if there is a new way...I'll be first in line

Finished the latest job, well almost anyway. Need to go back on Monday and put a plastic liner in the big water pit built beside the location in the picture.

So here I am, sitting in my trailer in Edson, in the rain, wondering which way to turn next. I have jobs to do but the weather has stalled them.

Got some alone time. Normally alone time is good, hell I am usually my own best company, but this is starting to suck. I have been thinking a lot lately about work and life and really wondering if the path laid out is the one I want to take. On one hand I get to be fairly independent and travel all over the Canadian oilpatch, and the money is very good....but I really have to ask if its worth it anymore. The guy that brought me into this current position, did it so he could take a job closer to home. I think he made the smarter decision. The money....money... is it worth having failed relationships and relatives that treat you like long lost friends? I don't know, it hasn't been all that good to me.

The oilpatch is like this: Live away from home for weeks or even a whole season, live camp to camp or motel to travel trailer, basically itinerant labour in your own country. If you have a family, make damn sure they are behind you or it will only end badly, a bitter experience that makes for difficult new beginnings. Time to shit or get off the pot so to speak. I can bitch and complain, and do it as good as anyone, but it's not helping. The question that goes through my mind again and again is: Do I want a family of my own and not be around to be a part of it?

I have an opportunity to work much closer to those I want to be around, but the lure of the current job is hard to break, I have been doing this aspect of my working life for 12 years now and I am more confident in it and my ability to do it well than I have ever been. I am good at it, I like it. But its making me dead inside. I have a hard time trying to care about anybody. Maybe the bitterness of my first go-around has not left me yet, probably only time and a few hard decisions will make it go away.