m working on that grateful, magnanimous attitude I have been trying to develop. I can’t say that it’s going all that well and I am out of excuses as to why that is.

As much as I feel myself fading, I get the impression that my boss wants me to be even more invisible. She doesn’t want me to hang my diplomas, my license or my certification in the office I will use for clients. Instead she wants me to hang them in the office I will use only for paperwork, where only I will see them. This seems completely ridiculous to me and I wonder why I bothered working and paying for any of it. I suppose it’s just pathetic passive aggression, but I am silently refusing to put them up in my office. I will leave my framed credentials in a stack resting on a cardboard box. Part of me would like to just pack them up in that cardboard box and take them home, but that is probably a stronger message than I wish to give at this time. I look forward to that day.

Love to all.