distant as the milky way

I woke up in a terrible mood. I've been grinding my teeth at night (I do that when I'm stressed; the last time I was doing it this badly was when we were living in London, barely scraping by financially, I was neck-deep in my graduate dissertation, and my grandfather was back in the States dying of cancer). This type of clenching and grinding eventually works its way down my neck and into my shoulders. My teeth feel misaligned already, and I'm just waiting for the morning that I wake up and can't turn my head. It's happened before, I feel certain it will happen again. Only a matter of time.

I digress.

So I woke up in pain, again, and when my iPhone alarm went off, I noticed I had several unread emails from overnight. One of these was from a particularly angry customer. I spent the rest of the morning agonizing over having to once again come to work and fight these uphill battles, extinguishing fires only to turn around and find more, no rest or respite from the war.

I'm thankful for music today, for the healing and uplifting power it has. Stevie Wonder sang My Cherie Amour over the radio waves just for me this morning, and one can't help but feel happy listening to that song. It encouraged me to keep the good feeling going, so I put on a song that always gives me energy to face anything-- American Girl by the Heartbreakers. By the time it was over, I was at the office, had finished my cup of coffee, and was feeling much better. Well, minus the teeth.

My husband got his Christmas bonus today, finally. We had started to get worried though the boss kept promising it was coming. Enough to cover the windshield we had to buy when mine got cracked by a rouge rock, and no less than last year's bonus, but not enough to make either of us jump for joy. His pay is mostly commission based, and though when he started he was making a good amount, he actually pulled in less than me this year. I'm grateful that even though we're pulling in a good $15k less than we were two years ago, we're still able to live a steady and pretty comfortable life. Thank goodness for our levelheadedness.

But seeing how little we're making also brought to mind all the less stressful jobs we could be doing for the same amount of money. He could be working at his favorite upscale men's clothing store (the man is a clothes horse, so good at dressing others, and he loved working there in college though that was only part-time), and I could be working at a local art gallery. We would both be on the town square, we could eat lunch together, people in town would see us around and think "where do I know them from..." the way we do with people we think of as town characters, or townies, and we would be more fulfilled and less stressed. Alas, neither of those places is hiring, just like everywhere else, and even if they were, I highly doubt that it would be as perfect as I imagine. No where is. Not to mention how painful the ripping off of my current job band aid would be. Ouch.

I have a favorite massage therapist in town, and I need to get in to see him. His next appointment outside my work hours isn't until Tuesday, though. He's gotten too popular. I guess I should have kept my mouth shut about him. But I am glad to see he's succeeding and thankful that at least someone is doing well in this economy. I wonder if I called him if he could sneak me in. I guess it's worth a try.

I've decided I need to pick the grateful posts back up. I can't commit to a day. I may not even make it to this once a week. They probably won't always be in the same format either. These thoughts are always in mind even if they're not on "paper" here, but the act of putting them down in writing does my soul good. And with the end of the year quickly approaching, I feel it's best to end on a high note.

There seems to be a lot circling lately, like something big is coming. The universe seems to be preparing me for something. I have no idea what; I can't even point to exactly what I mean. Maybe it's just a feeling or an intuition. Maybe it's that I feel a need for a change. Something has to give sometime.

I'm tired of talking about and thinking about work. When I was young, I thought I'd make something big out of myself, that I'd become a magazine editor and create beautiful pages, or that I'd write awe-inspiring articles for some big newspaper. Life took such a toll on me, between my family's problems and the pressure I put on myself, that I gave up trying. I took the easy way out, the art history route, that required no more than me putting my nose in a book and visiting quiet, peaceful museums. The thought of it now lulls me into a peaceful state. I fought so hard for so much of my early life, fought for myself and for women and for animals, fought against people who'd rather I didn't exist, who'd rather continue to step on me and those I stood for on their way up, that eventually I did feel trampled and squashed. So I gave up and retreated into myself. I see it now, though at the time I thought I was just doing what was best for me. I guess it was what was best for me, but I feel like I also cheated myself out of what could have been an amazing, if trying and stressful, life.

The annoying part is that despite me running from positions of power, they somehow keep getting thrust upon me. This office looks to me for guidance now, and I feel no more suited to that than I would to swimming in the Olympics or figuring complex math equations. I'm out of place. I'm torn as well, because I feel cheated, like if I was going to be this stressed out, it could have at least been for something that I cared about, some cause or career that I wanted, rather than one I fell into unintentionally. And if a stressful yet worthy career was something I wanted to avoid, why can't I actually do that and find something peaceful that I can do?

It's not that I don't care about my work. I care about the people here and about making this work so we all succeed, so we can make enough money to do the fun things in life without worrying about paying bills, so that we can make a difference in the lives of our customers. But running a company is stressful, and our customers half the time are jerks. I keep coming back because of my coworkers, because I care about them. If it wasn't for them, I would have been gone a long time ago. I am grateful for them. I'm also grateful for the lessons this job has taught me, like management skills, communication skills (HR will do that, quick), patience, and even more empathy and understanding, though I thought I had no more room left for that.

I'm grateful for this trying and stressful year. It didn't kill me, so it must have made me stronger.

fed up

I'm so fed-up today, so frustrated. The boss tells me I should be the bigger person, I should start the conversation with rude woman. That it was all just a miscommunication, she thought I meant something I didn't mean, I thought she was saying something she wasn't saying. Fine, got it, I fully recognize and take responsibility for my part in that. I did not, however, blow up, send a nasty email, and then never try to apologize for it. I have never and would never do that, not to the degree she did.

This is not to say I don't get mad. That same day I raised my voice to an employee who screwed something up, but I never ventured into personal territory, I never insulted him, and a few moments after raising my voice I returned and apologized for my manner. We laughed about it. And that's the way it should be-- we're all going to get fed up and frustrated from time to time, but her reaction was WAY out of line, and her lack of an apology is just as bad.

All I get are excuses from the boss. She was tired, she was stressed out, she was trying to protect a fellow worker (who is a gay man) because he was stressed out, and she feels a natural tendency to protect men like him. BLAH BLAH BLAH. I've worked hard for this company for two years, killing myself, stressing myself out, because I believe in what we're doing and I believe in our people. She's been around a few months and she thinks she gets to talk to me about stress? About staying up all night working? She thinks her relationship with our boss is more important than mine?

He says she feels like we don't respect her, that we don't take her seriously. What does he expect when we've never seen her resume, know nothing about her, and she gets dropped on us to manage, makes more money than most of us, and the first thing she produces for us is crap. Crap. So he gives her a different project. Now this one she is running with, she's good at this. But ultimately we don't totally trust her, and I certainly don't trust her professionalism (who writes 'hahahahhaaha" all the way across the line of an email to a client, anyway?), plus the part of the project that led to the blow up was about money, and that's my domain around here. She wants to spend our money, I'm going to prod and ask questions. It's my job. We're broke.

So we're all feeling a little like he's brought her in because she's his friend, she lost her job, and now he's paying her more than the rest of us, and her output is questionable. Then she insults me. I'm just at a total loss as to how I'm supposed to find my way to being the "bigger person" here.

Don't get me wrong, I love my boss. He's the best boss I've ever had and probably ever will. But he's fallible, and I think this whole thing was a mistake. I just have to get him to see it, and I don't know how.

I go back and forth. One minute I think, "I have got to let this go. I will let this go." And I feel better. Then I think, "No one talks to me that way. As much as my grandfather told me that nothing worth doing was easy, he also would never have let anyone talk to him that way." And I want to have a very frank conversation with my boss.

I know you're all sick of hearing about this. I'm really struggling here, though. I'm trying to get it out of my head. I worked myself up to tears this morning thinking about it. She's not just going to go away after a week-- he's talking about keeping her on full time. I'm so frustrated.

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.

absent

I don't mean to be so absent. I'm present, fully present, in my life, which I suppose dictates that I must be more absent here. I'm outside of my head lately, and it's only when I'm inside my head that I feel the urge to post, to explore what's there. I'm reacting without really thinking, which I don't like but is becoming more and more familiar.

Work has been very, very difficult. The company is broke to the point where I feel guilty about cashing my pay check-- even though the company's bank will cover it so it won't bounce, I know there's not enough money in the account to pay it. We're struggling through, day to day, trying to pay bills.  The SBA and all other avenues we've tried for small business funding have fallen though. Apparently you have to prove that you don't need money (that you're able to pay your bills off in time and that you have a good credit history) before they will give you any money. I know they have to cover their own asses, but what's the point in giving a loan to someone who already has money? If we had money to cover our bills, we wouldn't need a loan.

Luckily the rest of my life has been peachy. All my Christmas shopping is done, and I got some great deals on some perfect presents. We're hosting Christmas lunch at my house with both my parents and my husband's family. We've been spending a lot of time with friends, trying to keep our minds off the dismal work environments we're both dealing with. Boone is growing into a very good dog, the only problem being that he likes to keep the backyard clean... he seems to think Bub is dirtying it when he goes #2, so Boone "cleans" it up... I won't go into more detail there. We're exploring options.

One thing that has been on my mind the last couple of days-- how do you react to rudness? There's a woman who works for us on special projects on a contract basis from her home out west. We have a project that she's been working on that has to be done by next week, so she's stressed, which I understand. But when I said something she didn't like in an email (it wasn't mean, it just wasn't what she wanted to hear), she came back with an insult about my knowledge level of the project and a suggestion that if I wanted it to continue, perhaps I should be the one staying up late to work on it. It was both unprofessional and counterproductive, not to mention rude. My coworker, who is managing the project internally, talked to her, told her to cool off and get back to work, but she has yet to apologize to me for her snap. At this point I'm filing it away, knowing that when she's done with this project I'll make a huge push to never use her again for future projects. I also feel myself leaning towards being a little slower in my replies and a little less friendly too, but I'm trying to just swallow the burnt taste and let it go. What would you do?

letting it go

I am letting and I have let it go. Everything, every cross word, every stressful moment, every nagging thought. I have returned to peace, and all I really had to do was ask myself to do it. Like a page flipped in my mind, like a wave of my hand, I've brushed it all aside, away, and out the door. It's not simply hidden under a rug or around a corner either. It's gone.

I can pinpoint the moment. Riding in the car on the way to dinner with my in-laws Saturday night, an email from work was really grating on me. Even thoughts not about that email were tinted by it, shaded with the negative light it had cast on my mind. "Why?" I thought. Why do I do this to myself? There was nothing I could do about it. Alone in the wild countryside of Illinois, staring into the dark trees and harvested fields, out of cell range, what could I do? Even if I had been in my office staring at these white walls and my computer screen, there would have been little I myself could do other than fret. And fretting solves absolutely nothing. So I stopped. I simply stopped. And somehow that realization-- that I am powerless to affect the ultimate course of these events, that no amount of worrying or stressing will solve a problem I can't solve, that most of the things I worry about never come to fruition anyway-- that thought released me.

I feel lighter. I feel lighter and more determined, determined to find a way past these problems toward solutions. I feel like the road blocks have come down and all that's in front of me is wide-open blacktop. I'm exercising more, complaining about it less. Eating healthier, drinking water. Concentrating at work. Putting away the phone at night, my mind on my husband and my family. Looking forward to time with friends and to the holidays. Being happier. I'm grateful again.

complaints

I'm cold, and I hate being cold. My skin feels tight, like the dry air has shrink-wrapped my ten-pounds-too-heavy flesh into this itchy, ashy human shaped bag, and I hate it. I want to bathe in cucumber and aloe and lotion. My face is freaking out, sore from too much scrub and chemicals trying to wipe away the havoc the new birth control is reaping. After meeting with my counselor this afternoon, I'm going to Walgreens to stock up on anything creamy and soothing. I should drink more water. Mental note. And I take a sip of Coke.

So I'm fat, broken out, stressed out, and poor. Husband's job is not doing so well lately. Who buys cars in an economy like this with Christmas around the corner? No one, apparently. Well, we're not really poor. We started an IRA last month and it's sucking money out of our checking account each month, and I haven't gotten used to seeing that usually extraneous money leave. Plus with the lack of commission coming in, it looks like we're poor. Makes me feel like I can't eat out or buy sweaters or presents though. And I hate that too.

All this hate is what's making me fat. All this stress. My body is hoarding carbohydrates, like a famine is coming, preparing. I feel angry and sad sometimes, because work is so draining, but then I remind myself it's just a job, that it doesn't really matter in the end. If I lose it, oh well, I'll find another one. But I've worked so hard. I'm tired of broken dreams. My last job ended in a broken dream too.

I want to feel free, like I can wear what I want, do what I want, buy what I want, feel and be and say and think what I want without some tiny voice in the back of my head whispering to me, building up uncertainty, saying "But your stomach looks big, your skin is flaky, your hair is flat, you aren't making enough to buy that, it costs too much, no one will understand you, you'll make people mad, people won't like you, you're crazy." I just want to be free of that voice.

I'm trying to imagine a life like that, free from nagging uncertainty. I can't even start. It would be like living on a cloud, high above anything that could hurt me. And that's as far as I can get, I guess because it doesn't exist and never will. We're slowly working toward financial freedom, but the economy isn't helping, and neither is my job. I'll never be free from feeling ugly in some way or another, which logically is absolutely ridiculous, but hey, I'm an American woman, that's how we're programmed. I have no idea how to break free of that.

I've tried to think of things that would make that voice go away, but all that comes is more self-defeatist thinking, like Lose weight, win the lottery, run away screaming. It doesn't help. I'm not sure the counselor is helping either. It definitely doesn't help that it's $40 every time I go, making me feel even more wasteful. I ramble about work the whole time, which is what I do to my husband at night too, and talking about it doesn't help. We need more money and more resources at work. I need the SBA to get off their fat government asses and actually support a new business rather than hiding behind "Oh, you're a software company? That means you have no collateral, you know, like an actual physical product. So sorry, we're still 50 years behind the times. Good luck." Talking to a counselor doesn't fix that, and the stress isn't going to go away until those problems do. I suppose. Maybe she's a miracle worker and can teach me how to ignore those things and still somehow get work done.

Right now, I want to jump in a vat of lotion and float around for a while, my Aimee Mann Pandora radio station being pumped into my ears, keeping all other thoughts out. And have someone serve me a nice dinner afterward. That would help.

soon

I met a counselor yesterday. She was nice, and I think I'll continue to see her. Out of all the people I spoke to, she seems the most down to earth. She only has her Masters so she's not a doctor, but she's got several certifications and such, and she's a good listener, so whatever. I really just need someone to talk to about all this crap in my life, not a pill or a medical diagnosis.

I used to be a good writer. Lately my head is too full of other things, and I can't seem to get the words out of my brain in the proper format. It doesn't help that I've been fighting migraines too. The weather changing is doing a number on me.

I just don't feel like I have anything interesting to say. I used to think of things, read articles, contemplate issues other than work situations, come up with colorful commentary and quirky responses and weird thoughts. Now I just feel tired and drained. Hopefully with the help of my counselor and some stress relieving techniques, my brain will be back on its feet soon.

the search

I've been down a lot lately. I go through cycles like this. Clinical depression runs in my family (just ask my dad) and while I've never been diagnosed as having such, I do go through bouts of feeling low for no real reason.

Work has been stressing me out. I can't hardly think about it without getting anxious. We're not making payroll anymore-- my boss has had his parents send us cash the last couple months. The 15th will be here shortly, and the account is negative right now. I'm not worried so much about me. I'm resilient, I'll find another job, and I'll be fine. But I'm worried about these people that I've hired that put their lives in our hands. My heart is fluttering just thinking about it. We're not to that point yet. If we can make this final push, make it through the next month or so, we have a new product with a ready buyer that will take us well out of the red. We just have to get there.

I feel like I've been saying that for months. If we can just make it to May. If we can just make it through the summer. Now, if we can just make it to Thanksgiving. Will we ever just be ok?

I've also been thinking a lot about myself and the way my brain works. I don't remember things the way I should, like childhood memories. I don't remember my grandmother. It's like somehow all the good memories I should have of her and her personality and the way she loved me are all wiped clean and all I'm left with is this shell of a woman who hardly knows my name. Where did the memories go?? It makes me feel crazy. I feel like I'm living someone else's life half the time, like I'm going to wake up and be someone else. I read somewhere that that's a condition of being an INFJ (my Myers-Briggs personality type) under stress.

Obviously I don't deal with stress very well. So I want to see a counselor. My husband was surprisingly supportive of it despite being a very logical left-brained no-nonsense sort of fellow. He acknowledged that he's not the best person to talk to about emotional matters (no kidding) and that he's been worried about me too because I'm tired a lot lately.

I googled psychologists in my area and didn't come up with much. I have a couple coworkers who see people, and my plan was to avoid them because I didn't want a conflict of interest or a coworker to learn that I was seeing someone too, but with so few in town, I had to call them.

I've got calls into 5 different docs right now, waiting for a call-back to get some questions answered. I did speak to one, but she was so sugary-sweet, I felt like she'd coddle and mommy me, plus her southern accent was so strong "yes" had about three syllables. I make fun of my husband being no-nonsense, but I am too, and I don't want to be babied. I'm an adult, tell me what I'm doing wrong and I'll fix it, but don't sweet talk me. So she was a no-go.

Picking a therapist is hard. Pick the wrong one and you could end up getting a lecture about how "God sure would help" or watching a doctor doodle and twiddle their thumbs while you're spilling your guts and getting nowhere. I also need one that will see me either before or after work.

I wish I was just normal. What is normal though, really?

travel

I feel a strange compulsion to post today, but I have nothing to say.

I started to leave it at that, but things are starting to come to me. Random thoughts, as usual. We were supposed to go to New Orleans to visit friends next month-- next month is November, as a reminder, in case you, like me, are surprised at how incredibly quickly this year has passed-- but hotels were just too expensive that weekend, and for no reason that I could find. We have other friends who regularly go to Saints games and always get the Sheraton on Canal for $65 a night on Priceline, but we couldn't get anything for less than $120 a night. When you throw in New Orleans's outrageous parking fees (sometimes as much as $30 a day) it became ridiculous.

So we're postponing. I would say "until the spring" only we have decided to take our Italian vacation in April. Venice, Florence, Rome, and the Amalfi coast, 14 days in glorious springtime in Italy. I've already seriously begun to plan, and we applied for a new credit card last night.

We applied for the Chase Sapphire card because of the great things we've heard and read about their live "concierge" customer service. A lost or stolen card in Italy requires me to be on the phone with a real American person directly, not redirected to India or sitting through a recording and hold music. It's only available to folks with credit scores higher than 750. Because the only credit card I ever had was  one that belonged to my dad but was in my name throughout high school and college, I have superb credit. People take their credit scores for granted, but mine has allowed me to buy several things interest free (couch, washing machine and dryer, etc.) as well as get a really low interest rate on both my mortgage and my car (used, of course. Suckers buy new). Because we're tight-fisted and, frankly, anal about our finances, my credit has remained high through the years though I haven't actually used it to my advantage in a while. So hopefully they come back with a decent APR-- we'll never carry a balance, but I like to be wanted and appreciated.

Back to work. Oh, lunch first.