Installment Forty-Two

I finally found some work!

The best part is that it doesn't involve coffee except for drinking reams of it to stay awake since sleep has not been my BFF lately. At last, I will have some blissful hours to distract me from my mind-numbing coma of self-absorption. It has been getting so extreme it was tempting to change the name of this blog to Me, Myself, but Mostly, I!

Wait, maybe I should save that title for a book I'll never write one day.

Ironically, my paying gig involves both writing and international development, my two areas of so-called expertise. Go figure.

I now have a short contract to research and write new material for the government website about Canada’s foreign aid program in Ethiopia. The program came under considerable fire in the media for corrupt disbursals of aid money.

To be fair, I should now probably admit I may have been a bit harsh the other day when I wrote about my calls to our aid agency being so useless. They may not have brought me any joy in my search for Gabe, but certainly came through in my hunt for work.

It turns out my interest in Ethiopia over the phone (and working into the conversation what I used to do) combined with a bureaucrat with contract money to spare have paid off.

Of all the countries in the world where Canada delivers foreign aid, though, it surely can't be a coincidence that the subject of Ethiopia (I won't actually go there) is where I will begin serious paid employment. Conveniently, I already had made that appointment to talk about foreign aid in Ethiopia with that nice young Irish-sounding man from the Canadian Hunger Foundation.

There are no accidents.

If Sean is correct about his father's whereabouts, this contract does make me feeling a little closer to finding Gabe.

But to be honest? I'm beginning to have some doubts over whether Gabe is even alive. I know that death has been on my mind a lot lately. But how else can I explain his abandonment of his kids if not because he has physically left the planet?

Call me crazy, but when it comes to serendipity, synchrodestiny, and other touchy-feely spiritual stuff, I can't quite claim to be a disbeliever. I have always felt, for example, that my parents have been my guardian angels. Stupid I know, but very comforting.

And I have always taken my dreams very seriously (when I finally fall sleep and have them.) With my memory being less than reliable lately, though, maybe I should keep a notebook by my bed to write things down during my restless nights. I firmly believe there can be meaning, even in blurry fragments that make no sense at 3 a.m. when I wake up in a sweat or even crying.

With all this talk about Gabe lately, it's not surprising he is turning up in them. Except my dreams aren't really dreams at all: they are nightmares.

Gabriel Kelly is always dead in them.