Work for the past month has been bananas. We were on a limited scope from December 15th until January 1st and in the midst of all of that, a co-worker got another job. I was doing 2.5 times the work I normally do and feeling like I was falling behind completely on everything.
BUT, I am now caught up for the most part and feel better about my position than I have since last spring. In the last 12 months, my project expanded with 3 new positions, a statewide hotline, and 2 new grants. It has been a huge transition supporting 2 additional people, not to mention that our workload tripled overnight in July. In spite of all of that, I kept the ship upright and I'm proud of that.
Could I have done it better? Probably. Did I take on too much outside of my day-to-day work? Oh, you betcha. I do think I solidified my abilities, and now hopefully will soon have the time to do some additional duties that I have not been able to take on until we hire a new person to take some of my administrative tasks.
This is the best I've felt professionally in my life.
Monday, February 3, 2020
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
Clarity
As I pressed post, she sent me a response. Not available that weekend. Send word if we come another time. That was it. Nothing about her life.
In that moment, realization hits, we really are strangers. I'm holding on to the girl from my past. She isn't her in the same way that I'm not me anymore. Clearly, she doesn't want to share anything with me. Guess she wasn't bluffing when she said I don't deserve anything from her, it's true, but it hurts. I got my hopes up when she left the door open, but then shut it again by deciding not to write anything about her. Hope this moves me closer to acceptance or closure of a relationship that is in the past now.
Why do I live in the past so much? I'm eaten up inside with all of the mistakes I've made and who I used to be and who I've hurt.
I don't disappear like I used to. I've tried to own up to my faults and apologize to those that I've hurt. I wish I could stop telling myself I'm the worst. In reality, I'm really not. No one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes.
In that moment, realization hits, we really are strangers. I'm holding on to the girl from my past. She isn't her in the same way that I'm not me anymore. Clearly, she doesn't want to share anything with me. Guess she wasn't bluffing when she said I don't deserve anything from her, it's true, but it hurts. I got my hopes up when she left the door open, but then shut it again by deciding not to write anything about her. Hope this moves me closer to acceptance or closure of a relationship that is in the past now.
Why do I live in the past so much? I'm eaten up inside with all of the mistakes I've made and who I used to be and who I've hurt.
I don't disappear like I used to. I've tried to own up to my faults and apologize to those that I've hurt. I wish I could stop telling myself I'm the worst. In reality, I'm really not. No one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes.
Anxious
There are so many emotions happening right now.
About a month ago, I sent an apology message to my best friend from high school. I had no response for the last month and had peace that I had tried to apologize even if I got no response.
Bam, response yesterday. Half hurt, half curious to know more. God, having to revisit the worst part of my life was traumatic. But, she deserved honesty. Though, looking back now, I guess I could've been less descriptive.
I wrote a long and heartfelt look at why I disappeared. She responded with a kind, but short response. Now, I'm overthinking my last response because in my initial apology, I said K and I would be in LA in February. At the time, that was true. Then we bought K a new car (very exciting, albeit, costly) and decided not to go on the trip. That decision was made on Sunday. I received the response on Tuesday. So, I said yesterday that we hadn't booked the tickets yet. This seemed sketchy to me, so this morning I followed up with an explanation.
Radio silence. Rationally, it is still 8:30 AM in LA, need to give her more time to respond. Irrationally, I'm a hot mess. I have been since 12:30 yesterday when she responded for the first time. I'm jumping at every notification, hoping she will respond.
Please, God, help me release the anxiety I feel. I cannot control the outcome of this interaction. I owned my failure, I apologized, and expressed what I wanted moving forward. There is nothing more I can do. Please give me peace and acceptance for whatever may come now. Amen.
About a month ago, I sent an apology message to my best friend from high school. I had no response for the last month and had peace that I had tried to apologize even if I got no response.
Bam, response yesterday. Half hurt, half curious to know more. God, having to revisit the worst part of my life was traumatic. But, she deserved honesty. Though, looking back now, I guess I could've been less descriptive.
I wrote a long and heartfelt look at why I disappeared. She responded with a kind, but short response. Now, I'm overthinking my last response because in my initial apology, I said K and I would be in LA in February. At the time, that was true. Then we bought K a new car (very exciting, albeit, costly) and decided not to go on the trip. That decision was made on Sunday. I received the response on Tuesday. So, I said yesterday that we hadn't booked the tickets yet. This seemed sketchy to me, so this morning I followed up with an explanation.
Radio silence. Rationally, it is still 8:30 AM in LA, need to give her more time to respond. Irrationally, I'm a hot mess. I have been since 12:30 yesterday when she responded for the first time. I'm jumping at every notification, hoping she will respond.
Please, God, help me release the anxiety I feel. I cannot control the outcome of this interaction. I owned my failure, I apologized, and expressed what I wanted moving forward. There is nothing more I can do. Please give me peace and acceptance for whatever may come now. Amen.
Friday, October 25, 2019
Just a little 'stitious
Welp. This year I cannot seem to make consistent blog posts. Not that these posts are for anyone else except me. Why am I the way that I am??? I am sitting here and critiquing the way I type, the phrasing that I am using, is "critiquing" actually a word? Checked google, yup, it is. I am a jumble of negative thoughts and hardcore emotions brewing together right now. Not usually a recipe for successful Rachel, but onward I trudge.
Back on WW. Having good success. But struggling with becoming obsessed about it then also making it past the 3-6 month hump. Will this time be the time we stick with it and I finally make some lasting life changes for the 1st time since I was 20 years old?? We started in July, I weighed in at 271.7 and as of today I am at 251.4; total of 20.3 lost, but no one notices unless I show them a comparative picture. A good friend reminded me that it is not about what people notice, but what I notice. That's true. It's also true that words of affirmation are one of my top love languages and getting positive confirmation of my success from people I admire is important to me. Trying to find the balance.
K helped me dress up my office a la Harry Potter/Hogwarts for Halloween for the kids of my colleagues to trick or treat today. It was a lot of fun to create. I enjoy seeing ideas come to life. I struggle with the plan to create, the execution, and adjustments when it doesn't quite work. K is teaching me a bit to see beyond the problem to the solution, but this is so deeply ingrained in how I respond to difficulty. Feeling a bit self conscious that other people will judge my choice to go a little overboard, but I love HP so, fuck it.
New wedding plan has come together. After that post in June, we finally had a sit down with K's parents. By sit down, I mean we went to their house to have dinner, play board games, then at 9:45 PM K finally piped up about what we wanted to do. E was very docile about it, better than I thought she would be. P on the other hand, word vomited his concerns about timing even after we said we would wait until 2020. Overall, more positive than negative, so we will see what happens in the next 12 months.
K loves me more than ever lately. We had some amazing intimacy the past few times we had sex, which is my favorite, but so emotional. I cry each time, she almost cried last time (which is incredible because I have seen K cry only 4-5 times in the past 5 years). She is always happier when we are having success with weight loss.
Utterly distracted now by: work, texts, anxiety, etc. Will write again sometime... Who knows when..
Back on WW. Having good success. But struggling with becoming obsessed about it then also making it past the 3-6 month hump. Will this time be the time we stick with it and I finally make some lasting life changes for the 1st time since I was 20 years old?? We started in July, I weighed in at 271.7 and as of today I am at 251.4; total of 20.3 lost, but no one notices unless I show them a comparative picture. A good friend reminded me that it is not about what people notice, but what I notice. That's true. It's also true that words of affirmation are one of my top love languages and getting positive confirmation of my success from people I admire is important to me. Trying to find the balance.
K helped me dress up my office a la Harry Potter/Hogwarts for Halloween for the kids of my colleagues to trick or treat today. It was a lot of fun to create. I enjoy seeing ideas come to life. I struggle with the plan to create, the execution, and adjustments when it doesn't quite work. K is teaching me a bit to see beyond the problem to the solution, but this is so deeply ingrained in how I respond to difficulty. Feeling a bit self conscious that other people will judge my choice to go a little overboard, but I love HP so, fuck it.
New wedding plan has come together. After that post in June, we finally had a sit down with K's parents. By sit down, I mean we went to their house to have dinner, play board games, then at 9:45 PM K finally piped up about what we wanted to do. E was very docile about it, better than I thought she would be. P on the other hand, word vomited his concerns about timing even after we said we would wait until 2020. Overall, more positive than negative, so we will see what happens in the next 12 months.
K loves me more than ever lately. We had some amazing intimacy the past few times we had sex, which is my favorite, but so emotional. I cry each time, she almost cried last time (which is incredible because I have seen K cry only 4-5 times in the past 5 years). She is always happier when we are having success with weight loss.
Utterly distracted now by: work, texts, anxiety, etc. Will write again sometime... Who knows when..
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Continually Upset
I am continually upset about the way K's parents treat her and our relationship. And the hardest part is that there really is no way to fix it without conversations that may never happen. I've been confronted with some hard thoughts over the past week, wondering if our wedding/marriage can really happen without their support.
After getting kicked out of my house as a young adult, I changed the way I interacted with my parents once we reconciled. Their opinions no longer carried the same weight, the decisions they wanted me to make stopped being commandments and started being optional. This has been a wonderful thing for me as they have learned to support me without enabling me. Something K's parents have yet to learn to do for their children.
On Sunday, we were at K's BFF's son's 2nd birthday party with her grandmother and mother. This was a setting I was already uncomfortable in as the people in this setting don't approve of K and I, nor have they ever been friendly to me. So, it was nice when someone K went to high school with spoke to me and asked questions. As she was asking me questions, she asked both K and I if we wanted kids. I immediately responded "yes" and K immediately responded "not sure". I looked around and saw K's mom walking away from our conversation. I made a comment to K about how her answer changed based on if her mom was listening or not, she mumbled some response and it was very uncomfortable and awkward.
I spent the rest of the day fighting off tears thinking that there was no way for our relationship to move forward. We had a fight in the car where I basically made an ultimatum, we need to break up or I can no longer spend time with both K and her mom in public, accusing K of either lying to me or her mom. She stated that she is fearful of the criticism she receives from her mom and so that is why she lies to her mom.
We haven't had another pre-marital counseling session since we came back from Alaska. We need one. I have so much I want to rant at her parents about. How much they have hurt her and affected our relationship. I'm not sure what to do or how we move forward when her family wont have hard conversations.
After getting kicked out of my house as a young adult, I changed the way I interacted with my parents once we reconciled. Their opinions no longer carried the same weight, the decisions they wanted me to make stopped being commandments and started being optional. This has been a wonderful thing for me as they have learned to support me without enabling me. Something K's parents have yet to learn to do for their children.
On Sunday, we were at K's BFF's son's 2nd birthday party with her grandmother and mother. This was a setting I was already uncomfortable in as the people in this setting don't approve of K and I, nor have they ever been friendly to me. So, it was nice when someone K went to high school with spoke to me and asked questions. As she was asking me questions, she asked both K and I if we wanted kids. I immediately responded "yes" and K immediately responded "not sure". I looked around and saw K's mom walking away from our conversation. I made a comment to K about how her answer changed based on if her mom was listening or not, she mumbled some response and it was very uncomfortable and awkward.
I spent the rest of the day fighting off tears thinking that there was no way for our relationship to move forward. We had a fight in the car where I basically made an ultimatum, we need to break up or I can no longer spend time with both K and her mom in public, accusing K of either lying to me or her mom. She stated that she is fearful of the criticism she receives from her mom and so that is why she lies to her mom.
We haven't had another pre-marital counseling session since we came back from Alaska. We need one. I have so much I want to rant at her parents about. How much they have hurt her and affected our relationship. I'm not sure what to do or how we move forward when her family wont have hard conversations.
Thursday, June 13, 2019
It's been awhile...
My last post was from January and was excited about the company we started..... Well.... got stalled out on that. But, what I appreciate about K is that she will dive head first into things with me whether or not it comes to fruition right away. Red Bottle Cap will be something that we can hopefully get off the ground someday, but for now, other things have taken precedent.
After lots of discussion, we decided to not get married this year. To be honest, I'm so deeply disappointed and more than ever do I want to elope, not giving two shits about anyone else but us. But that is not K's dream, maybe it will be eventually, but not today. I've become bitter about church and her father in the process. I need to probably talk to a therapist about it. I just re-read this article that K's dad has been toting around promoting moderate-ism. Seeing as he falls about as moderate as they come, his ideas make sense, but he doesn't seem to live it. He wants us to be happy, supports us privately, but publicly, that's a whole different story. He told me (after K's best friend dropped a hint to K's mom about a dress) that his participation in a wedding would "depend on how public it is." I'm not sure how he compartmentalizes all of this. It makes more sense now that K just straight up avoids any discussion of her sexuality and our impending marriage. It just continues to hurt.
I digress. This post is more about our most recent trip to NYC. I thought K was crazy for making me do a 24 turn-around, but I am so grateful now that she did. I've fallen in love with seeing musical theater on Broadway. It is very much not the same as the tours that come to the Fox. We can never afford the seats that are upfront for those shows and the Fox is so big, you lose the intimacy of the smaller Broadway theaters.
The show we saw was "The Prom." K found out about it after seeing the cast perform on the Macy's Day Parade and we weren't really paying attention until the two lead women kissed. This show.... I needed this show so very much when I was in high school. I was head over heels in love with my best friend in high school and would've probably given anything for her to feel the same way and for us to go to prom together (fun fact: she skipped her senior prom and invited a group of kids [me included but I didn't go] to go drink at a cabin). She later came out to me about 5 years after high school, and the funniest part was that it was in her childhood room where I spent so many hours pining after her. Back to the show, it portrays a small town girl wanting to go to the prom with her girlfriend, which causes an uproar, then a news story gets in the hands of a group of aging Broadway stars who then show up and hi-jinks ensue.
But, the best thing about this show is that while it shows heartbreak, oppression, and strife, the end is triumphant and such a happy ending. I bawled happy and sad tears at the same time watching the finale. Happy that they didn't make it an "it gets better" moment, but better is now! Sad that I wanted so badly to reclaim much of high school and be a more authentic me. I'm so thrilled that this next generation of LGBTQ+ youth will have representation in shows, television, media, etc. that is more positive than anything else portrayed previously. I've been teary-eyed and replaying the kiss from the musical on repeat.
Is it crazy that I have looked up flights and tickets to see the show again? "Fun Home" made me relate a couple of times, but it feels like, "The Prom" speaks directly to me. Anyhow, I just really wanna see more musicals now.
After lots of discussion, we decided to not get married this year. To be honest, I'm so deeply disappointed and more than ever do I want to elope, not giving two shits about anyone else but us. But that is not K's dream, maybe it will be eventually, but not today. I've become bitter about church and her father in the process. I need to probably talk to a therapist about it. I just re-read this article that K's dad has been toting around promoting moderate-ism. Seeing as he falls about as moderate as they come, his ideas make sense, but he doesn't seem to live it. He wants us to be happy, supports us privately, but publicly, that's a whole different story. He told me (after K's best friend dropped a hint to K's mom about a dress) that his participation in a wedding would "depend on how public it is." I'm not sure how he compartmentalizes all of this. It makes more sense now that K just straight up avoids any discussion of her sexuality and our impending marriage. It just continues to hurt.
I digress. This post is more about our most recent trip to NYC. I thought K was crazy for making me do a 24 turn-around, but I am so grateful now that she did. I've fallen in love with seeing musical theater on Broadway. It is very much not the same as the tours that come to the Fox. We can never afford the seats that are upfront for those shows and the Fox is so big, you lose the intimacy of the smaller Broadway theaters.
The show we saw was "The Prom." K found out about it after seeing the cast perform on the Macy's Day Parade and we weren't really paying attention until the two lead women kissed. This show.... I needed this show so very much when I was in high school. I was head over heels in love with my best friend in high school and would've probably given anything for her to feel the same way and for us to go to prom together (fun fact: she skipped her senior prom and invited a group of kids [me included but I didn't go] to go drink at a cabin). She later came out to me about 5 years after high school, and the funniest part was that it was in her childhood room where I spent so many hours pining after her. Back to the show, it portrays a small town girl wanting to go to the prom with her girlfriend, which causes an uproar, then a news story gets in the hands of a group of aging Broadway stars who then show up and hi-jinks ensue.
But, the best thing about this show is that while it shows heartbreak, oppression, and strife, the end is triumphant and such a happy ending. I bawled happy and sad tears at the same time watching the finale. Happy that they didn't make it an "it gets better" moment, but better is now! Sad that I wanted so badly to reclaim much of high school and be a more authentic me. I'm so thrilled that this next generation of LGBTQ+ youth will have representation in shows, television, media, etc. that is more positive than anything else portrayed previously. I've been teary-eyed and replaying the kiss from the musical on repeat.
Is it crazy that I have looked up flights and tickets to see the show again? "Fun Home" made me relate a couple of times, but it feels like, "The Prom" speaks directly to me. Anyhow, I just really wanna see more musicals now.
Tuesday, January 15, 2019
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)