An A+, a Bank, and Another Step Forward

Hey, Standing on the Ledge. How are y’all today?

Today has been a strange mix of victories, frustrations, and the usual business of trying to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Let’s start with the victory.

Organizational Behaviour is officially done. Final weighted grade: 94%. A+.

Yay!

And I am going to allow myself to actually acknowledge that one for a moment. This course was something I chose to take while everything else in my life was already moving, changing, breaking, rebuilding, demanding attention, or occasionally bursting into flames metaphorically speaking. I kept working at it anyway. Assignments got done. Reading got done. The work got done.

And now it is finished.

That is another thing I can put behind me and say, I did that.

Unfortunately, today also contained the other side of life on the ledge.

I hate banks at the moment.

You would think that somewhere in the enormous machinery of modern banking there might occasionally be room for a little compassion, flexibility, or recognition that people’s lives do not always fit neatly between nine in the morning and five in the afternoon.

Apparently not.

Tomorrow I will sort out the finances. That is the job in front of me, and avoiding it will not make it disappear. But one of the frustrating realities of working nights is that I sleep through much of what the rest of the world considers the “business day.” By the time I wake up and become functional, banks are closing, government offices are closed, and half the services I need to deal with have packed up for the day.

We supposedly live in a twenty-four-hour world. Hospitals run twenty-four hours. Stores run twenty-four hours. Factories, warehouses, transportation, security, cleaning, emergency services and countless other jobs operate around the clock. Yet an enormous amount of the infrastructure we depend upon still seems designed around the assumption that everybody works Monday to Friday, nine to five.

Some of us don’t.

And sometimes that makes already difficult things just a little more difficult than they need to be.

Still, tomorrow is tomorrow’s problem.

Today I finished a college course with a 94% final grade.

That matters.

One of the things I have been trying to learn during this whole journey is that progress does not mean everything suddenly becomes good at the same time. You can have a victory sitting right beside a problem. You can be proud of something you accomplished while simultaneously being frustrated, tired, worried about money, or wondering what fresh nonsense tomorrow has prepared for you.

The bad thing does not erase the good thing.

And the good thing does not magically erase the bad thing either.

Both can exist.

That may actually be one of the more useful lessons from the ledge.

Life after collapse is rarely a straight climb upward. Sometimes you gain ground in one part of your life while another part starts sliding sideways. Sometimes you finish a course with an A+ and then spend the afternoon wanting to argue with a bank.

Progress is not perfection.

Progress is being able to look at tomorrow’s problem and say, Okay. Tomorrow I deal with that.

So, my dear ledge walkers, how are you doing?

Other than the personal strife, I am still here. I am still alive. I am still trying. I am still putting one foot in front of the other, and despite everything, I am still making progress.

I hope you are too.

And if today was one of those days where all you managed was one small step, count the step. If something went right while three other things went wrong, count the thing that went right. We spend enough time staring at the problems. Every now and then we need to remember to record the victories too.

Today, mine is 94%.

Tomorrow, I deal with the bank.

That is it. That is all for now.

Godspeed, my friends.