Theme of the day: "The Struggle Is Real"

I have been so burnt out lately by my job and how little satisfaction I get from it, on top of how little I'm being used to my strengths. The reason I wanted to work with people is because I care about them, it motivates me to serve them in whatever way necessary. The part where I get tired comes in when I am empathizing, I am right there in their feelings...and then they proceed to chew me out. I'm a peon, why does no one understand this? It's not my fault, and this is not therapy.

Empathy, and being a people-first kind of person is a tough burden to bear in such a day and age. Try and argue me, but then I'm guessing you're not a people-first person, hence I'll likely disregard your invalid opinion. It's a hard burden to bear, and - though, less the older I get - I've often found myself at the end of a day, or the exit of a situation on the verge of tears. I feel it. This is something I love about myself that I have and will likely continue to battle criticism on in my life:

When someone I love (or even have remotely connected with) has a crisis, the first feeling I get is panic that they are hurting, or distressed, or in need. I don't think about my time, or my money, or what plans I had before this catastrophe reared its head - my heart hurts instantly.

All my life I've been told I'm too sensitive, that I need to think about others, and I need to grow thicker skin - to all of which I say: bull-shit. I am throwing the flag on that. Because even when I am at my wit's end of frustration from being drained, it's hard to know where I can go to just let off the steam and say my heart feels low - without being told to just buck up. Just for another second, I want to fight for the idea that caring about people and being sensitive isn't a weakness. I am so tired of being painted or perceived as weak because I care. I think it's a weakness not to care; to be so self-focused that someone else's problem doesn't deserve your time or an ounce of your understanding.

The thing about being this way in such a world is I know it's special; I wouldn't want to live with myself any other way. Don't take this to be some sort of horn-tooting (teehee) diatribe where I say "I'm awesome"...but I need to a little. I need to partially so that I can wake up and do it again tomorrow, and partially in the hopes that if you call someone with a job as shitty as mine, you might opt to treat them with the respect of a fellow human being, in the off chance that they do actually care that you're frustrated or annoyed.

I write this in part as catharsis (which I've become increasingly interested in), and in part to draw attention to the kind of people that help make the world survive. They're around you, probably burning out and getting lectured that they need to change their focus, notice them. Don't criticize them; appreciate them. There's something really insanely beautiful about caring - not about arguing, and not about bossing, and not about doing what one "should" do - just recognizing we're all humans and we all face struggles, and we need each other.

And therein lies one of my greatest struggles: holding onto an attitude of love and a heart of grace even when it's undeserved and I'm not shown either in return. I don't like myself when I can't bring one of those two with me to an interaction; I don't like myself when I'm putting me and my feelings over them and theirs. Sometimes there's a wall to hit, and it's a struggle.

A Photo & 'a long time ago'

You know how I know what I love...

How a photograph can break your heart and make it feel alive all in a masochistic instant; nostalgia.

I think a lot about nostalgia. I've lived a lot of moments I absolutely loved, and I just lived right in them. Now being in a place I don't constantly tuck away memories every day, or any other time I just wander to reminiscences of my favorite moments, I feel that tension. And almost every time I stop to think about it, I think about how amazingly blessed I've been to have the experiences I have, seen the things I've seen, and laughed the laughs I have. Simultaneously my heart aches to go back to the places, knowing full-well I can't.

There is a tension in nostalgia; gratefulness for experiences and a sense of loss for the moment you once lived in so fully, being so far away. I try not to allow myself to compare this time to those, because in theory it will always lose, but I try to think about what beautiful things I've seen; what a beautiful life I've lived and how many years I have to follow with more beauty.

Best Laid Plans for NaNoWriMo

Sometimes it takes me a while to get around to something, even if I really want to do it. For years I've tried to start doing National Novel Writing Month, fondly referred to by participants as NaNoWriMo. I can never just bite the bullet. I never have an idea that's formulated enough to carry out. You can't just sit down and write 50,000 words - it might turn out to be crap. Not that I'm not a fan of wasting time and writing things no one may ever read. I think of the project as getting the ball rolling, but why bother if my idea isn't fleshed out.

This coming from a non-planner. I am farthest from a planner. If I even bother to develop a plan, I usually completely forget about it. As a writer, this proves a challenge. See, this time around I even have a plot idea that's a really basic outline. By really basic, I mean: written in my random ideas and blurbs notebook that I keep in my purse for moments when creativity interrupts my normal daily activity.

It's not fully fleshed out, though. Like I have the very skeleton of my story, but I have no idea how to start; what tense should I write in? Who's perspective is the story told from? (Why does this guy sitting next to me at the coffee shop keep trying to read what I'm writing as if I don't notice?) I want so badly to tell it from the first-person, but I know that's hard. It's hard but when you read it, it's kind of brilliant. So maybe, first-person it is.

The reality is, much like anything else I click with doing, I don't actually know a whole lot of technical stuff, I just know what it should look like. I know what reads well, or sounds right, or looks good. Does it mean I'm technically gifted? Not at all. In fact, for the most part I'm not, and I hate the idea that anyone might be...but I know they might be. Jealousy, I suppose.

And there you see, a picture of why I can manage to avoid starting NaNoWriMo. I think I need to just take the leap. As always, I'm already a day behind.

Escape: Early Outs, Eyebrows, and Every Thought Ever

I have been having bad luck with plucking my eyebrows lately, - let's just say I look more surprised than normal. Likely a subtly that by most other than myself, will go unnoticed but insecurity on such an issue is steadfast until it self-resolves. Clearly, I forgot that I was trying to let them grow out after my last mishap, and so the stragglers that were dragging my face back toward normalcy are once again defeated...unjustly.

Today, we received an email at work that we have been spending our down time doing things we should not; we're either allowed to clean our desks or review training material. Just when I was enjoying some reading time. I can't sit idly, it drives me crazy. I'm a fidget. That's why I love knitting. Soon they're gonna tell me I can't have restless leg syndrome because it's distracting someone's thinking...maybe needless to say, I don't do well in strict environments.

Here has been the "social media break" I wrote about a while back. It's already helped me to realize, as it should've any other time I've taken a break from it, that it is a compulsion. I have noted the compulsions to go troll the news feed, or just look at profiles. It's kind of sick. That's normal. That's normal? I was thinking the other day about the artificial sense of relationship that's formed by facebook (and other social media sites). It's likely detrimental to future generations, those that are the most true digital natives, but so few go without. I'm not saying I don't like Facebook, in fact I'm kind of a social media junky. Truth be told, I don't like the things it allows me to spend my time on, or the things it leads me to believe. I don't care to have pointless arguments with people sitting elsewhere, who would never otherwise encounter me. In one lens, that's a great ability and it is - yay technology! But through another, it's an artificial reality. And it helps us ignore the actual reality...redundant redundancy.

I'm a little alone with my thoughts. As it should be. I can do things without 250 or however many people being able to know about it. Save for this blog, I guess, not that near that many people read it...

Maybe this will lead somewhere. Maybe I'll finally get rid of it, so I don't have to think about it anymore. Maybe that would help me to start writing again. After all, I am pondering for the millionth time, doing NaNoWriMo...a little easier without popping over to Facebook repeatedly when a break in thought comes, or endlessly scrolling through my twitter feed.

Or maybe that's just the aimless rebel within me, aggravated with bigger problems in society, believing that purging my life of the magnifying glass that is The Social Media Hour will make those problems less annoying. Maybe it's an escape.

Reading my Reader's Digest cover to cover is an escape from boredom plagued with annoyance; or apathy, whichever may be more fitting. So are Early Outs...hello my bed at 4:00pm.

The Valley

Lately, by some weird circumstances, my life has been insanely busy. I've taken on some new hobbies, been investing in new relationships, and done my best to truck on. Being someone who's fond of variety, I like much of my life, but I've found myself so tired. I'm so tired that at the end of the day, doing things for me gets pushed to the back-burner. Not to seem like some sort of martyr, because most of the things I'm doing are in some way for me, but some of the recharging and processing time I need, I've been neglecting.

The only thing that kept me strong until my forced end at a previous job I loathed, was my morning devotionals. I'd found a great combination, and was mixing them with the proverbs. Now, again with a job I'm not all that fond of, I'm so drained I've been neglecting me. It's almost as though, ignoring a core part of me that needs down time to just waste, I have been scheduling in all these things that though I will also enjoy, don't give me rest. I'm starting to realize just how borderline I am, extrovert/introvert! Even neglecting myself by not eating breakfast a few days this week because I slept in, or not running at all this week because I don't know where to fit it in; not to mention have the motivation and energy during its scheduled time slot.

This morning, I had to be at work early for a meeting that I knew would inevitably mean nothing to me (spoiler: I was right), and so I had to get up earlier. At this point, due to apathy which I've never been good at overcoming, I've used up all my tardies; there is no more being late, or sick for six months...that's another story. I woke up after a tossing and turning night's sleep, rolled myself over and made the half-conscious, half-asleep decision to read my devotional. I knew I can't survive these days, this way, without my morning compass. If it's only up to me, frankly: right now I wake up and feel annoyed with God that I have to go to this job.

Streams in the Desert is a devotional written from a lifetime of experiences and a place of grief. Though I can't quite justifiably say I read it from an equal place, it humbles me and reminds me of a different aspect of God's character each time.

This morning, this is what got me out of bed and as on time to work as I've ever been since I started:

"No one can stay on the mountaintop of favor forever, for there are responsibilities in the valley."

Here I wake every day with a rotten attitude (worse yet, I know it), and the reality of that is that I can't spend every day on a high of how good God is; hanging out on spiritual cloud nine. And if I'm not in that place of being able to spend a day, or even a minute of my day up there, I have to honor where I am. What that looks like may vary, but the better part of me knows.

It probably looks like turning the light on and opening the shades; it probably looks like ending a bad call and taking a deep breath and remembering that we're imperfect; it probably looks like setting aside something meaningless for the sake of something meaningful, even if it's harder. Looking to the stuff on the pedestal to drive to action on the stuff on the ground.

From the peak we look fondly on the lowlands, and from the depths we look on the peak with hope and inspiration.

Theories & Histories on Conflict

I am the type of person who avoids conflict -- will take the hit on whatever necessary to avoid it, yet the older I get, the more I get sick of taking people's unthinkable crap. So, I inch toward the crossroads where I will hopefully learn how to face it and handle issues. But if my voice won't even be heard, I'd rather have kept my mouth shut to begin with; hence, my tendency to avoid conflict altogether, saving myself the anxiety of making an argument that inevitably only falls on deaf ears.

It's an issue of worth, I guess. Not that I don't find myself worth listening to, or hearing out, but countless times in my life the people I've come to arguments with have treated me like I'm speaking another language. No matter how many ways I spin it, trying to make sense out of my point, it's useless. In a roundabout way, as feels is my lot, conflict is useless; I might as well bow out, take the forfeit and put up a wall. I constantly try to convince myself this is not the way, but my theories are far less convincing than my histories.

There are some principles of relating that I find lacking in those conversations where I feel bulldozed, and consistently seem to encounter such an utter lack that all the further encourages my aversion to bothering to sort through conflict. Things that, if common throughout relationship, instead of rare, maybe there would be less conflict...to avoid.

I have found there is a key in being able to admit you're wrong -- and not in a self-deprecating, false-modest, martyr sort of way, but in the reality that from time to time you may, in fact, not have it all figured out, and act poorly. We all act poorly; I act poorly, and usually recognize it immediately after, wherein my character is proved by my decision as to whether or not to acknowledge my faulty ways. It is one of the best and most relieving things I've taught myself by intentional habit, to be able to admit that I am imperfect and will likely continue to be imperfect. Thus the pressure of pride is shirked, and the freedom to fail yet survive is granted. The more we cling to our ability to control our lives, the more falling flat on our faces - when we inevitably do - will devastate.

Also, empathy and compassion go a long way between humans. If you cannot step aside from yourself and relate to where the other person is coming from, you will likely never have a healthy relationship. Possibly a strong statement to make, but I don't need a degree or a scientific study to know that the inability to think of anyone but one's self is not conducive to a lasting relationship. To be able to understand another's position, and why it would be thought of as valid from their perspective, will make a disagreement far less detrimental.

If nothing else, I'm learning to pick my battles.

The Green Grass is Just AstroTurf

It's this messed up thing: when you're young you just want to grow up. You just want to get a nine to five, pay bills, feel like an adult. Maybe you spend hours of your life watching T.V. or researching some paper you can't wait to think about every again. Go out. A lot. Have stupid laughs.

And then you grow up. You get over to the other side where the grass seemed so lush and it's AstroTurf...crappy AstroTurf! And the gate is closed, my friend. You're stuck with the fake grass.

I feel like I used to go out so much. I feel like I used to have so much fun. I used to dream about things, and every once and a while even make them happen. Now it's all about figuring out how to live the dream, when I'm stuck in some sort of lucid purgatory where you know it's not reality, and the return to reality is pending. I guess what I'm saying is right now I'm a bit of a hopeless dreamer. Not hopeless as in there's no hope that I'll ever learn, but hopeless as in dreaming hurts because it feels like a giant tease.

The setup is you can achieve anything you want to: the reality is maybe not. Things might get in the way. You might not be as skilled in something as you think you are. And even if you are, how good are you at marketing yourself?

I've learned if I want to go anywhere that I really want to go, I've got a lot to learn. Cyclical thinking and sentences...I'm in a phase of being jaded and disappointed. I don't know what I thought I'd be doing, but sure didn't ever think I'd be working in a call center. There are countless ironies centered around my working in a call center, which I won't bother to get into.

Usually, I'm a suck-it-up, do-what-you-have-to kind of person...and keep a smile on while you do. I would totally do what I love...if it paid the bills! So I just keep shooting at what I see, hoping something gives. My bank account and my heart kind of need it.