Potential Besides a few awkward moments explaining why I wasn't at the party Saturday, work was pretty smooth today. A few people tried to convince me that I would have had a good time, but I still stand by my decision. I really believe that it would have been a living hell for me. Well, maybe I am being melodramatic, but formal parties are not my thing. My boss was gone today which made the day even better. Its funny, but I usually start the work week off in a positive frame of mind. As the week progresses my attitude gets worse. Most people loathe Mondays, but it really doesn't bother me. I really want to talk about Good Will Hunting. Quite simply I loved the film. I'll be the first to admit that I am sucker for underdog films. A story where the hero rises above all of the shit around him. A spiritual journey. A finding of truth. An epiphany or whatever you might want to call it. Everything seems so right in the film. The key for me was the dialogue. These people talked like people that I know. They were real. I guess that I am betraying my blue collar roots here. There is no doubt that I come from a blue collar background. Milwaukee is a blue collar town with a bar on every corner. One grandfather worked for Harley Davidson and the other one worked for International Harvester. Manufacturing jobs. Even today my father works for General Electric. So here I am the first generation so to speak with an office job where I don't get dirty and I get paid fairly well. From little on my grandpa always told me that I didn't want to work in the shop. I did what he told me. I went to college and escaped the drudgery of the factory life, but I'm still not happy. For some reason, I still want more. Maybe I want to keep climbing, but I don't know where I want to climb. That last line sounds awful, but stay with me here. I want to be creative. This nine to five stuff kills me every day. Its no wonder I sleep or read through most of the day at work. What I should be doing is writing a book or something while I am at work. I was getting pretty close to doing something like that when I worked alone on third shift. I have no idea what kind of crap I would have produced, but at least I would have done something that was important to me. This daily little rant of mine is my sorry little excuse for creativity. I'll be the first to point to other journalers who write far better than I do. They obviously craft their entries to be palatable anecdotes. Me, I just struggle with getting the words strung together. Good Will Hunting is amazing, because it was written by two of the actors in the film. These are my peers. These are people that speak to me. These are people expanding their horizons and truly living. Here I sit complaining to myself and wondering what I did wrong. Don't get me wrong I have the greatest admiration for my father and all that he has done. He has worked for the same company for the past twenty eight years of his life. He earned enough money to support a wife and four children. He was a father when he seventeen and beat the odds. He survived. By the time that he was my age he was the father of four children. Two years ago I had problems being a father to one child. Yes, I realize that the circumstances were very different, but it certainly changed my perspective on parenting and how much he must have sacrificed for us. My life is too strange sometimes. Brenda called me tonight. She wanted to know where I went to grade school. She works with a girl that I went to grade school with years ago. What are the odds that a girl I knew in college would end up working with a girl that I knew in grade school? Now I'm wondering what horrible things they are saying about me.
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