Kevin In the world of obscure observances and holidays, which we’re all about up in this joint if you’re new here, today’s is Evaluate Your Life Day 2021. According to Holiday Insights, this observance came to be through Wellcat, but unfortunately their link to the site is broken. However, I think we can go out on a limb and guess that the people at Wellcat meant to create an opportunity for us to take time out and do some reflection on our lives.
One of the ways we can evaluate our lives and take stock is through journaling, whether it’s regular journaling or the gratitude kind like I talked about here before. Or mentally taking stock of our lives to write down for later.
I did that just today as I was duking out a six mile walk home from the mall. Yes, you read that right. Six miles. I would’ve written it all down in the travel notebook I keep in my purse, but that’s hard to do on a walk, haha.
The Merle Haggard album I bought from an indie secondhand music store that’s been at the mall for like 2 years and counting just wasn’t enough to keep my spirits up.
After what I’ve been dealing with, why would it? I decided I’d take my chances again, and I walked down the thoroughfare in front of the mall. I made sure I had everything.
Gym bag, check.
Shopping bags, check.
Purse, check.
Phone in my pocket, check.
Time to make like a horse turd and hit the trails. The sun had set by this time, and the only light came from the restaurant signs, the neon signs in storefront windows, a DIY carwash, and what used to be a fast-food joint we were regulars at when they had a location in a neighborhood we used to live at.
It’s now something else entirely. So much has changed in the months it’s been since I had the chance to go out there, and I barely even recognized it.
The mall’s changed a lot in that amount of time. Businesses that had been there the last time I was there, now gone.
An agency that had been there for years was also gone. But after a little Google time, I saw that they weren’t gone, they just rebranded and changed direction.
I walked past a drugstore and gas station, and crossed another thoroughfare toward familiar territory. I looked up at the full moon, and wondered how the hell my life turned out like this.
I thought my life would’ve taken a different direction by now. I thought I’d have another job by now.
But I’m in the waiting place, hoping to the universe that I get this opportunity with every waking moment.
As a safety net, I’m still exploring my options until something’s definite.
Nothing less than 18 bucks an hour, I concluded. It wouldn’t be a sole means of an income, but it’ll still be enough to keep a roof over my head with the way the economy’s going these days.
It was then I realized that it’ll probably be for the best I never heard back from the companies in town with their Help Wanted decorations.
Damn, what has my life come to? I ask myself as I reach the neighborhood after about an hour and a half of walking. I’m broke af, with 500 bucks to my name in a savings account I fought tooth and nail to keep.
Assignments from my day job have become few and far between, which was nothing new, even before the pandemic.
I stopped at a store we used to go to on the way home, which is a whole ‘nother can of worms for another time. I still had about an hour before their closing time, and I went in, got what my family member wanted, and left.
It all felt like I’d lived a thousand lifetimes in successive order, all without sleep. I hope the next place for me is up, but I won’t count on that actually happening.
Over to you, readers. How are you gonna spend Evaluate Your Life Day? Mulling it over on a walk like yours truly did, journaling, or gratitude journaling? Or something else altogether? Drop it all like it’s hot below, and let’s talk. I’d love to hear your ideas and takeaways.
