There are no doubts, now. I am good at lying.
I figured out something about keeping this blog up after my last post. This is the liar I’ve become, but not the writer I am or have always intended to be.
I’ve been continually apologizing for a bad memory about what I’ve posted, or not. I’m sloppy. I’m going to be sloppy again in this post and don’t seem to have any remorse.
Meaning, I’m not looking back at what I have written nor am I looking at what I am writing. I am only writing forward, recording my life, stuff, posting, as it goes, and I am not even sure I’m making a point each time. I’m like the cafeteria food at a grade school of trying to be a writer. I’m getting close, but the getting by on pizza for breakfast and the French fries, for a vegetable substitute, they count as calories, but they don’t really count as sustenance. (It’s like I’m Twinkies instead of organic vegetables.)
Filler sucks.
I’m sharing enough to share, to connect, but I’m not sharing near what I’d share if I was writing behind a character. I am not giving even half of the honesty I have to give. I admit it. I am living it, this giving of half truths in every blog.
I am so afraid of the repercussion of someone I know, who I wouldn’t divulge half this information to, finding my blog, and thus making my current need for anonymity (as it relates to job security) a thing of the past.
The writer I am, while not blogging, would cut a line down my center and expose my core so vividly that every bit of my guts would fall like entrails on the examiner’s table. I’d let every ounce of my mess and the beauty of me lose, to be posted like a check list for all who would read it, allowing them to tick off on the boxes of what they could identify with, or what they could not, and I’d ask an editor if what I’d thrown up for the tally made the list or busted the chase and fell flat. (I’d be a fucking professional with sailor’s mouth and a spell checker.)
I’d not try to spin it happy at every end or always try to be inspirational, like I’ve been doing with these blog posts. I’d just say how it is and then slip into that Polly Anna as I was feeling it, because I am a positive dork along my center line naturally. In other words, I want to feel it not force it.
Regardless, I’m finding that there is a problem with blogging. I’m never going to be totally honest. I am always going to be a bit of liar. I need to hind behind a character, and have characters for the stories of my friends to hide behind. I need to not lie. In a blog, I don’t have that. My friends don’t have that.
I want, want, want the cover that characters allow. I want to let go of all the safety I, and I feel my friends, require. So, from here on out, no matter what I say, continue to consider me to be a liar. I’m telling as much of the truth as I can, but there is so much more I cannot, and will not, share in this forum.
As I alluded to in my last post, I can admit that I am scared shitless that one of my dear friends is potentially suicidal. But I cannot say more about why this friend is in such a bad state, because, again, I cannot and will not give enough details that can ever be traced back to this specific dear friend. (The protection of their identity is paramount to me.)
I can also say that I am stressed, and that Bull #1, and Bull#2, and the Lead, have been/are part of the stress I’ve been enduring in work for the last 2 years, and that they’ve all messed with the security of my lively hood (how I pay for my life), but I cannot say more because they are people, not characters. I can’t slam them in a public forum. Whatever they’ve done to me, something likewise has been done to them and I’m not going to continue their undoing, certainly not publicly.
I’d love to bend them over in a book, though, were I could give them fake names and make up untraceable job titles, and drill down to their every nuance and not hold back. I’d have targets on their backs and drills in their ears in no time. But here, now, in real time, where this is my job, not as a writer, but as a girl who needs health insurance and a roof over her head, and as the girl who needs to make her 9-5 money, I have to be obtuse to protect myself and them.
Likewise, I’d love to say how it’s not just the roaches and the lack of light that are f’n with me with where I live now. I’d like to say how I got sliced on the lease the night before I moved in. But, if I go into those details, on how that person renting to me, who was supposed to be a friend, screwed me, a couple of those details being a move out date of December the 31st, 10:00 am (really? Is this a hotel?), and an agreement to hang no more than 10 pictures on the wall, and a verbal request of not going barefoot, as the oils on one’s feet can soil carpet, then I’d be potentially taking down a real person.
So, none of that happened. I'm lieing about that. There also have not been any inferences or my rent being raised by $400.00 come lease end. And, I wasn't living with this person’s furniture: an amour, a dresser, another dresser, another shelf, a wall hanging, yet another amour, and another smaller dresser, and more, too much to mention, along with my own furniture, up until about a week ago.
I have not been feeling like this place is not my place, but someone else’s entirely. The roaches, they're all a lie, too. Who picks up a roach in their hand? That can't be the truth. The contant water from the golf course and the snails, they aren't destroying my plants either.
Sure, call me an ass for signing the lease, but I didn't get the lease until the night before I moved in. Or did I get it sooner? Which is the truth? Just for fun, here's a question: What would you do if you were leaving your husband of 13 years and being given certain circumstances to accept (via a last minute lease) at 6:45 pm the night before all your things were going to be moved from the husbands place? (You get that my old apartment is my ex-husband now, yeah?)
As a writer, all is fair in life being lived and ink on the page. As a person, getting by, these people, these situations, I feel a responsibility to protect them.
So, every thing I just wrote I is/was a lie or may not be.
The only thing that is the truth is that I am sick of lying and I need an editor. I need to bleed without a tourniquet. I need to feel without a filter. I need to connect without the fear of sabotaging my livelihood. I need to be a writer without boundaries. I need to be able to punctuate without knowing every grammar rule.
What’s fabulous? Finding a way to marry needs, wants, and gots-ta haves.
Ready.
Willing!
Monday, October 25, 2010
What's next?
This is one of those posts, where I will attempt to be clever, to be profound, and/or to shed some positive insight on something. But, I will probably fail, miserably.
Recently, I went with Chloe, her mom, her sister, and one of her best friends to look for a wedding dress for Chloe. She is getting married next February, about a year to the date of when she met her husband to be. I may have even written about the night my bubbly, light-blue-eyed friend let lose those eyelashes of hers and batted a boy into her charms. But I honestly can’t recall if I did write about it.
That’s still the blow of me being a blogger. Having given up the need for perfection, to just get my writing out there, as a by-product, of not looking back, my memory constantly fails me. Either that, or I’ve dropped my basket completely.
If I did post about their meet-cute night, I’d have bragged about what a great wing woman I am. I would have explained how I got up from the table Chloe and I had been sharing, and how I extricated myself from the conversation, leaving Chloe alone with this good looking, Irish, geek-sheik of a guy who I thought was a good match for her.
I would have gone on to say how I suffered through conversing with a table full of meat heads for as long as what I thought was necessary for the mating ritual to get off the ground for Chloe and this possible prospect of a man. A man who had already been leaning his way into Chloe, leading with that smile of his, one that emanates from his strong and jutting jaw. He’d also been beaming at her, with his own long-lashed light eyes, through retro horn-rimmed glasses. They’d barely noticed I was gone.
It worked, me ditching the table, because here we are now with a wedding in Chloe’s future. Not that I can take credit. That’s not where I was going with this. Where I am going with this is that here we are Now. For the first time in my life I was watching a girlfriend trying on wedding dresses, yet I didn’t feel a tinge of jealousy. Not even a spec.
I’ve been a maid of honor three times and a bride’s maid at least once (I keep thinking there’s someone, or another, I’ve forgotten), but this time I didn’t wish that it was me who was choosing the dress. I wasn’t mopping up silent tears somewhere inside—like I’ve done before in the past—or putting on a brave face and falsely grinning my way through, wondering whether I’d choose lace, beads, or bows for my dress.
I didn’t care, at all, about dress dazzle, about going for a sleeveless number or not for myself (which would depend upon the width of my arms), or if I’d go with a long or a short veil, or if I’d even wear a veil.
If you’re curious, I’d probably choose flip flops, the beach, and a dress I could throw in a wad in the corner as soon as the sex part of the evening was afoot. Along with a tasteful menu, I’d also serve Cheetos at my reception, just so people would wonder: WTF? And, because I’d want them to be faced with making a choice as they went to wipe the orange snack dust off their fingers: just wipe; wipe and suck, then wipe again; or suck the dust off first then wipe (which is really the best method). Being presented with these choices would leave many of my guests with a smirk, reminding them of whose wedding they are at.
Actually, the liar is back. I was putting on a brave face whilst sitting their amongst Chloe’s closest peeps, and there were some tears I was holding back. But it had nothing to do with me coming to another year of my life passing by and me not having found anyone to share my life with. I’m still convinced that’ll come when it does; five minutes or fifty years from now (Well, five minutes would be tough because I’m at home in my pajamas at the moment, so there’d have to be a knock at the door.)
True, you are probably recalling that I thought it might be this year I’d lock my lips on a winner-winner chicken dinner of a man, but, it’s look’n like my intuition might have been wrong on this one. But I am fine with being wrong. Really. And, it feels pretty incredible to be fine with something that used to consume me when I was younger.
Nah, the tears I was holding back were stress tears. Stress, stress, and more stress. Work stress. Home stress. That’s what is consuming me now and I don’t know how to cough it out.
The whole time I was watching Chloe beaming and battling between dress choices, because of cost, style, and because of the opinions from her loving peanut gallery, I was just hoping I wouldn’t dampen her day or spoil the mood with my shit. (I was seriously ready to burst into tears at any moment and call uncle on my stress.)
I was also silently feeling sorry for every girl who goes through the wedding planning ritual, and thinking: Blah, blah, cake, location, wedding dress, blah. Holy screw this!
It’s all so ritualistic and nauseating to me now (and this has nothing to do with Chloe), how it is supposed to play out for women, this wedding business. Societal pressure, religion, family expectations, self-imposed expectations, it all just punctuates the picking-out-the-dress part of it, and the every-other part of it, and makes all the parts of it not seem like me anymore.
I’m getting progressively turned off by the idea of a wedding at all for myself. It’s about the marriage and about the person you are going to be willing to fall in and out of love with for a life time. Once I’ve chosen the right man, eloping would probably do.
What the hell, though?! I was watching my friend trying on wedding dresses, and didn’t even have it in me to feel that normal jealousy any single girl would feel while watching a close friend get to do something she always thought she wanted for herself.
Who am I? How did I become the girl who cares less when and/if she meets the right guy? When did I become the girl who’d choose a great apartment, that feels like a home again, and a new job, that doesn’t feel like hell, over love?
I’ve always been a love conquers all girl. Now I am not? Call the press. Some stressed bitch has taken over my body.
What changed? When did I snap and become incapable of getting my rubber back? When did love become an after thought—something to care little about? Is this earth? Really? Am I going to wake up with an alien probe up my ass? Where did I go?
How have these stresses in life made me so overwhelmed with my experience on earth? The anxiety of a job has never gotten to me like this, to where I feel frayed at every end. Maybe not having the sanctuary of home to retreat to after a day on the battle field is what’s pulling my threads out.
Or, maybe I became this fritzed out, and this frenzied resemblance of a girl, the day my current boss, just a couple weeks ago, pissed all over me in a meeting. Is that it? Have I not bounced back yet?
I’ve never had a tongue lashing before, personally or professionally. I’ve certainly never gotten verbally beaten down within earshot of about 10 people who were just trying to sit quietly inside their cubes and offices to do their work. (I had a feeling I should have closed that conference room door the second I’d walked through it. Damn it! Why didn’t I listen to my intuition that time?)
But how could I know I’d get slammed for having the wrong information, information that was given to me by someone who was supposed to know their shit. How would anyone prepare for a public slaughter? The crowd doesn’t care if you are guilty or not. If someone picks up a rock, like the big boss (we’ll call this boss Bull #2), and throws it at you, for whatever you did or didn’t do, the crowd isn’t trying to discern your guilt or innocence. Mob mentality takes over. Then the buzz begins. “Did you hear? So and so got pummeled in the town square yesterday.”
This brings me to my next question (I have many questions I haven’t been able to answer for myself yet): Am I more concerned about what those 10 folks think, if they think I am failing, or if I think I am failing?
The boss, Bull #2, knew the information I had was crap, and that it wasn’t my fault I was mis-informed. That’s why Bull #2 was so mad. The boss was fumed enough to call five more people into a meeting later that day, including the person who’d mis-guided me, to let everyone know just how wrong we all were. (Go team!)
But the people outside the conference room, they didn’t know everyone got it wrong. They just heard I got something wrong and they just figured out that more people were in a room with me later that day and they could hear Bull #2 doing even more yelling.
Yet, over the years, I’ve learned not to care what others think (mostly). That’s why I am wondering if this is more about my own need to succeed, my own desire to feel good about what I am showing up to do 8 hours a day, then it is about what those other cube/office dwellers think about me.
I think what’s becoming increasingly harder for me to deal with is that I am being set up to fail. I am being treated like spackle, spread so thin and expected to fill so many holes, on so many major projects, that I am too busy trying to learn everything that I am not learning anything effectively. And, while failing at anything is tough, feeling like a failure at something that isn’t, remotely, personally satisfying, that’s weight upon weight. Weight I am not shouldering well.
Sadly, there is no comfort in the fact that I am not the only one feeling stressed by the atmosphere I work within or by the work being given to me by the big boss. Other people in my office, they are just as poised to snap like an uncooked spaghetti noodle. That’s what happens when you all work in the same larger environment and for the same bully of a boss who barks out a billion big-ass projects to be done simultaneously and to be done yesterday. Even those expert in their positions feel like they are drowning, failing.
One person I work with told me that their body went numb, that they had acute chest pain, and they weren’t sure if they were having a panic attack from the stress of work or were having an actual heart attack. They went to the ER just to be safe. That’s not good.
Someone else confided in me that the atmosphere of the office has got them so maxed out they almost passed out at the gym because they were having an anxiety attack while on the tread mill. That’s just as bad.
More worse is that those two people aren’t the only ones who have shared that the build-up of work, and the way Bull #2 manages projects, shifts priorities, and fears people into producing more than what’s realistic, is causing them enough mental anxiety that it is physically manifesting itself.
Well, at least everyone I work with is normal. If they didn’t admit to medicating with alcohol, breaking down in tears, popping aspirin for the headaches, or drinking the pink stuff for the upset stomachs, then I’d really wonder if the aliens had transplanted me to an unusual hell, where people aren’t emotionally and physically affected by stress.
But the absolute worst part, is that while Bull #2 could use a good kick in the soft skills, the big boss I had in the last division was also a bully and also used intimidation to manage (we’ll call that big boss Bull #1).
It was Bull #1’s threatening ways that caused my previous lead to snap. Guess who took that hit? Me. Wait, so I have been verbally beaten before. (How could I forget that?)
Yeppers, my old lead, who we’ll call Lead, let loose all over me in a meeting, too. I was trying to clarify something for our medium-ranked boss, so the medium boss could take the information back to Bull #1, and Lead’s Asperger ass, getting frustrated that the medium boss wasn’t understanding me, body shaking violently, face reddened profusely, and fists clenched fiercely, unleashed this frustration all over me.
Lead couldn’t have directed this frustration at the medium boss, who often musunderstood things, because that’s not how it’s done. Don’t you know? You always step on a lower rung.
Two of my co-workers, who witnessed Lead’s psychotic break, wanted me to file a grievance against Lead. They’d never seen such a thing. I didn’t file or go to HR. I just wanted peace before departure.
One of my past co-workers is still convinced Lead is a sociopath and I could be in danger. I still just think Lead has Asperger’s syndrome and couldn’t contain, in that moment, the silent rage of being so socially uncomfortable. (We’ll find out if I was wrong if someone finds my dead body in a ditch and Lead has left town.)
The shit really does roll down hill where I work, though. By the time it gets to those who want to do a good job, a lot of times they’ve gotta eat shit to do it. It’s sad, really.
When people are sharing their horror stories about the wildly inappropriate behavior exhibited by the higher ups (leads, department heads, division leaders, VPs, and so on), and they are actually competing over who has had the worst experience with so and so, or with so and other so, and this goes on all over, that tells me that I work in an environment, as a whole, which not only tolerates this behavior, it is considered the cultural norm.
But I'm fine with this bullshit at work, with all the loose ends in my life, with whatever this all means. This is life, right? We’ve all got stuff to learn, our dung to dig away from. And, sometimes, when we thought we made the right choice(s) to make life a little lighter, then we find out that we may not have turned the right corner, we can feel a little stuck. But, again, that’s life. I’m fine. I’m so NOT fine.
So why do we say we’re fine? Because we want to be. We want to be better than fine. We want to be great. Therefore, the best we can do is fake it until we make it. Faking it is part of keeping our inner world from getting gutted.
Is that the beauty of life, that because we gain knowledge more easily than we gather wisdom, we don’t always know what to accept, what to change, and we don’t always have the courage or the wisdom to know the difference or how to make the right change?
Is that how we learn, by failing? Is that how I got to where I am, where I tried to trade up on home and on work but seem to have traded fucked for both? What happens after the failure? What happens when we’re too busy licking the salt out of our wounds, or too exhausted from getting licked by life, that we don’t have much energy left over to re-balance one or more of life’s major stressors: work, finances, relationships, family, health, safety, security, or home. (A complete list of all of life’s stressors, along with batteries, and wine, has not been included.)
But we’re agreed, yes? This journey in life isn’t always gilded in gold. We’ve all been through hard times. Sometimes life’s shifts are easy. Other times, making a shift kinks the mind so much it feels like the very change that’s supposed to be making you stronger is more like taking a lightening bolt to the back of the head.
Then, just when you thought you were going to put the fire out from your latest zap, to keep the rest of you from being scorched entirely, you realize more smoke is coming out of your ears.
By my own making, my fragility and my fortitude have been on display for almost a year now. I’ve gotten better at not needing a character to hide behind in order to be open and share certain truths (or I’ve gotten better at caring less about what others may learn about me), but I’m not getting better at hurdling some of the boulders in my recent path.
Still. I’m a gear shifter. I know this about me, and you’re probably get’n this about me. As one of life’s passengers, one minute I'm riding sunshine. The next minute, I'm farting dark clouds of my ass and complaining. And, while lately, the forecast has been a bit rainy, and something smells funny, I’m still hoping for sunshine. I still believe it’s around the corner.
I hope so; because if one more dark cloud cuts my ass off in traffic I’m afraid I might get so banged up I’ll loose my bumper and won’t be able to take another hit, or, worse, I’ll run out of gas.
Ava, in her infinite wisdom, reminds me that it is all about perspective. Good point. That brings me to my next question. How is it that at first the experience of having taken on so many changes in my life (breaking up with a guy, moving, and getting a new job) made me feel more powerful than I’ve ever felt?
Yet, now, I miss the sanctuary and familiarity of my old apartment of 13 years (even with the butthead’s noise) like a divorcée might miss her pain-in-the-ass ex-husband. Seriously, I continue to mourn the loss of that apartment like the conclusion of a 13 year marriage.
I also find myself wishing for what my old job offered me. Not the management, Bull #1, the medium boss, or Lead (actually, in spite of the incident, Lead was pretty cool to work for). I miss the mind-numbing work vs. the extreme stress of this new position and the beyond stress of working for Bull #2.
Is it always about security and sanctuary? Is that why change is so hard, because it isn’t secure? Is that what I’m feeling? Or, is it that I can embrace change, but the changes I’ve recently made aren’t the right changes, yet?
This is a strange place to be in, where I am at, questioning everything, even my own reserve.
I know I have the reserve, though. I’ll eventually figure it all out. This, too, shall pass.
In fact, I am more worried about and for a dear friend of mine than I am worried for myself. This dear friend, who has gone through tragedy after tragedy in the last six years, sent me a text, than repeated in a conversation, that if it wasn’t for their child, they’d be done.
Yes, this friend meant done-done.
Wow. Ava and I have been talking about the fact that whatever it is, whether it’s this, or something else, we all have to learn to cope with what our current lesson in life is. But to see someone in my life having that overwhelming feeling continue to build, to get worse, so much so that it has gotten to a point for them that if one more thing happens they’ve admitted, they won’t be able to go on, that’s the ultimate loss of perspective.
That’s someone not asking: What’s next? Like, “Let’s go. Ready. Let’s get to the good parts. That’s someone saying: What’s next? “Is it going to be that one last thing that does me in?”
I’ve been left with more questions than answers when it comes to my own humanity, and there have been times in my life where I have felt vacuumed out, but even while I am going through what I am going through Now, I still feel great about where I’ve come to in life.
Under the tarnish of all this stress, I’m still shiny. I’ve had the pleasure of becoming a person who doesn’t want to apologize for loving herself. And I have come to this wonderful place, where I’m grateful, where I want to be me. Period. And, I want to be here, even if here, with work and home, sucks right now.
I know if you don't believe in life's magic, then everything in life becomes tragic. I know what it is to feel like you’re continually fighting to catch your breath, I’ve been there. It feels like you’re being robbed of your magic, your sense of purpose. A place without purpose and magic is a place without hope.
Part of the magic is knowing that in spite of everything we go through, we do, and our life does have a purpose. That’s perspective. That’s the magic.
I know this is a heavy post, but if there is anything fabulous to be gained from this post I would ask that you remind yourself, and everyone you know, especially someone like my dear friend, that because we are all connected, because we are all magic, we have purpose.
Stay fabulous and keep the perspective! Remember that whatever is next, hard or easy, it’s where we’re supposed to be because Now is all we have to get us to where we are going.
(And hey, depending upon what you call hard, getting something hard in your life might not be all bad.)
Recently, I went with Chloe, her mom, her sister, and one of her best friends to look for a wedding dress for Chloe. She is getting married next February, about a year to the date of when she met her husband to be. I may have even written about the night my bubbly, light-blue-eyed friend let lose those eyelashes of hers and batted a boy into her charms. But I honestly can’t recall if I did write about it.
That’s still the blow of me being a blogger. Having given up the need for perfection, to just get my writing out there, as a by-product, of not looking back, my memory constantly fails me. Either that, or I’ve dropped my basket completely.
If I did post about their meet-cute night, I’d have bragged about what a great wing woman I am. I would have explained how I got up from the table Chloe and I had been sharing, and how I extricated myself from the conversation, leaving Chloe alone with this good looking, Irish, geek-sheik of a guy who I thought was a good match for her.
I would have gone on to say how I suffered through conversing with a table full of meat heads for as long as what I thought was necessary for the mating ritual to get off the ground for Chloe and this possible prospect of a man. A man who had already been leaning his way into Chloe, leading with that smile of his, one that emanates from his strong and jutting jaw. He’d also been beaming at her, with his own long-lashed light eyes, through retro horn-rimmed glasses. They’d barely noticed I was gone.
It worked, me ditching the table, because here we are now with a wedding in Chloe’s future. Not that I can take credit. That’s not where I was going with this. Where I am going with this is that here we are Now. For the first time in my life I was watching a girlfriend trying on wedding dresses, yet I didn’t feel a tinge of jealousy. Not even a spec.
I’ve been a maid of honor three times and a bride’s maid at least once (I keep thinking there’s someone, or another, I’ve forgotten), but this time I didn’t wish that it was me who was choosing the dress. I wasn’t mopping up silent tears somewhere inside—like I’ve done before in the past—or putting on a brave face and falsely grinning my way through, wondering whether I’d choose lace, beads, or bows for my dress.
I didn’t care, at all, about dress dazzle, about going for a sleeveless number or not for myself (which would depend upon the width of my arms), or if I’d go with a long or a short veil, or if I’d even wear a veil.
If you’re curious, I’d probably choose flip flops, the beach, and a dress I could throw in a wad in the corner as soon as the sex part of the evening was afoot. Along with a tasteful menu, I’d also serve Cheetos at my reception, just so people would wonder: WTF? And, because I’d want them to be faced with making a choice as they went to wipe the orange snack dust off their fingers: just wipe; wipe and suck, then wipe again; or suck the dust off first then wipe (which is really the best method). Being presented with these choices would leave many of my guests with a smirk, reminding them of whose wedding they are at.
Actually, the liar is back. I was putting on a brave face whilst sitting their amongst Chloe’s closest peeps, and there were some tears I was holding back. But it had nothing to do with me coming to another year of my life passing by and me not having found anyone to share my life with. I’m still convinced that’ll come when it does; five minutes or fifty years from now (Well, five minutes would be tough because I’m at home in my pajamas at the moment, so there’d have to be a knock at the door.)
True, you are probably recalling that I thought it might be this year I’d lock my lips on a winner-winner chicken dinner of a man, but, it’s look’n like my intuition might have been wrong on this one. But I am fine with being wrong. Really. And, it feels pretty incredible to be fine with something that used to consume me when I was younger.
Nah, the tears I was holding back were stress tears. Stress, stress, and more stress. Work stress. Home stress. That’s what is consuming me now and I don’t know how to cough it out.
The whole time I was watching Chloe beaming and battling between dress choices, because of cost, style, and because of the opinions from her loving peanut gallery, I was just hoping I wouldn’t dampen her day or spoil the mood with my shit. (I was seriously ready to burst into tears at any moment and call uncle on my stress.)
I was also silently feeling sorry for every girl who goes through the wedding planning ritual, and thinking: Blah, blah, cake, location, wedding dress, blah. Holy screw this!
It’s all so ritualistic and nauseating to me now (and this has nothing to do with Chloe), how it is supposed to play out for women, this wedding business. Societal pressure, religion, family expectations, self-imposed expectations, it all just punctuates the picking-out-the-dress part of it, and the every-other part of it, and makes all the parts of it not seem like me anymore.
I’m getting progressively turned off by the idea of a wedding at all for myself. It’s about the marriage and about the person you are going to be willing to fall in and out of love with for a life time. Once I’ve chosen the right man, eloping would probably do.
What the hell, though?! I was watching my friend trying on wedding dresses, and didn’t even have it in me to feel that normal jealousy any single girl would feel while watching a close friend get to do something she always thought she wanted for herself.
Who am I? How did I become the girl who cares less when and/if she meets the right guy? When did I become the girl who’d choose a great apartment, that feels like a home again, and a new job, that doesn’t feel like hell, over love?
I’ve always been a love conquers all girl. Now I am not? Call the press. Some stressed bitch has taken over my body.
What changed? When did I snap and become incapable of getting my rubber back? When did love become an after thought—something to care little about? Is this earth? Really? Am I going to wake up with an alien probe up my ass? Where did I go?
How have these stresses in life made me so overwhelmed with my experience on earth? The anxiety of a job has never gotten to me like this, to where I feel frayed at every end. Maybe not having the sanctuary of home to retreat to after a day on the battle field is what’s pulling my threads out.
Or, maybe I became this fritzed out, and this frenzied resemblance of a girl, the day my current boss, just a couple weeks ago, pissed all over me in a meeting. Is that it? Have I not bounced back yet?
I’ve never had a tongue lashing before, personally or professionally. I’ve certainly never gotten verbally beaten down within earshot of about 10 people who were just trying to sit quietly inside their cubes and offices to do their work. (I had a feeling I should have closed that conference room door the second I’d walked through it. Damn it! Why didn’t I listen to my intuition that time?)
But how could I know I’d get slammed for having the wrong information, information that was given to me by someone who was supposed to know their shit. How would anyone prepare for a public slaughter? The crowd doesn’t care if you are guilty or not. If someone picks up a rock, like the big boss (we’ll call this boss Bull #2), and throws it at you, for whatever you did or didn’t do, the crowd isn’t trying to discern your guilt or innocence. Mob mentality takes over. Then the buzz begins. “Did you hear? So and so got pummeled in the town square yesterday.”
This brings me to my next question (I have many questions I haven’t been able to answer for myself yet): Am I more concerned about what those 10 folks think, if they think I am failing, or if I think I am failing?
The boss, Bull #2, knew the information I had was crap, and that it wasn’t my fault I was mis-informed. That’s why Bull #2 was so mad. The boss was fumed enough to call five more people into a meeting later that day, including the person who’d mis-guided me, to let everyone know just how wrong we all were. (Go team!)
But the people outside the conference room, they didn’t know everyone got it wrong. They just heard I got something wrong and they just figured out that more people were in a room with me later that day and they could hear Bull #2 doing even more yelling.
Yet, over the years, I’ve learned not to care what others think (mostly). That’s why I am wondering if this is more about my own need to succeed, my own desire to feel good about what I am showing up to do 8 hours a day, then it is about what those other cube/office dwellers think about me.
I think what’s becoming increasingly harder for me to deal with is that I am being set up to fail. I am being treated like spackle, spread so thin and expected to fill so many holes, on so many major projects, that I am too busy trying to learn everything that I am not learning anything effectively. And, while failing at anything is tough, feeling like a failure at something that isn’t, remotely, personally satisfying, that’s weight upon weight. Weight I am not shouldering well.
Sadly, there is no comfort in the fact that I am not the only one feeling stressed by the atmosphere I work within or by the work being given to me by the big boss. Other people in my office, they are just as poised to snap like an uncooked spaghetti noodle. That’s what happens when you all work in the same larger environment and for the same bully of a boss who barks out a billion big-ass projects to be done simultaneously and to be done yesterday. Even those expert in their positions feel like they are drowning, failing.
One person I work with told me that their body went numb, that they had acute chest pain, and they weren’t sure if they were having a panic attack from the stress of work or were having an actual heart attack. They went to the ER just to be safe. That’s not good.
Someone else confided in me that the atmosphere of the office has got them so maxed out they almost passed out at the gym because they were having an anxiety attack while on the tread mill. That’s just as bad.
More worse is that those two people aren’t the only ones who have shared that the build-up of work, and the way Bull #2 manages projects, shifts priorities, and fears people into producing more than what’s realistic, is causing them enough mental anxiety that it is physically manifesting itself.
Well, at least everyone I work with is normal. If they didn’t admit to medicating with alcohol, breaking down in tears, popping aspirin for the headaches, or drinking the pink stuff for the upset stomachs, then I’d really wonder if the aliens had transplanted me to an unusual hell, where people aren’t emotionally and physically affected by stress.
But the absolute worst part, is that while Bull #2 could use a good kick in the soft skills, the big boss I had in the last division was also a bully and also used intimidation to manage (we’ll call that big boss Bull #1).
It was Bull #1’s threatening ways that caused my previous lead to snap. Guess who took that hit? Me. Wait, so I have been verbally beaten before. (How could I forget that?)
Yeppers, my old lead, who we’ll call Lead, let loose all over me in a meeting, too. I was trying to clarify something for our medium-ranked boss, so the medium boss could take the information back to Bull #1, and Lead’s Asperger ass, getting frustrated that the medium boss wasn’t understanding me, body shaking violently, face reddened profusely, and fists clenched fiercely, unleashed this frustration all over me.
Lead couldn’t have directed this frustration at the medium boss, who often musunderstood things, because that’s not how it’s done. Don’t you know? You always step on a lower rung.
Two of my co-workers, who witnessed Lead’s psychotic break, wanted me to file a grievance against Lead. They’d never seen such a thing. I didn’t file or go to HR. I just wanted peace before departure.
One of my past co-workers is still convinced Lead is a sociopath and I could be in danger. I still just think Lead has Asperger’s syndrome and couldn’t contain, in that moment, the silent rage of being so socially uncomfortable. (We’ll find out if I was wrong if someone finds my dead body in a ditch and Lead has left town.)
The shit really does roll down hill where I work, though. By the time it gets to those who want to do a good job, a lot of times they’ve gotta eat shit to do it. It’s sad, really.
When people are sharing their horror stories about the wildly inappropriate behavior exhibited by the higher ups (leads, department heads, division leaders, VPs, and so on), and they are actually competing over who has had the worst experience with so and so, or with so and other so, and this goes on all over, that tells me that I work in an environment, as a whole, which not only tolerates this behavior, it is considered the cultural norm.
But I'm fine with this bullshit at work, with all the loose ends in my life, with whatever this all means. This is life, right? We’ve all got stuff to learn, our dung to dig away from. And, sometimes, when we thought we made the right choice(s) to make life a little lighter, then we find out that we may not have turned the right corner, we can feel a little stuck. But, again, that’s life. I’m fine. I’m so NOT fine.
So why do we say we’re fine? Because we want to be. We want to be better than fine. We want to be great. Therefore, the best we can do is fake it until we make it. Faking it is part of keeping our inner world from getting gutted.
Is that the beauty of life, that because we gain knowledge more easily than we gather wisdom, we don’t always know what to accept, what to change, and we don’t always have the courage or the wisdom to know the difference or how to make the right change?
Is that how we learn, by failing? Is that how I got to where I am, where I tried to trade up on home and on work but seem to have traded fucked for both? What happens after the failure? What happens when we’re too busy licking the salt out of our wounds, or too exhausted from getting licked by life, that we don’t have much energy left over to re-balance one or more of life’s major stressors: work, finances, relationships, family, health, safety, security, or home. (A complete list of all of life’s stressors, along with batteries, and wine, has not been included.)
But we’re agreed, yes? This journey in life isn’t always gilded in gold. We’ve all been through hard times. Sometimes life’s shifts are easy. Other times, making a shift kinks the mind so much it feels like the very change that’s supposed to be making you stronger is more like taking a lightening bolt to the back of the head.
Then, just when you thought you were going to put the fire out from your latest zap, to keep the rest of you from being scorched entirely, you realize more smoke is coming out of your ears.
By my own making, my fragility and my fortitude have been on display for almost a year now. I’ve gotten better at not needing a character to hide behind in order to be open and share certain truths (or I’ve gotten better at caring less about what others may learn about me), but I’m not getting better at hurdling some of the boulders in my recent path.
Still. I’m a gear shifter. I know this about me, and you’re probably get’n this about me. As one of life’s passengers, one minute I'm riding sunshine. The next minute, I'm farting dark clouds of my ass and complaining. And, while lately, the forecast has been a bit rainy, and something smells funny, I’m still hoping for sunshine. I still believe it’s around the corner.
I hope so; because if one more dark cloud cuts my ass off in traffic I’m afraid I might get so banged up I’ll loose my bumper and won’t be able to take another hit, or, worse, I’ll run out of gas.
Ava, in her infinite wisdom, reminds me that it is all about perspective. Good point. That brings me to my next question. How is it that at first the experience of having taken on so many changes in my life (breaking up with a guy, moving, and getting a new job) made me feel more powerful than I’ve ever felt?
Yet, now, I miss the sanctuary and familiarity of my old apartment of 13 years (even with the butthead’s noise) like a divorcée might miss her pain-in-the-ass ex-husband. Seriously, I continue to mourn the loss of that apartment like the conclusion of a 13 year marriage.
I also find myself wishing for what my old job offered me. Not the management, Bull #1, the medium boss, or Lead (actually, in spite of the incident, Lead was pretty cool to work for). I miss the mind-numbing work vs. the extreme stress of this new position and the beyond stress of working for Bull #2.
Is it always about security and sanctuary? Is that why change is so hard, because it isn’t secure? Is that what I’m feeling? Or, is it that I can embrace change, but the changes I’ve recently made aren’t the right changes, yet?
This is a strange place to be in, where I am at, questioning everything, even my own reserve.
I know I have the reserve, though. I’ll eventually figure it all out. This, too, shall pass.
In fact, I am more worried about and for a dear friend of mine than I am worried for myself. This dear friend, who has gone through tragedy after tragedy in the last six years, sent me a text, than repeated in a conversation, that if it wasn’t for their child, they’d be done.
Yes, this friend meant done-done.
Wow. Ava and I have been talking about the fact that whatever it is, whether it’s this, or something else, we all have to learn to cope with what our current lesson in life is. But to see someone in my life having that overwhelming feeling continue to build, to get worse, so much so that it has gotten to a point for them that if one more thing happens they’ve admitted, they won’t be able to go on, that’s the ultimate loss of perspective.
That’s someone not asking: What’s next? Like, “Let’s go. Ready. Let’s get to the good parts. That’s someone saying: What’s next? “Is it going to be that one last thing that does me in?”
I’ve been left with more questions than answers when it comes to my own humanity, and there have been times in my life where I have felt vacuumed out, but even while I am going through what I am going through Now, I still feel great about where I’ve come to in life.
Under the tarnish of all this stress, I’m still shiny. I’ve had the pleasure of becoming a person who doesn’t want to apologize for loving herself. And I have come to this wonderful place, where I’m grateful, where I want to be me. Period. And, I want to be here, even if here, with work and home, sucks right now.
I know if you don't believe in life's magic, then everything in life becomes tragic. I know what it is to feel like you’re continually fighting to catch your breath, I’ve been there. It feels like you’re being robbed of your magic, your sense of purpose. A place without purpose and magic is a place without hope.
Part of the magic is knowing that in spite of everything we go through, we do, and our life does have a purpose. That’s perspective. That’s the magic.
I know this is a heavy post, but if there is anything fabulous to be gained from this post I would ask that you remind yourself, and everyone you know, especially someone like my dear friend, that because we are all connected, because we are all magic, we have purpose.
Stay fabulous and keep the perspective! Remember that whatever is next, hard or easy, it’s where we’re supposed to be because Now is all we have to get us to where we are going.
(And hey, depending upon what you call hard, getting something hard in your life might not be all bad.)
Monday, October 18, 2010
Grateful, while exhausted...
So, I've been working on this whole post (which may or may not make it to public), where I am trying to be smart, and clever, and figure out, and then share, what I am to learn from all that is stressing me out from work and home, and I haven't figure it out yet.
All I know, in the mean time, is that I am stressed out enough that I am losing my appetite over it all (work and home).
I've only lost my appetite (where food is concerned) once before in life. It was over love. So, this recent loss, for my love of food, sucks.
When I lost that heart love before, my lust for tuning out by filling up on food I love, a Mexican pizza from Taco Bell, or turning off, by overloading on fries and a cheese burger from In-N-Out, it was the devastation of the heart break that did me in.
But, then, my heart cracked in half and all, I only lost my need to eat my way through misery for 3 days. Essentially, that mind-numbing bliss and comfort of fatty foods, and filling up on those digestive boggers, to bug out, was short lived. I was 25 years old and heart broken.
Then, that three days later, I bounced back. I found the refrigerator. Isn't that what everyone does? Fill it up over here so we can avoid it over there?
So, this appetite loss, here, Now, that's been going on for almost a month, because of work and home, yikes. This might be big, Batman.
But, I still know how lucky I am in other ways. I just sent an email to Ava, and while I had not planned to post about it, after I hit send, I decided to do so.
I wanted to post what I just wrote to her because as I sent it, I realized there is that part of me that gets to be, needs to be, and still is, all sun-shiney.
I DO need that.
I always mean to have a light spot in my posts, even when I am in the middle of a shit storm. So, while I've not felt a lot of light lately, I just got a bit of light in knowing, remembering, I still am luckier than most when it comes to the people in my life.
Light spot=good, and great, friends.
Friends are IT!!!
So, now I share what I sent to Ava:
I know I've been a fine little mess, lately, and I've been complaining, annoyed, stressed, and, by proximity, you've gotten a bus load of what I am going through. But, while we all, as friends to each other, feel uniquely honored that someone would choose us to share...still, we're take'n a hit, taking in a lot for a friend.
You've been take'n in a lot of my hits, lately. And, you've done it with a grace and a spirituality that I, often strive for. So I want you to know, it's not lost on me, how valuable you are and how much I've leaned on you since I've known you.
You are pretty awesome. So, if in anyway I've leveraged your awesomeness beyond capacity, my apologies. But, I gotta say, even with all my work/home stress, I know where I am blessed. Tag! U're it!
U rock!!!
Thanks for being YOU!
All I know, in the mean time, is that I am stressed out enough that I am losing my appetite over it all (work and home).
I've only lost my appetite (where food is concerned) once before in life. It was over love. So, this recent loss, for my love of food, sucks.
When I lost that heart love before, my lust for tuning out by filling up on food I love, a Mexican pizza from Taco Bell, or turning off, by overloading on fries and a cheese burger from In-N-Out, it was the devastation of the heart break that did me in.
But, then, my heart cracked in half and all, I only lost my need to eat my way through misery for 3 days. Essentially, that mind-numbing bliss and comfort of fatty foods, and filling up on those digestive boggers, to bug out, was short lived. I was 25 years old and heart broken.
Then, that three days later, I bounced back. I found the refrigerator. Isn't that what everyone does? Fill it up over here so we can avoid it over there?
So, this appetite loss, here, Now, that's been going on for almost a month, because of work and home, yikes. This might be big, Batman.
But, I still know how lucky I am in other ways. I just sent an email to Ava, and while I had not planned to post about it, after I hit send, I decided to do so.
I wanted to post what I just wrote to her because as I sent it, I realized there is that part of me that gets to be, needs to be, and still is, all sun-shiney.
I DO need that.
I always mean to have a light spot in my posts, even when I am in the middle of a shit storm. So, while I've not felt a lot of light lately, I just got a bit of light in knowing, remembering, I still am luckier than most when it comes to the people in my life.
Light spot=good, and great, friends.
Friends are IT!!!
So, now I share what I sent to Ava:
I know I've been a fine little mess, lately, and I've been complaining, annoyed, stressed, and, by proximity, you've gotten a bus load of what I am going through. But, while we all, as friends to each other, feel uniquely honored that someone would choose us to share...still, we're take'n a hit, taking in a lot for a friend.
You've been take'n in a lot of my hits, lately. And, you've done it with a grace and a spirituality that I, often strive for. So I want you to know, it's not lost on me, how valuable you are and how much I've leaned on you since I've known you.
You are pretty awesome. So, if in anyway I've leveraged your awesomeness beyond capacity, my apologies. But, I gotta say, even with all my work/home stress, I know where I am blessed. Tag! U're it!
U rock!!!
Thanks for being YOU!
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Really, I'm getting bugged again?!
So… I alluded to, in my last post, that I have so much else to write about, those things to write about being work, home, job, whatever. And I may or may not have said that I’m stressing BIG time about work. What I didn’t say is that one of the reasons I haven’t posted about my job stress is because I am so wiped out from it that I can’t find the energy to write about it.
What I am say’n now, though, is Holy Shit Fuck, and me saying this has nothing to do with work in this moment. Yes, I am home on a Saturday night, and I just said the word strait out: FUCK. I didn’t say Friggen, F’n, or scale down, like I usually do when using the word fuck, but I just said a straight FUCK!!!!! That’s what is warranted here.
Why holy shit FUCK!? Well, because as I sat down to start to compile my notes about the “I’m friggen stressed beyond at work” post, I got distracted. I decided to check my email first. That’s where I encountered a wonderful e-mail from Ava, about this old lady Rose, and Rose’s message to the kids she went to college with. Her message was essentially to remember that growing old is mandatory, but growing up is optional, and, we make a Living by what we get and we make a Life by what we give.
Great message.
But, just as I was about to settle in, and take a breath, and think about that message, how wonderful that it was, and how nice it was to get an email from Ava in my evening, I felt something under my foot. I thought it was a leaf. I don’t know what I thought it was. It was just something that was there and, as I was still reading the email about Rose, not looking, I reached under my foot to pick up the leaf, the something I thought I’d tracked in, whatever it was. It felt crunchy, light. Then, I realized I’d just picked up a roach.
I’m burnt, man. I’m so stressed to the wall about work, and so wigged out by this place that it is so dark that it’s messing with me, I’m telling you, I can’t live with roaches, too. I can’t be picking them up and not knowing they are in my fingers. FUCKING GROSS!
Why yet another roach? I was already starting to feel crazy from the dark of this place, and overwhelmed from paying almost $300.00 more in rent a month, that I can’t afford. Just when I’d leveled off, after having had a conversation with another neighbor, who told me the dark in her place messes with her too, and just when I was barely getting to a point where I thought: Nah, man, it’s the job that’s really bugging me out. Then, I get bugged out, literally?!! What the fuCK!?
Seriously, have you ever picked a roach up in your bare hand before? Without a napkin, or without peeling it off the bottom of a shoe, but picked it up finger tips to crawly, creepy carcass?
Forget that I was thinking it was something else. When I already had a day today where I was so overwhelmed by my work-stress situation that I slept an extra hour this morning just not to feel my own heart pounding out of my chest from stress, picking up a roach is so NOT COOL!
My motto in life now, is I HATE ROACHES! Work roaches, stress roaches, people roaches, and most of all, real BIG, gross roaches. I don’t care if it is irrational fear, fear of bugs or spiders. This is now my second insane bug encounter.
Once I thought there was a fly was on me, on my leg as I was sitting at a coffee table drawing a picture. It wasn’t a fly. It was a black widow crawling across my leg. I realized as much when I brushed it off and it crawled away with its red ass glowing on its round black back.
Now, I’m jacked up on stress and I just picked up an inch long roach. What is this? Seriously? This creepish encounter, it’s filed.
FUCK! I am so not feeling fabulous right now.
What I am say’n now, though, is Holy Shit Fuck, and me saying this has nothing to do with work in this moment. Yes, I am home on a Saturday night, and I just said the word strait out: FUCK. I didn’t say Friggen, F’n, or scale down, like I usually do when using the word fuck, but I just said a straight FUCK!!!!! That’s what is warranted here.
Why holy shit FUCK!? Well, because as I sat down to start to compile my notes about the “I’m friggen stressed beyond at work” post, I got distracted. I decided to check my email first. That’s where I encountered a wonderful e-mail from Ava, about this old lady Rose, and Rose’s message to the kids she went to college with. Her message was essentially to remember that growing old is mandatory, but growing up is optional, and, we make a Living by what we get and we make a Life by what we give.
Great message.
But, just as I was about to settle in, and take a breath, and think about that message, how wonderful that it was, and how nice it was to get an email from Ava in my evening, I felt something under my foot. I thought it was a leaf. I don’t know what I thought it was. It was just something that was there and, as I was still reading the email about Rose, not looking, I reached under my foot to pick up the leaf, the something I thought I’d tracked in, whatever it was. It felt crunchy, light. Then, I realized I’d just picked up a roach.
I’m burnt, man. I’m so stressed to the wall about work, and so wigged out by this place that it is so dark that it’s messing with me, I’m telling you, I can’t live with roaches, too. I can’t be picking them up and not knowing they are in my fingers. FUCKING GROSS!
Why yet another roach? I was already starting to feel crazy from the dark of this place, and overwhelmed from paying almost $300.00 more in rent a month, that I can’t afford. Just when I’d leveled off, after having had a conversation with another neighbor, who told me the dark in her place messes with her too, and just when I was barely getting to a point where I thought: Nah, man, it’s the job that’s really bugging me out. Then, I get bugged out, literally?!! What the fuCK!?
Seriously, have you ever picked a roach up in your bare hand before? Without a napkin, or without peeling it off the bottom of a shoe, but picked it up finger tips to crawly, creepy carcass?
Forget that I was thinking it was something else. When I already had a day today where I was so overwhelmed by my work-stress situation that I slept an extra hour this morning just not to feel my own heart pounding out of my chest from stress, picking up a roach is so NOT COOL!
My motto in life now, is I HATE ROACHES! Work roaches, stress roaches, people roaches, and most of all, real BIG, gross roaches. I don’t care if it is irrational fear, fear of bugs or spiders. This is now my second insane bug encounter.
Once I thought there was a fly was on me, on my leg as I was sitting at a coffee table drawing a picture. It wasn’t a fly. It was a black widow crawling across my leg. I realized as much when I brushed it off and it crawled away with its red ass glowing on its round black back.
Now, I’m jacked up on stress and I just picked up an inch long roach. What is this? Seriously? This creepish encounter, it’s filed.
FUCK! I am so not feeling fabulous right now.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Suck it, bugs!
I've got so much more to say on so many other subjects (which I don't have the energy for now), but, here I am, and this is what I have to say now: Bugs SUCK! Suck it, roaches!
Saw another roach last night(obviously). Another big, ass, stink'n fat, mthr'f'n, roach. Go away, roaches! I'm clean. I do my house keeping. You don't belong here. You're a golf-course scoundrel, a sit'n water, gross bug. Leave me now, bitch!
This stupid roach was by the kitchen trash, trash that was only a 1/2 of a day old. Really? This is it? Half of a day, where I have an avocado peal in the garbage from my lunch salad, and that's where we're go'n, this is what I get, for eating lunch? I get a M'thr F'n roach in my evening, a beyond decades old/surviving creature crashing my whole-wheat pasta and marinara with garlic dinner, messing with my glass of I-gotta-relax-wine, and tripping up my I'm-already-stressed-the-f-out Thursday?
Really? No, REALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLY?!
Okay, life, you can suck at some things, especially bad jobs, and you're a couple points up on me right now, where if you wanted to mess with me, you're winning. Tag, I'm it. Fine. But we're gonna rumble on the roaches.
I am doing my best, here, learning what I can from life's hits, and I'm taking my lumps and trying to come out on top. But do I have to do it with roaches? Is that really fair?
There's just a point, is all I'm saying...
Saw another roach last night(obviously). Another big, ass, stink'n fat, mthr'f'n, roach. Go away, roaches! I'm clean. I do my house keeping. You don't belong here. You're a golf-course scoundrel, a sit'n water, gross bug. Leave me now, bitch!
This stupid roach was by the kitchen trash, trash that was only a 1/2 of a day old. Really? This is it? Half of a day, where I have an avocado peal in the garbage from my lunch salad, and that's where we're go'n, this is what I get, for eating lunch? I get a M'thr F'n roach in my evening, a beyond decades old/surviving creature crashing my whole-wheat pasta and marinara with garlic dinner, messing with my glass of I-gotta-relax-wine, and tripping up my I'm-already-stressed-the-f-out Thursday?
Really? No, REALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLY?!
Okay, life, you can suck at some things, especially bad jobs, and you're a couple points up on me right now, where if you wanted to mess with me, you're winning. Tag, I'm it. Fine. But we're gonna rumble on the roaches.
I am doing my best, here, learning what I can from life's hits, and I'm taking my lumps and trying to come out on top. But do I have to do it with roaches? Is that really fair?
There's just a point, is all I'm saying...
Monday, October 4, 2010
It’s personal, damn it!
Last Saturday was interesting.
I had the pleasure of hanging out with Ava and Rynn, at Ava’s pool, for a short spell right before I was to hang out with yet another wonderful friend in my life, Shian.
Shian and I were going to go to an art show thing, of one of Shian’s friends, right before we were gonna do dinner, and, something Ava had said earlier, at the pool, in response to one of my life complaints (my work/home life can SUCK it BIG right now and I got a lot of complaining ta-do), became even more profound as my day, then evening, then late night, as it rounded out, went on. That thing Ava said is now the crux of this post.
Ava said, “It’s personal.”
Yes. It is, damn it.
Whatever it is, whatever the stress, the bliss, the problem or the resolution, it’s personal. It’s our struggle, our victory, our downfall or our strength. But it’s ours, and it is personal.
It may look matter of fact to others, easy as pie to them, cuz’ it ain’t their shit they’re going through, or, because they may have already conquered the weight of it, i.e., they’ve gotten the good and the better job, they’ve met the right man, or woman, they’ve found the right home, they’ve given up the shitting on their self and won’t let anyone else do it now, their esteem is fixed, or they’ve learned the lesson in life that keeps repeating on us. But while it is still in our lap, it’s more than personal.
It’s the air we’re breathing, sputtering on, or the gulp that’s gotten choked off and is about to break us.
That’s what I am getting at. If we haven’t done that that yet, if we’re still working on that it Now, trying to get it, work for it, or get over it, it’s still personal to us. And they, those others, those not close enough to us and in our “know” of friendships, they don’t get to trivialize this big stuff in our life and matter-of-fact us into a stupid conversation corner.
Sure, they still will say what they will. But, in my opinion, they should stop and think before hoofing stuff off the cuff and think’n: It ain’t no big deal, when they trudge on sensitive subjects. (Just a little respect, pleaz, strangers.)
How did this start? This: It’s personal, thing?
I told Ava and Rynn that I was sick of people at work, who I don’t even know, coming up to me and saying, “Hey, you’ve really lost a lot of weight recently,” and Ava got why that’s been bothering me. When Ava got it, I felt understood, because seriously, she got it.
In a bad reiteration, because Ava has these amazing moments of clarity I can’t always repeat, but in a wonderful summary of what I took away, Ava said, “It’s personal.” Then I said, “Right?!”
No shit. It is personal. Personal, personal, personal. The word means something.
As Ava further clarified, and I’ll do my best to say it as succinctly and eloquently as she put it, there are so many factors that have gone into me losing weight, and so much that goes into anyone losing or gaining weight, or anyone doing anything that is that personal, that when people, who I don’t even know, comment on my weight, or anything else that is so close to the stress or bliss of my life, those comments feel like they’re trespassing.
Plus, as a women, who identifies with her weight (body image), or, as a person just trying to get through it all, the results of my weight, gained or gone, or the product of my efforts, jacked up or down, aren’t a topic of conversation I want to share with people who I’m not intimate with.
Even if they don’t mean to (and I know people are inherently good), they’ve crashed a big friggen gate and that gate was supposed to have a private code of entrance where only close family and friends are allowed to sit on the curb. I didn’t post the open house sign, folks.
Think about it. What if I’d been gaining weight in the wake of all this shitty moving/home/job stress? Would these strangers come up and say, “Wow. You’re really packing it on. Are you porking out, or what?”
No. No they wouldn’t. So why, when just as much that is that personal goes into losing weight, as what goes into gaining weight, do people, I don’t even know, feel like they have the right to go there just because my weight is lost instead of found?
Any one of my close friends, or my mom (cuz moms are a separate category onto themselves), can say what they feel compelled to say about my weight.) Okay…my ass is bigger, or, it’s too small. My crows feet are wink’n more, get’n deeper. My life choices are suspect. I’ve traded jacked instead of up for home and job lately. Shoot, even my single status is almost old and ripe for interrogation by those close to me.
But the rest of ‘em? Nope. Shoosh the frig up! If I didn’t complain to you specifically, on any of that crap, and ya aren’t my inner circle, really? Did you just go there? What gave you the right to take the heat off of looking at yourself to trespass on me?
Again, this is what I am asking. They don’t know me. They don’t love me like my friends and family do. So, do these other people have the right to know how I’ve been eating good since I was 13 years old to fight against my shit genetics? Does the weird bitch in the work-place bathroom, who I’ve never seen before, need me to tell her that a lot of hard work and good food and exercise have been my winning combination in losing weight, in spite of those genetics?
Is it her business, or any other person’s business, who doesn’t actually have a friendship investment in me, to know that my thyroid crashed 7 years ago and I’ve been fighting to lose the weight I’ve finally recently lost, for that 7-8 years that I gained it, and that running, every other day for the last 6 months straight, seems to be the win that’s gotten me to my recent thin? Or, that I’ll probably gain 15-20 pounds when my life calms down.
I’m think’n, still, NO. It’s none-ya-biz-ness if ya don’t know me.
Okay, yeah… I’m a blogger/writer, and I am put’n so much out there, but that is so different. Here, in this blog, I am choosing, with my anonymous name/not real photo, to bear it all. In other situations, where people don’t know don’t know that I have a blog, and where they just come up to me, and say shit, which is as good at telling some chick at the mall that her wig sucks (and not knowing she has cancer), it’s sometimes too much.
I appreciate that nothing should be off bounds, if we’re all on that really human level and really caring. But, again, the whole reason so many folks call others out, an proverbially look at the cellulite of the stars in the summer bathing suit issue of a B.S. tabloid, is to get the heat off of looking at their own crap. And, to that end, not cool.
Anyway, this was one of my rants, and I know sometimes Miss Sunshine is bright, and other times she’s gone back to pissing on daisies, but I say amen to to getting it all off of your chest.
May your days be fabulous, and if they aren’t, may you have a friend who gets what is personal while you are on your way to fabulous and complaining along the way!!!
Sigh.
I had the pleasure of hanging out with Ava and Rynn, at Ava’s pool, for a short spell right before I was to hang out with yet another wonderful friend in my life, Shian.
Shian and I were going to go to an art show thing, of one of Shian’s friends, right before we were gonna do dinner, and, something Ava had said earlier, at the pool, in response to one of my life complaints (my work/home life can SUCK it BIG right now and I got a lot of complaining ta-do), became even more profound as my day, then evening, then late night, as it rounded out, went on. That thing Ava said is now the crux of this post.
Ava said, “It’s personal.”
Yes. It is, damn it.
Whatever it is, whatever the stress, the bliss, the problem or the resolution, it’s personal. It’s our struggle, our victory, our downfall or our strength. But it’s ours, and it is personal.
It may look matter of fact to others, easy as pie to them, cuz’ it ain’t their shit they’re going through, or, because they may have already conquered the weight of it, i.e., they’ve gotten the good and the better job, they’ve met the right man, or woman, they’ve found the right home, they’ve given up the shitting on their self and won’t let anyone else do it now, their esteem is fixed, or they’ve learned the lesson in life that keeps repeating on us. But while it is still in our lap, it’s more than personal.
It’s the air we’re breathing, sputtering on, or the gulp that’s gotten choked off and is about to break us.
That’s what I am getting at. If we haven’t done that that yet, if we’re still working on that it Now, trying to get it, work for it, or get over it, it’s still personal to us. And they, those others, those not close enough to us and in our “know” of friendships, they don’t get to trivialize this big stuff in our life and matter-of-fact us into a stupid conversation corner.
Sure, they still will say what they will. But, in my opinion, they should stop and think before hoofing stuff off the cuff and think’n: It ain’t no big deal, when they trudge on sensitive subjects. (Just a little respect, pleaz, strangers.)
How did this start? This: It’s personal, thing?
I told Ava and Rynn that I was sick of people at work, who I don’t even know, coming up to me and saying, “Hey, you’ve really lost a lot of weight recently,” and Ava got why that’s been bothering me. When Ava got it, I felt understood, because seriously, she got it.
In a bad reiteration, because Ava has these amazing moments of clarity I can’t always repeat, but in a wonderful summary of what I took away, Ava said, “It’s personal.” Then I said, “Right?!”
No shit. It is personal. Personal, personal, personal. The word means something.
As Ava further clarified, and I’ll do my best to say it as succinctly and eloquently as she put it, there are so many factors that have gone into me losing weight, and so much that goes into anyone losing or gaining weight, or anyone doing anything that is that personal, that when people, who I don’t even know, comment on my weight, or anything else that is so close to the stress or bliss of my life, those comments feel like they’re trespassing.
Plus, as a women, who identifies with her weight (body image), or, as a person just trying to get through it all, the results of my weight, gained or gone, or the product of my efforts, jacked up or down, aren’t a topic of conversation I want to share with people who I’m not intimate with.
Even if they don’t mean to (and I know people are inherently good), they’ve crashed a big friggen gate and that gate was supposed to have a private code of entrance where only close family and friends are allowed to sit on the curb. I didn’t post the open house sign, folks.
Think about it. What if I’d been gaining weight in the wake of all this shitty moving/home/job stress? Would these strangers come up and say, “Wow. You’re really packing it on. Are you porking out, or what?”
No. No they wouldn’t. So why, when just as much that is that personal goes into losing weight, as what goes into gaining weight, do people, I don’t even know, feel like they have the right to go there just because my weight is lost instead of found?
Any one of my close friends, or my mom (cuz moms are a separate category onto themselves), can say what they feel compelled to say about my weight.) Okay…my ass is bigger, or, it’s too small. My crows feet are wink’n more, get’n deeper. My life choices are suspect. I’ve traded jacked instead of up for home and job lately. Shoot, even my single status is almost old and ripe for interrogation by those close to me.
But the rest of ‘em? Nope. Shoosh the frig up! If I didn’t complain to you specifically, on any of that crap, and ya aren’t my inner circle, really? Did you just go there? What gave you the right to take the heat off of looking at yourself to trespass on me?
Again, this is what I am asking. They don’t know me. They don’t love me like my friends and family do. So, do these other people have the right to know how I’ve been eating good since I was 13 years old to fight against my shit genetics? Does the weird bitch in the work-place bathroom, who I’ve never seen before, need me to tell her that a lot of hard work and good food and exercise have been my winning combination in losing weight, in spite of those genetics?
Is it her business, or any other person’s business, who doesn’t actually have a friendship investment in me, to know that my thyroid crashed 7 years ago and I’ve been fighting to lose the weight I’ve finally recently lost, for that 7-8 years that I gained it, and that running, every other day for the last 6 months straight, seems to be the win that’s gotten me to my recent thin? Or, that I’ll probably gain 15-20 pounds when my life calms down.
I’m think’n, still, NO. It’s none-ya-biz-ness if ya don’t know me.
Okay, yeah… I’m a blogger/writer, and I am put’n so much out there, but that is so different. Here, in this blog, I am choosing, with my anonymous name/not real photo, to bear it all. In other situations, where people don’t know don’t know that I have a blog, and where they just come up to me, and say shit, which is as good at telling some chick at the mall that her wig sucks (and not knowing she has cancer), it’s sometimes too much.
I appreciate that nothing should be off bounds, if we’re all on that really human level and really caring. But, again, the whole reason so many folks call others out, an proverbially look at the cellulite of the stars in the summer bathing suit issue of a B.S. tabloid, is to get the heat off of looking at their own crap. And, to that end, not cool.
Anyway, this was one of my rants, and I know sometimes Miss Sunshine is bright, and other times she’s gone back to pissing on daisies, but I say amen to to getting it all off of your chest.
May your days be fabulous, and if they aren’t, may you have a friend who gets what is personal while you are on your way to fabulous and complaining along the way!!!
Sigh.
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