lord, grant me patience

I'm not a religious person, but I need a prayer today. It's only 10 a.m. and already I feel the ire and resentment boiling up inside my chest. I'm clenching my jaw. I have to keep reminding myself every 3 minutes, unclench.

The rude woman has continued to be rude. She's emailing around me, sending things to my boss about his schedule instead of to me, though she knows that I both manage his calendar exclusively and receive his emails too. Then when I reply with a proposed time, she emails him back and says whether or not it will work. This morning she is trying to schedule a meeting with the whole team about the project and is not including me on it. It's entirely passive-aggressive, not to mention pathetic.

Part of me, a big part of me, wants to lash out. I want to put her in her place and remind her who pays her check. I want to outright fire her. It's unfortunate that we need her for this project, which should be done in the next week. It's also unfortunate that she has a friendship with my boss from a previous job. It's clouding his vision-- he's ever so slightly defending her when I bring her up, saying things like "well, the project will be over soon, and she's just stressed." I feel like he should be defending me, his ally, his #1 employee, who was insulted and belittled by this crazy woman.

But another part of me believes what you all have told me-- that I should be patient, that I should try to learn from this. That anyone who acts this way is frightened and insecure. I'm trying to be the bigger person, trying to swallow my pride and just get on it with it. I feel sabotaged and ignored, but I'm trying to put out peacefulness, kindness, and calmness into the world. It's so hard.

As my grandfather would have told me, nothing worth doing is ever easy.