Not a "Lovely Day"...

but maybe a better one. Voices are sort of grumbling today, as opposed to screaming.

I don't think they are idiots, the mean voices... they are versions of me, afterall, though they can be brutally blunt. But I don't always mind when they are that blunt, because they are the only ones who can keep the egotistical voices in check. And the egotistical voices are the ones that get me into trouble... because you get so caught up in your own greatness that you can lose sight of the reality around you.

So there's something to be said for them. And after they get done screaming, the rest of us start to figure out the core issues.

A few weeks back I posted a collection of mantras that I depend on days like yesterday. "Bubbles and Fireflies" keeps me from succumbing (that one was sort of a group idea from my Expumping Moms list). But the other things I'm struggling with are: "Accept the Situation for What it is." And "If you don't like the situation, change it or walk away from it." And "You can't control others, you can only control your reaction." And allowing myself to be really pissed off about the whole thing, but strong enough to let it go. (I hate when people flake out. Pisses me off. But I've flaked out on many people, so what goes around comes around.)

Those things are very hard for me to do. It's also very hard for me to let go of an idea, once I've accepted the idea, because it often takes me SOOOOO LONG to accept an idea in the first place. So I've spent the last five years accepting the fact IFKALP was a psycho, and that I was going to be a single parent, and that I was alone. And I think I've done a damn good job, considering. But then suddenly I was confronted with the possibility of NOT being alone. And I fought it, too. For a long while... and then when I accepted it it wasn't *quite* what I wanted, but I went with it anyway. Trying to "Let Go" of the previous idea.

But now I'm back to being alone. You know, you can't miss what you can't measure. But it really really sucks, when you CAN measure, know what I mean? So it's quite the quandary. Which idea am I supposed to accept?

Then of course, there's the job. I hadn't wanted a full time job because I know me. I know how I work and I know how I react to sucky people. I also know I think that most people suck. When this position came up, I was fully determined NOT to take it, but I do believe in the Higher Power, and I do believe that when something is put in front of you like that, the way the position was put in front of me, it's worth at least thinking about. And when I met my boss, we clicked. We think a lot a like, and he doesn't suck. But I knew coming in here that there was going to politics because there always are when you work in "the real world." But the politics are decidedly more vicious than I'd anticipated, and as I've said before, I walked off a job making $80K because I don't want to be boxed in to a place where I have to be mean in order to survive. And that's what it feels like here, some days.

Yesterday in particular. After I came back from lunch, I was so fed up that when my coworker asked me how I was doing, I told her that days like today is where I get up and walk out. Done it before. So she made me go downstairs and get some air, and I did, and when I came back up I could handle it a few hours more. It helped that another co-worker sort of stepped up to the plate, intuitively and without being asked, to run interference between me and the Vampire. Who's neck I was seriously on the verge of wringing.

The thing is that underneath it all, I can feel the distress of some of the people here. Big Bird in particular. Under other circumstances, I would like her, and I recognize in her someone who has been in abusive situations. I could be wrong... but "it takes one to know one" and there's something about the way she rolls over that reminds me of me before I got pissed off. What makes it dangerous is that she goes where the loud bark is. And you know, most people do. I'm the only idiot that fights. And gets beaten to freakin' bloody pulp. Which is why she's acting director and uh, I'm not.

The Vampire, on the other hand, she's dangerous cuz she just doesn't give a rat's ass about anybody but her own survival.

And me, I hate feeling boxed in. I hate feeling trapped. I HATE to be bullied. I spent so long getting the courage up to know that it was OK to stand up for myself, and that I had the right to defend my position that it galls me when I'm forced not to. And I also have the misfortune to believe that I am absolutely the equal of most everyone I meet. When I am not allowed to make my own decisions, especially when they are perfectly appropriate ones ..... oooooh baby. Not good.

It also amazes me that one person can come in and dismantle an entire department, steamroll over everyone simply cuz of the title they hold. There are more people in a department than there are bosses... so I never understand why it is that people will sit and suffer in silence under a maniac boss, and not rise up in unison and smack the shit out of them (figuratively speaking, of course). Poppy's answer, when I put the question to him, was "Careful. You're sounding like a Socialist".

Hmph. Must be all the Chairman Mao stories I read as a kid.

But as always, I'm trying to muddle through. Living life to the best of my ability.

I'm also deliberating whether or not spend my Saturday evening acting like a grown up, go to a jazz club to see a friend's husband play along with this jazz guitarist I owe a drawing to... perhaps even meet someone fairly close to my age. Or not. Just meet someone period. Or whether I should just be me, grown-up kid, and go with a contingent of folks from The Rock to Rye Playland with my Sun, eat funnel cakes and cotton candy and go on silly rides.

Now, if ya'll know me *at all*... you know which way I'm leaning, right?

*sigh*.

Comments

Popular Posts