so much more than their words

(mean girls – leanna Crawford)

Sometimes call center employees clearly do not understand what you are requesting, but other times they definitely get it…

Today I called in for something and at first the person started telling me that mail may be delayed due to the holidays and then you could hear in her voice as she got to the date it had been sent that oh, no this is not just a mail delay…it was sent December 9, and now it is January 12…

So I guess I’m glad I called…and that I got an agent who had a useable amount of brainpower :). If not, I was ready to point out that based on Google’s estimate, I could walk from their central office to the address that was on the envelope in about 350 hours which translates to about 2 weeks, so I kinda doubt the mail couldn’t reach that point in a similar or lower period of time…

If I were going to be a responsible adult I’d have two more calls to make today, but adulting is exhausting sometimes, so we’re gonna keep putting that off…

This is only related because it also concerns communication, but I watched a video on situational mutism today. To be honest, I’m not totally certain it is a legitimate DSM diagnosis, but I was like I think that is where I am at…

When I was in college I think I legitimately could fall into the category of selective mutism – I didn’t really talk outside of the classroom. In class I could converse with my teachers and classmates, but even teachers noticed that outside of the classroom I pretty much only communicated with my peers via writing until I found a really close friend, and even then I’d talk to that person in small group situations and that person would communicate for me in other situations. As I grew and especially as I got into the big world I gradually became more able to do some communicating myself, but even now, in some situations I physically cannot talk, but now it is more about the emotional environment than my physical location, though location does matter to some extent. People think I am being obstinate or just don’t know how to act appropriately, and it really hurts when they treat me like I don’t know things just because I can’t verbalize it, and it is frustrating when they act like I am doing it on purpose, because that just makes it even harder to access my voice. I know enough about myself to know what makes me better or less able to communicate and I will happily share that information when relevant, but some people use that information to intentionally set me up for failure by giving me the opposite of what I need.

Watching the video made me feel so validated…it mentioned an adult who carried cards that said things like ‘my name is ____’ and stuff. This person acknowledged that they almost never use them because of fear that people wouldn’t understand, but I was like yes, I absolutely understand…in fact I have many times considered doing the same thing. I think at one point in life I even had a small notebook with a few phrases, but like that person, I never actually used it because of fear of what people would think. More recently, my thoughts have been more along the lines of using cards like that for safety. I really did almost make myself a set of cards this fall that were going to say things like among other things, could I have some water please, and do you have a bandaid please, but I realized that it is already weird for a stranger to show up on your doorstep, so probably if I was going to need help I was going to need to be able to use my words…especially the more out there requests like please pretend you know me because I am afraid and want to come inside, and would you mind if I stood on your porch to wait for this storm to pass. I never got to a point where I was desperate enough for anything to need to approach anyone, so the cards would have mostly been for better peace of mind…but communication strategies are things I think about, because I know that when I feel threatened or unexpectedly intimidated my ability to speak can be drastically reduced which limits my ability to react to dangerous situations…which is why in college I wore a whistle around my neck to and from school because I knew at that point in life I didn’t even have the ability to make my presence known, so if I was unable to speak, the whistle provided my visibility both for traffic-related reasons as well as in case of any physical threat since I was aware my apartment and school were in a high crime area…I no longer need the whistle – in fact I was able not that long ago to tell someone off who was spouting unsafe information as safety tips…which probably talking at a stranger as you bike past is not the most effective teaching strategy, but I was proud of myself for making the attempt.

And yes, you’ve guessed correctly that my increase in posts is in response to having things I really want to write about but that I’m not yet ready to share…I’m gonna try to stop writing these filler posts and either tackle what I want to write head on or take a break, but no guarantees how that will go…

Don’t hold in your anger or leave things unspoken

(How you live – Point of Grace)

Not every piece of advice you receive from music…even Christian music…is good advice.

The past week and a half or so has definitely proven this lyric false.

As it turns out, earbuds are much more breakable than I thought. Just like a week or two I replaced my earbuds that weren’t working very well with a new pair…and then on Thursday I got angry and I was at work so I didn’t have a lot of options on how to calm down and get back to getting things done…and I took my earbuds out of my ears and threw them at the desk…and the new pair is now broken. Oops. I really thought it was a harmless thing to do that would release some frustration without bothering anyone or hurting anything. If you listen really close with the volume all the way up you can still sorta make out whatever you are trying to hear, but it is definitely time to find a new pair…and contain my anger next time.

And yeah, there are definitely a lot of things better left unspoken. To be fair, the thing I am thinking mostly about right now I really thought when I wrote it last week that the person I was writing to already knew about the situation I tangentially mentioned…but apparently that hadn’t been clear before…and so that set off a spiral of problems that the harder I try to fix the more it feels like it keeps spiraling out of control.

And I had a meeting yesterday and I worked really hard to prepare by filling out the meeting template with the questions I was given to answer and then a transition to some questions I had that didn’t match the meeting template. And then the meeting didn’t go at all how it was supposed to go. The questions didn’t at all match what they were supposed to be and then I didn’t know how to answer or get back on track so I left feeling frustrated that I had another social fail…last time I had this meeting I left feeling really good about my ability to really participate, so I’d been really looking forward to another success, and that made it so much more crushing when I couldn’t pivot and participate when the questions weren’t what I expected…to be fair, it’s been many months since I last asked for questions to please be given to me in advance to help me have answers before there is so much pressure to speak so I get that months later it might be hard when the questions change to remember to let me know that the questions won’t be the same when you haven’t had to give me questions in months…

And can I just express that when I have already acknowledged that I made a stupid choice it isn’t making me feel better about myself to be told over and over how dumb that choice was. Yep, I get it. I know I screwed up. As it turns out, I literally just said that and have already had the negativity stream internally aimed at myself so that was already solidified without anyone else telling me I failed. LOL, the article I was assigned to read for my rotation talked about providing general rules to help gently correct when things go off course…it also says to do it directly and as close to the situation requiring feedback as possible, so I’m only following half the directions, but general rule: probably at least 97% of the time I know I screwed up before anyone tells me I screwed up, and I hate myself for it enough on my own before hearing from you that I did something dumb, so if you feel like you have to tell me, tell me once then please move on, because trust me, I am very aware that I failed. I sometimes make stupid choices, but I am not a stupid person.

On the subject of things that really bother me…I feel like most conversations that start along the lines of I am here to listen to you end with me not being listened to. It kind of feels like that phrase is people’s way of saying I have an agenda and you have already been filled into the box I anticipated you were going to belong in so your opinion doesn’t really matter. There are definitely times people start with that and then ACTUALLY listen, but I feel like that is an exception rather than the rule. It is not fun to have a conversation where you are not being heard.

Yesterday I felt kinda like the lyric from ReliantK “her moods are swinging on the swingset.” There are some things that just went way better than expected, and other things that just really really didn’t. There were some people that made me feel like I mattered and my experience mattered and other people who made me feel like I wasn’t worth it. There are some things that happened exactly how they were supposed to, and other things like walking straight into a wall that didn’t. That hurt…hashtag apparently I can’t think and walk at the same time. It is a really good thing I’d more than used up my words for the day by that point or people might have heard some less than appropriate words used to express my frustration at the wall jumping out in front of me.

I feel like probably I shouldn’t post this…and I also feel like I am tired of caring what other people think…

And I have half a mind to be like well since this is already a post that shouldn’t be published I might as well add on a bunch of stuff that really wouldn’t be appropriate…but I’m going to choose not to do that…

Instead I am going to leave you a picture from January 1^st when the bushes outside my apartment looked so pretty that I had to find my phone and take a picture before I got in my car.

LOL…what do you do when you are panicking that you might have an interview on Monday and have zero idea what you are going to say or how you are going to make it work…waste most of the morning trying to write a blog post that expresses your frustration but isn’t going to say enough that anyone is going to find it and be upset with you…that’s what…

We’re more beautiful when we come together

(Mandisa – Bleed the Same)

 

Today I feel like I have a lot of things I need to say. And I’ve kind of felt this way for a few days, but a lot of what I have to say I feel like would be taken better by “the opposition” if it were coming from someone with different colored skin…but I can’t change my skin (well, I guess I *can* but only to bright red), so I’m gonna say things anyway, because I realized that I obviously think it would be racist to say that there are things I can say as someone with light skin that someone with dark skin couldn’t say, so it is therefore just as racist to say that a dark skinned person is allowed to say things that I can’t as a light skinned person…technically our country doesn’t seem to understand that racism is when any race is discriminated against, not just certain races, but the reality I believe is that it is racism if there is race-based discrimination regardless of what race is being seen as less valued. People are people.

 

In our current political climate even outside of the Rona, people are attacking each other. I feel frustrated that (a white person) who wrote a detailed facebook post about respecting others and not taking sides then went into the comment section and…took sides and basically shushed the people whose opinions she didn’t agree with. As someone who works really hard to get my opinions heard (hashtag formerly social anxiety bordering on selective mutism) it really hurts me to see other people’s voices be silenced. I felt proud that some of these people were brave enough to stand up for themselves and further explain their opinion despite the attempt to shut them down…but I felt so sad that they had to take the defensive…and at the same time I was in awe of how well the other person was able to use her words to put someone down so eloquently…and it put me in a weird place because I have mad respect for people who can use words in ways I can’t and I know that every person deserves respect, but it still feels wrong sometimes to my innately sinful human nature to respect someone doing something negative…so basically I read the comments and felt frustrated but stayed out of it. Some people say if you are not part of the solution then you are part of the problem, so I guess if those people are right then I am part of the problem…so I guess I have some things to work on…which I kinda already knew…but I mean, people also say if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all…and I felt more like attacking the shut down than standing up for the people who disagreed so it wasn’t the right time for me to spend my words trying to get involved…

 

But I think why even white people against white people fights in the political realm are so common right now is two-fold. One, some people have too much time on their hands due to covid-closures. Two, the black lives matter movement is designed to be divisive. It isn’t just my white-girl perspective saying this. I have dialogued with black people (aka people who you can’t really argue don’t think black people matter) who obviously do think that the lives of people with their heritage matter, but don’t support the black lives matters movement because of the divisive-ness. We agree that our nation would be stronger together rather than polarizing and taking sides. Even the name of the movement “black lives matter” is inherently divisive. Yes, it does not directly say other lives are not important, but it is quite clearly implied. To make things less political, consider a mother with three children, Jack, Jane, and Julie. Her husband asks do you love our children, and she responds, I love Jane. Sure, she didn’t say she *didn’t* love Jack or Julie, but she sure didn’t make it sound like she did love them – and if she wants her family to act in unity and for Jack and Julie to not act in jealousy toward Jane then she clearly could have chosen her words better. The movement also tends to prioritize being seen over being respectful. Yes, you need your movement to be seen and heard to make a difference, but you will catch more flies with honey than vinegar. More people will be willing to support your cause if doing so doesn’t associate them with disrespectful behavior. Finally, the movement tends to be anti-police. I have seen posts on facebook from both black and white people pleading please do not listen to BLM, please do not take away our police force. People of all colors recognize that the police are an important part of keeping our communities safe. The police must make difficult decisions every day and while it sure is easy to be a Monday morning quarterback for the game played on Sunday knowing with hindsight what will and will not work, like TobyMac says in This is Not a Test, there ain’t no practice runs in life. You can’t turn back time and fix things knowing what you will know later. Life doesn’t work that way. We absolutely need our police force, and we will cripple them if we attempt to micro-manage the way in which they do their jobs. Do black lives matter, yes, do police lives of all colors matter, yes, does every single other person matter, also yes. Our world would be stronger if we didn’t pick and choose who matters. Like the movement I worked with in school states, EVERYONE MATTERS. Y’all, event planning is not what I love, but advocating that everyone matters is important to me so you better believe I was all about pouring my heart into planning everyone matters week events.

 

Okay, one last thing. On an interview I was listening to this week about race I heard someone claim that the fact disseminated in the medical community that black people and white people are genetically different is false. They asserted that the reason we are more prone to different diseases is really just the way stress of racism impacts our bodies. Yeah…umm…so you’re telling me that the black people who live in Africa are also experiencing racism and that stress in white people can’t cause the same problems it supposedly does in black people? Yeah, not buying it. It doesn’t mean the black body is inferior or the white body is inferior, but like it or not, genetically there are some diseases that are more common in one race than another. White people have their own list of diseases to which they are more prone. It doesn’t mean either one of us experiences more stress in life, but simply that genetically there are differences between a white person and a black person that go beyond skin color…and to be fair, some of those diseases are more common in certain sub-groups rather than simply being more common in ALL white people or more common in ALL black people. Sorry to break your argument about why racism is a problem, but don’t blame racism for a problem that it is biologically implausible for it to be behind. Don’t throw racism around like it explains every problem in the world. Does racism exist, yes against pretty much every race, but is racism the cause of every problem or even most problems, no…but a lot of problems can be mitigated when people are in community.

All that I see is that I’m constantly failing

(Stellar Kart – Procrastinating)

 

I feel frustrated.

 

For a lot of reasons.

 

One of them is that I struggle to focus on anything without a lot of people around on a regular basis…and so when I have no activities outside of my apartment where I live alone and I can’t just go to the mall or something to study I am not getting much studying done…and I’m not getting much else done either. And it feels like everyone thinks suddenly I have more time and wants pieces of it, but in reality I have less time partly because my anxiety is eating some of my time and partly because being without people makes it hard for me to effectively use the time I have…and then add on all the extra things I am suddenly supposed to have time for and all the millions of emails that I get every day…

 

And at work on Tuesday they measured our spots and determined each spot was far enough apart that we could use each workstation as long as we didn’t scoot closer to each other for long periods of time. And then Wednesday they decided only a certain number of people could sit in the pharmacy and everyone else had to go to the computer lab. The computer lab is the worst place ever to work. Unlike my apartment, it is not comfortable and unlike my apartment, it does not feel safe. Unlike the pharmacy, there is no activity going on so I can’t concentrate there and feel isolated so my skype location says solitary confinement because that is what it feels like. And add to that the computer lab has no lock on the door and we know that there has been a theft problem at the hospital and we have another problem – you have to bring your stuff with you wherever you go if you want to ensure you still own your stuff later…not an effective way to work. Wednesday morning I almost cried when they said I had to work there. No one saw, but it obvi didn’t set my day up for success.

 

And I’m just about ready to just quit now. For one thing, they just reiterated today that we are not allowed to talk about Covid outside of work. I am not cool with that. I feel like it is reasonable to limit what I do or do not talk about at work or even within the confines of the building but I do not feel it is reasonable to limit what I talk about on my own time outside of work. And then they discussed that all new requests for PTO are going to be denied until at least July. I do not feel it is fair to throw that at us without notice. If I’d known I would have requested lots of PTO to make sure I had days when I needed them. I was specifically told like a week or so ago there would be a lot of flexibility with PTO so just let people know when I need time – and now I am finding out that JK no new PTO. And then we were told a mandate policy is being created for open shifts and there will be severe consequences if you don’t answer your phone and not hearing your phone even if it is because you were asleep. That is absolutely not okay with me. I have really only had two full nights of sleep in the past 8 months. If I do finally feel like I am able to sleep I am not going to try to keep myself up to make sure I can answer my phone. I do not feel that is an appropriate ask. You want a healthy workforce? Then consider that sleep is essential to a healthy immune system AND to healthy decision making. If someone *intentionally* doesn’t answer their phone without a good reason then absolutely there should be consequences, but not answering because you are asleep should be considered an important form of self-care. Additionally, I don’t feel that their approach of forcing someone to work a shift during which they already have commitments or otherwise feel uncomfortable working is a good management decision, particularly when you consider that our department has already been flagged for low morale. You don’t increase morale by forcing people to do things against their will.

 

I want to be a good employee. I want to support my team…but with everything going on right now, I feel like I might need to quit earlier than expected just to take care of myself.

 

There are some things that management is doing that I think are good ideas, but a lot if what is happening I really feel is going to push me out of this job. I feel like this confirmed that they don’t see us as people but as pegs to put in holes. Pegs don’t have feelings and emotions, but people do.

 

And I feel frustrated because I have a lot of money stuck in my reimbursement account that I lose if I don’t use before I leave this job, but with how things are going, everything is closed so I don’t have any way to even try to spend that money. I kinda get that dentists are closing since PPE is in short supply, but you don’t need PPE for ophthalmology so it is dumb that my eye doctor put out notice that they will most likely be closing…and if I want a physical to be covered it has to be through my employer but they aren’t doing any of that right now. I don’t know why I bother paying for insurance I am not allowed to use. (I mean besides the whole to be in compliance with the law thing you have to have at least basic insurance)…

 

And there are lots of other things I want to write about, but I feel like I need to stop writing and at least *try* to get some studying in.

Things Change

(Jesus will still be there – Point of Grace)

 

So true…

 

Until recently it really bothered me when people complained about the government…

 

Then this social distancing junk started. And all of my safety nets were taken away.

 

People are all like let’s flatten the curve…have you ever looked at that graph? Not flattening the curve means this is done and over with relatively quickly – the more you flatten the curve, the longer this lasts. In most graphs anyway, the same amount of people get sick either way or maybe even more people get sick if we flatten the dumb curve, so I vote we cut the c**p and just get on with our lives. It is a new strain, yes, but it is just the coronavirus, AKA one of the types of viruses causing the common cold. Is this one bad, sure, but it isn’t any less bad if we wait for a while to get it, but we can make life less bad later by getting this over with. It is an obvious vote for me. I mean, if you can choose getting sick today or getting sick two months from now but if you get sick two months from now you aren’t allowed to be happy or have friends for two months either, which one would you pick?

 

So yeah, today I broke out my immature words and decided that I hate the fr*c**n government. Then that made me think of the book Song Lee and the I Hate You Notes and I felt bad for like less than a second and then yep, back to hating the government.

 

The constitution says I have the RIGHT to life, liberty, AND the pursuit of happiness. How am I supposed to pursue happiness if I can’t go to church three days a week and go to clinic and stuff? How am I supposed to pursue happiness if y’all close all the things.

 

So yeah, I had a change of heart. I am all for complaining about the government.

 

Also there are all the things that would make me feel frustrated at any time – like constant changes, many of which that I think are dumb. Y’all, we have an attendance policy *because* without it people have no incentive to show up to work…and now you took away the attendance policy because it is great publicity to show you care about your employees when what it really means is that the honest employees are now going to have to pull the weight of all the people who just want a penalty-free day off. Not fair. I don’t buy it. And one day you say no community food. Less than 48 hours later you *provide* community food. Not that I am complaining about food, but to be honest change is hard enough for me that yeah, I was complaining about food because you just took it away and I hadn’t finished being frustrated about that yet. And today they announced that they might be changing our schedules again. They’ve changed it a lot of times over the past year or so and each time it makes things worse. Quit touching my schedule.

 

I got back from lunch today and almost started crying because I was just so done with this. To be fair, I also was running on 6 hours of sleep in the past 7 days and my anxiety is still running at like a 4 to 6 with a lot of intrusive thoughts, so I’m not in the greatest mental space to begin with, and this job was never something I loved, but still. I can’t keep going like this indefinitely. I don’t wanna talk more about the OCD today. We’ll just leave it at 0 stars would not recommend. So yeah…

 

I am working on focusing on things I can change vs things I can’t change…but it’s hard when most of the things bothering me are on the can’t change side.

 

But working on the OCD is getting closer to the can change side…so that is what I am doing…for the moment anyway, I am thinking I will intentionally not clean the floor/kitchen/sink that originally would have been on my to do list this weekend and just sit with the discomfort…it’s not like I eat off of the floor or the countertops, so it shouldn’t be a true safety concern.

 

Wanna know something else that makes me mad? A youtuber that I used to like but now I hate her because she advertised in one of her videos that people should buy masks if it makes you feel good. That is SO not okay. Wearing a mask out and about has actually been found to increase (not decrease) your risk of infection. Additionally, buying the masks when you don’t need them keeps them from people who do need them. In the pharmacy we can’t safely make IV medication without masks. The board of pharmacy and our professional associations have acknowledged that if we run out we might have to just do our best to minimize risk without them for non-hazardous products (but for our own safety really shouldn’t do hazardous without a mask), but we all know that is not the best for our patients. Giving a med via the IV route is already risky because it is bypassing the barriers to infection present when giving via the GI tract, so giving it via that route without the ability to properly protect the product from contamination during compounding is scary, especially for potentially immunosuppressed patients.

 

Also apparently people are stealing from the hospital – that is also not okay. One of the environmental services workers was telling me yesterday that a visitor stole not just some stuff from on top of the welcome desk, but stuff that was in drawers underneath…and we got an email a couple days ago about how it is against policy to steal supplies from the hospitals and clinics, which tells me that there must also have been employees contributing to theft…so now we have to be really careful to not leave anything out where someone could take it. Like seriously? Who thinks it is okay to steal from a hospital?

 

Yesterday my location comments on my skype said solitary confinement. I live by myself and then I went to work and there weren’t any computers open in the pharmacy so I had to go sit in the basement by myself…y’all, every time I saw another human in real life you would never have guessed that I ever struggled with social anxiety/selective mutism, because I was a motor mouth who literally could not stop talking. It probably kind of annoyed people around me that I wouldn’t stop talking, but take away all my social outlets and what is this extravert supposed to do with herself.

 

I might be moving out in June, but I am just about ready to put out a notice that I am looking for a roommate effective immediately or a new place to live that already has roommies. I have a twin bed, a toddler mattress on the floor, a sleeping bag, a couch, and a hammock (in addition to a pack’n’play and two bassinets) so there are lots of options if someone wants to come live with me…you just have to not come with too much luggage because my apartment is a little bit full…

 

So yeah. Writing about it helped me finally calm down enough that I think I could come up with some dinner, so I should do that and then decide if I am 1. Brave enough to join a prayer phone call and 2. Willing to stay up late to join said call…and it would be a good idea to get going on figuring out getting licensed…but I kind of feel like maybe today I am just going to give myself a break because it isn’t like my brain is functioning that great anyway.

 

And I feel frustrated because I should be excited about my residency but instead I am fighting OCD and struggling with all the other things going on.

Isolation’s Got Me

(Plumb – Faithful)

 

It might not be obvious to the outside world when I am retreating into myself and feeling isolated…but I can often feel it happening. True, I don’t usually post a lot on social media, but sometimes I can just feel myself pulling away when I know I need to be there. Or I otherwise withdraw from the social world. One of my big signs is when I don’t even want to watch youtube videos. This isn’t anhedonia. I mean, maybe it is, but that isn’t what it is about…and really, when I describe it, I use the words not wanting to watch youtube videos because it makes it more understandable, but it is really that I am no longer eager to spend time with my online friends. This is significant. Friendship is really hard for me, so when I was in high school (maybe middle school…the years blur together), I used facebook to make friends. I’d study pictures of strangers until I felt like I knew them which made me feel like I had connections with other people – and it worked really well and was a great way to bridge into meeting people in the real world since it wasn’t as scary since I already knew them a little bit. Then there was youtube (especially when daily vlogging was a common thing). I could “meet” these people and it felt like they were talking to me. I formed relationships (yes, one-sided) and hugged them through the computer screen and stuff. I have been doing life with these people for years. Instead of being eager for each new video to come out so I can spend more time with my youtube friends, I have very little interest in watching the videos. It just feels empty. When I do turn on a video it doesn’t hold my attention. I’m not even really watching. I just don’t care…and that’s how I know I need to reach back out of my turtle shell.

 

I know withdrawing is a tendency that is common with grief…I also know it is a tendency common with social anxiety and the further I retreat the harder it is to enter back into the outside world…so I, again, don’t have a coherent post today. I just have words that I need to put out there because I really need to post *something* and it doesn’t matter all *that* much what the something is…

 

I got dressed in a reasonable period of time despite having nowhere to be this morning, so that should count as a win…Wednesday night I did get my teeth brushed, but it took 25 minutes. The first 20 minutes were spent standing in front of the bathroom sink holding a tube of toothpaste trying to remember what I was about to do…the next few minutes were spent finding the toothbrush, and then actually brushing my teeth…so yeah, when the Geico lady wanted me to make a decision earlier in the day you can imagine if that was how my evening was that probably I didn’t have any margin left even before that for making a decision.

 

Sometimes you just have to be like okay, if what you are willing to eat for breakfast is a box of chocolate candy then go for it…I can still count on less than one hand the number of times I’ve had three meals in a day since that first time on August 31^st even if I count stuff like eating a single orange or a bag of skittles as having dinner. So I’m counting it as a huge win, especially because the chocolate had hazelnut in it so it even has protein…eating candy in the bathroom in between the steps of getting dressed is probably not how normal people do breakfast, but sometimes you just have to do what works.

 

So I thought probably I was an idiot after I ordered a mini trampoline because the advertisement claimed that it improved sleep. Well it came on Friday and I’m not sure exactly how much sleep I got because my clock wasn’t somewhere I could see it easily, but I am fairly certain it was at least 3 hours and maybe more than that. I am still exhausted and have that heavy tiredness all the way deep in the back of my head, but I definitely needed as much sleep as I could possibly get and maybe it was just a coincidence, but I am very satisfied with that purchase…so now I bought a badminton racket…yeah, not sure why that seemed like a good idea either…this is why I have a cabinet of random items, most of which I should have never ordered and just a few that I really thought were going to be awesome but weren’t –  like the pants that supposedly were my size, but actually were way too big and not just because I am still struggling most days to get enough food and nutrition in my body.

 

The part I did not like about the trampoline is that I slept long enough to dream and fair warning that my dreams often don’t make a whole lot of sense, but I was running through a hospital but there were things I was supposed to be doing so I kept having to hide and turn around and basically go in circles and then it seemed like a good idea to go see my dad and he was in the drivers seat of my mom’s minivan in the hospital room and was wrapped up in a mailing envelope except for one hand sticking out the top…which looked kind of weird, but I said “daddy” and he said “yes” and then I was like “you’re awake!!” and he’s like “yes I am.” And then we went to a party but the pizza was disgusting because someone put ketchup on it (I know, super weird, but one of my memories of my dad is going to a pizza party that was my first experience with pizza that has so much weird junk on it that it is basically not edible, so it almost makes sense). And then I woke up and then I cried hard enough that I thought maybe I was for real going to suffocate because I very quickly knew it wasn’t real and my daddy was never going to wake up because he is dead and I miss my daddy. (Don’t ask me why my mom’s minivan was in the hospital room or how that would even be possible…some pieces of my dreams will never make sense).

 

But anyway, I am starting to eat more. Figuring out what to eat is still a struggle and a lot of my calories are coming from candy or other less nutritious sources, but at this point my goal is to get calories in and supplement the nutrients with multivitamins. Nutrition can come later…my other goal is to get more fluids in my body. You don’t want to know the amount I am drinking…I know it isn’t enough and I am trying really hard. In the past 24 hours I have had about 10 ounces of water…I still haven’t gotten back to cooking and appropriate grocery shopping or anything and it still seems super overwhelming. I know I really need to do that again, but right now considering where my focus and memory are, I am okay with waiting another week. I have made some peanut butter sandwiches and have some pediasure and novasource protein drinks so I am still getting some real nutrition in, especially when I am at work, because at work is the one time I really feel like I am doing okay. I pretty much don’t cry at work at all, and actually can feel almost normal. Also, at work yesterday my outfit was not in compliance with the dress code because my bra straps were showing and a manager decided to come out and I was so thankful that she didn’t say anything about it…Anyway, when I am at home though I am still crying more often than I am not. I have reached the point where I know that with every other loss eventually life has gotten to a point where I am functioning reasonably again, but I wonder if this time will be different, if this will be the one that breaks me. It feels like the pain will never end and I’ll never be really okay again.

 

And it feels like life is falling apart. My laundry is still not done. My apartment is getting messy at a faster rate than I am able to keep up cleaning it. I got a letter from Medica that they are taking back their payment on my eye appointment. I got rear-ended on my way home from work on Wednesday. I forgot to renew my PPAG membership and the grace period ended. I still haven’t selected residencies and it feels even more overwhelming than usual not just because I don’t have my dad to run ideas off of or just because I am months behind at this point but also because I am realizing that I’ve never had to work on out of state travel plans without my daddy. Even my work trip that involved the airport my dad dropped me off and picked me up…and so that just adds to the stress…and I also haven’t even really thought about recommendation writers…and I feel like I could go on, but I am trying not to be a Negative Nancy or a Debbie Downer…but I don’t know how I am ever going to catch back up in life.

 

 

My whole world is the pain inside me. The best I can do is just get through this day.

(Beauty From Pain – Superchick)

 

Do you ever get a little bit of a song stuck in your and decide you want to listen to it and then get irrationally angry because the song has so much hope in it that you are definitely not ready for at the moment? No? Just me? Well, okay then…

 

So yeah, usually when I am at work I can just pretend everything is pretty much normal and I do okay. Well, at least a lot more okay than when I am at home alone. Then it was Sunday afternoon and I was struggling not to cry…and then I had a few words that I identified as being from the song Beauty From Pain by Superchic[k]. I was basically alone in the pharmacy because my partner pharmacist was at lunch one tech was delivering and the other was still in the IV room (or maybe at lunch…IDK…remembering non-vital information is not exactly my specialty at this point…remembering vital information also is probably not high up there either at the moment). Anyway, listening to good music usually helps me process and regulate my thoughts and emotions, so I decided to listen to Beauty From Pain…and I got super annoyed because I forgot how hopeful most of that song is…and I was totally not in the right frame of mind at all for hope. There are some negative lines, but they are all so closely followed by positive ones and I was really annoyed that anyone could be hopeful when my world still feels like it is falling apart.

 

I’m a fighter. I work super hard to keep going, but it is really hard right now and I feel like I am never going to catch back up. There is so much that really needs to be done, but I just can’t do it. And I’m exhausted.

 

I know I’d be more likely to eat appropriately if there was food around to eat, but I’m not ready to cook yet and I haven’t bought groceries since the banana for my daddy’s visitation/funeral that I didn’t actually eat because that was daddy’s banana…and I wouldn’t know what to buy or make anyway. Going to the store right now would be the recipe for me having a breakdown and leaving without any more food than I started with…and considering my current success with memory, sequencing, and other important executive function tasks involved in cooking, even if I was motivated to cook it would be a challenge…and it isn’t very motivating when I know whatever I make I’m going to have to eat and a lot of the time eating is still something that does not interest me at all. I *want* to want to eat, but I don’t wanna…and sometimes it is just too overwhelming and I don’t…which is how a snack of skittles yesterday evening turned into the only thing I had for dinner.

 

And my laundry isn’t doing itself. Which is a problem because the last time I attempted laundry was August 10^th…and while I still have two weeks of clean underwear and at least a week if not more of clean dress shirts left, the pants I have left are probably all big enough that to keep them up I’ll need a belt, and belts bug me…and dresses are nice sometimes but I don’t have an endless supply of those either and I only have one dress with pockets…and I like pockets…I know my laundry needs doing, but that, again, is way overwhelming and something that would be super hard for me to figure out at this point in my life…so I figure I have two more weeks to get that figured out.

 

Surviving and getting through life every day is hard work…

 

…and you know the song “laughing with” by Regina Spekter? I don’t necessarily agree with the whole song or anything, but there is a line at the end “no one’s laughing at God we’re all laughing with God.” Yeah…laughing/crying in overwhelmed frustration more like in my case…so on August 9^th, before I found out about the accident, I was writing an email to say that I was interested in volunteering for a one-day kids’ grief camp. When I found out about the accident I figured I didn’t know what was going on in my life and at that point I may be spending my weekends at a hospital in the cities so I didn’t send the email. Once my dad died and I had started writing a to do list, that is one item that made it to my to do list…and finally this week on like Tuesday or Wednesday I finally got around to sending that email with a little note added at the end commenting that a few weeks later I wasn’t sure if it was too late to sign up so no worries since I meant to sign up way sooner so it is definitely on me.

 

Well the next day I got an email that I didn’t read fully, because I can’t really focus on much of anything very long right now and also at work my primary responsibility is work, not my emails…but I got the basic gist of the email that it wasn’t too late, so here is an application to fill out. So I did and returned the application. And was accepted.

 

I hated in high school (and college to some extent) when people told me what I couldn’t do because of my social skills or assumed that I couldn’t do it. It is one thing to give me the option of an out like when they really needed an adult aged teacher for some 3-year-olds and knew I struggled to talk so I was given a video to put in the VCR in the room if I couldn’t do the lesson…it is another thing when I am told I am being skipped over in the circle (rather than being asked if I want to share) or stuff like that…People, I’m pretty sure I read at some point that Presumed Competence – giving kids (or adults) a chance to try and fail before you rescue them is way better for their emotional and social development than assuming incompetence and never giving them a chance to stretch themselves…but sometimes I wish as an adult people would question whether I am really making a good choice for myself…I mean, even as a full-fledged grown-butt adult who has learned to communicate, when I go back to the church I help with in the cities, most of the people in charge of scheduling still give me a partner teacher or another alternative to giving the lesson…I appreciate it because I am still super shy and to be honest while I don’t think anyone would call me selectively mute anymore I do still have social anxiety moments…like today when I went to the cafeteria at work and instead of getting something I would probably actually like, I was really struggling with feeling like people were staring at me and words and stuff – and I mean making decisions about food when you aren’t super interested in eating and have used most of your thinking capacity for the day isn’t exactly easy anyway – so I pretended I was with the person in front of me and just asked for whatever she got…I mean, I would have been happier and had a much higher number of calories with pizza or a hamburger than what I actually got, but I successfully purchased food which is useful because there is only like one peanut butter jelly sandwich in my freezer and I’m not sure how many high calorie meal replacement drinks are left, so a to-go box in the refrigerator is a huge blessing, even if it isn’t perfect. For that matter, I say I don’t like corn dogs, but I am pretty sure I have never actually tried one, but I would be thrilled to try one at this point if someone handed me one and told me that was my dinner.

 

Anyway, all that to say I read the email a little closer and God is funny. You wanna know what position they said they primarily needed people for? Small group facilitator. Yep. The girl who doesn’t talk is most likely going to be in charge of heading a discussion for a group of kids…and somehow I am supposed to help them tell their stories and work through their grief when I am not exactly the greatest example of that. Hashtag I am drowning. Hashtag I still cry most of the time I am alone. I am terrified. My first choice would have been a primarily behind the scenes role or a role that was really more of a playtime activity…leading a group is basically the last thing I would have requested…so yeah…pray for courage…’cause like the kid in the musical Sermon on the Mound said in response to be positive, “Okay. I’m positive. I can’t.” I’m going to try, but y’all I am super overwhelmed and terrified.  I have no idea how I am going to make this happen. And then I got the info letter and there is no bus this year so I also gotta figure out how to drive there. That way my anxiety can start going up before I even encounter another human being…so yeah…I’m kind of praying there is a magical opening in another role and simultaneously trying to pretend this never happened…I’m excited, but so terrified…but Wiggle Worm doesn’t flake out on commitments. I guess either it’ll be a major fail or else a major success…so yeah…I’m kinda laughing at God about what I just got myself into with no outside coercion at all…I wish someone was still coming behind me being like you probably can’t do this…but I guess now I just gotta do it. And I’m scared. I guess it’ll be like the song from Mary, Kate, and Ashley, Bravery, “I’m brimming with bravery. It’s scary.” Except it’s not exactly the same because when they also when it gets real scary they’ll get their dad…and I can’t get my dad because he’s dead.

 

There are some things that I kind of want to write here…but I’m not sure yet if they are things I really should share. I mean, I feel like there has to be a balance somewhere between being vulnerable and being an over-sharer. There are some things about myself I’m not sure I should share and there are also a few things that have happened that on the off chance anyone who knows me in real life and can identify people is reading I don’t want anyone to feel bad about things that they potentially could have stopped from happening…and so yeah, I think I should just end this here so I don’t write something and regret it later.

 

Oh, but on that note, if anyone from real life is reading…I am ready to admit I need help. Food is a huge struggle right now – meals would be super helpful or really anything that can be eaten with at most microwaving as the prep step. Loneliness is also a struggle – no one can replace my dad, but you can give me a distraction from my pain, or make me feel seen and heard and less alone if you don’t mind being with me. Finally, as mentioned above, it would be a huge blessing if someone just wanted to take my laundry and return it to me clean – unfolded is really just as good as folded if they are clean…you know that commercial that says “ever folded an entire basket of dirty clothes?” Well, yes, I have many times. Really, until I moved here, my laundry basket was very frequently full of dirty but nicely folded clothing, partly because more clothes fit that way, partly because it looks nice, and partly because it gives me something to do that is easy and feels good.

 

There is also a commercial that asks “have you ever called a dad with a job a working dad?” and I was like well duh, isn’t that what they are? That commercial confused me so much, because I get that most people don’t fold their dirty clothes, but why wouldn’t you call a dad with a job a working dad?! That don’t make no sense at all to me that anyone wouldn’t…K bedtime. I finally stopped crying for the moment so I should capitalize on that success and see if I can get some sleep while I am not adding literal drowning to the emotional drowning…

To Hide in the Shadows…I Wouldn’t Know the Beauty of Being Free

(We are Messengers – Maybe It’s Okay)

 

“But I’m just not that strong”

 

These were the last words of the video I watched a couple days ago. It bugged the h**k out of me that the whole story didn’t get told, but that last line left me feeling like I connected.

 

People tell me I am resilient. People tell me I am brave. People tell me I persevere…but I don’t feel like those things are true. Sometimes it just feels like life is going to drown me. The image I had in my head in high school was that sometimes there was like a flood and I was clinging to the ceiling rafters for dear life just trying to keep my head above water but also terrified knowing that if the water goes up much higher there will be no more possibility of keeping my head above water. Similarly, the image I get now is a raging river and there are bricks strapped to my body keeping me from swimming or fighting the current, and there are rocks and maybe even a waterfall coming up and I am desperate and grab onto weeds on the side of the river. I know eventually the weeds will break when forced to deal with the tension of my body being pulled against them. I keep fighting, but I know ultimately no matter what I do, I am doomed to lose the fight. But I am a fighter. I refuse to just give up. I fight and fight and fight just trying to survive when what I really want is to thrive, but I am exhausted and it is hard when there might not even be an end.

 

The radio dude today said that change is painful. Growth is painful, but staying stuck where you don’t want to be is the most painful of all.

 

Another radio dude was talking about how when someone is hopeless it should be a nurse’s job to either provide help or get help for the person to come to terms with their circumstances and move forward, but the American Nurses Association has now come out with the idea that nurses should be non-judgmental about patients’ decision to end their lives. Apparently in the guidance statement, the association recommends that nurses identify their own bias to help prevent it from impacting their care of a patient. The radio dude put into better words than I could have how wrong this position is. You are either for or against death, and there is no way to not be judgmental about it, and not only that, but this is a decision with deadly consequences. The wrong choice literally leads to death. How can a nurse whose role is supposed to be to promote healing possibly supposed to be non-judgmental about killing someone? Homicide is never okay even if the person you are killing thinks they want to be killed.

 

On Tuesday I was thinking on my way to my car that I wish I could go back to high school when supposedly I was throwing my life away because I could do anything and all I wanted to do was pharmacy. As much as I hated that people didn’t respect what I wanted to do and didn’t understand the potential challenges in pharmacy, and as much as I hated when people acted like I was perfect refusing to believe that I was succeeding not because I was so awesome but because I was working harder than anyone else, it did feel better for people to recognize I had potential than to be where I am now being constantly rejected and facing the words I heard over and over that I’d never make it; I’d never be wanted as a pharmacist. It feels true. Then as I was driving to work, the song No Matter What by Ryan Stevenson came on and it starts “a lot of us grew up believing at any moment we could lose it all…thinking we’re just too far gone.” And then it goes on to how now we should know no matter what God is there wanting to help us live our best lives. It caught me in those words how backwards that is of my life, yet how true it is that even when it seems like God has moved on, that I have value.

 

Thursday is going to the critical access hospital where they took out our pharmacy day when I work my critical access site. So I had a lot of time in my car…and there were three songs that I don’t even know why I liked them. Maybe it was the words, or the music, or both, or just that I had been struggling to find a radio station I could actually pick up, but I really loved “Famous For” by Alexis Slifer, “Something Broke” by Jeremy Benjamin, and “Is He Worthy” by Andrew Petersen. Also, funny story, when I pulled up the songs on youtube to find out what their names were, both of the first two songs music videos started with a girl laying on the floor in the clearing of a forest.

 

K. So the rest of this I prob shouldn’t have even thought about posting…but sometimes I don’t care that much about what I should or shouldn’t post. I was silenced for so long about things I should have been talking about that even things I maybe shouldn’t say sometimes I just want to say because I can. Of course there are certainly also times because of my social anxiety/selective mutism that internally I want nothing more than to share what I have been thinking, but once the focus is on me the words dissipate like the smoke from a birthday candle blown out on a windy day. The words are just gone and I can try really hard to get them back, but most people don’t know how to help me get there…the more pressure there is to talk the less likely I am to speak, yet I need someone to wait long enough before giving up that I have a chance to try…and the people who are really successful in communicating with me when I am struggling I will admit also do a lot of guess and check, and a lot of letting me just be involved in parallel play and come in and out of the conversation when I am ready rather than making it super formal but also make it very clear that conversation is expected so I don’t just go live in my own world. And sometimes people try everything and I still can’t talk and I just really appreciate being with people. People are super important to me, so just being with someone means a lot to me even if no words are exchanged. I would be thrilled to just live next to my friends. Once in a while I’m sure we’d more formally hang out, but just the nodding or waving hello and goodbye as we see each other in passing would do so much for my soul.

 

***And I started writing this post like a week and almost a half ago…and I think probably the reason I never posted it is because I was smart enough to realize eventually I would regret posting some of this stuff, so I have edited the rest of this post to tone it down to a more appropriately shareable post. It still probably isn’t all the way to something I should share, but it is at least a whole lot closer to being appropriate.***

 

At work a few weeks ago we did a few week positivity campaign…but here’s the thing, telling us to be positive is basically forcing toxic positivity on us. And a lot of that time I was feeling a lot less than positive. I’m sure positivity is great…when used at the right time in the right way…but you can’t force positivity and resilience down people’s throats and expect it to be a good thing.

 

There are a lot of things about my job that I am really frustrated with aside from the residency issue.

 

Our survey results came back. The managers’ perspective is that it is great that every category improved and overall satisfaction increased 13% which is highly significant. From my perspective, only 55% of us responded. That is highly concerning because after the last survey people were frustrated because the results were never addressed so most likely the most upset people didn’t bother using their time to fill out a survey they felt no one was going to acknowledge.

 

One of our lowest scores: engagement. We ALL were trained to do everything eventually…but they keep scheduling us as if we still had two separate teams. The schedule says that there are four clinical practice guidelines positions…if you ask anyone, they will tell you there are three and attribute the other position to an order entry position. That makes me angry. If I am somehow not good enough to do all the things then why is it okay for me to do the things with some patients but not others? Do those patients not matter as much? If so, that is even more infuriating. I am so frustrated. I totally understand asking if there are areas certain people don’t want to work and honoring those requests as long as there are enough people who don’t care, but I am frustrated with how things are.

 

And we have people who use safety reports to try to tear people down. And it is frustrating on both sides. I don’t like my coworkers being torn down. I don’t think it is an effective way to solve disagreements, and it isn’t the intended purpose of safety reports. I am not going to say I have never done it before. I have done it one time as well when I was just way too upset to express myself more appropriately and safety reported a coworker for dispensing 144 packets of ointment instead of one at a time…and really I don’t fault people for the once in a while doing that. My problem is the people who do it constantly.

 

…And…we’re just going to skip the next entire page because I can’t figure outhow to make that more appropriate…

 

But really I don’t hate my job most of the time. Most of the time I really am able to pretend to be content and just do it, but when there are other issues like the residency thing, my ability to have any margin to be able to cope with things kinda disappears.

 

I am so frustrated with the residency process. I agree with the majority of articles that the match doesn’t work, and very much disagree with the small minority of articles praising the efficacy of the match. I also think it is ridiculous that each application has a fee associated with it. My opinion is that there should be one flat fee for applying, and that fee should either be refunded or used as prepayment on membership dues if a position is not obtained. Not only do I think that would be much more fair for the students (and non-students like me in the process), but it would also give ASHP (and the corresponding organizations for the other professions using centralized application systems with the national matching service) a much needed incentive to reform the system if they weren’t allowed to just keep all the fees paid in. It would also mean that programs that participate but intentionally do not rank anyone in order to hand pick later would not end up causing unsuspecting candidates to be penalized financially for falling for the trap.

 

I am frustrated that the further out I get from school the lower the ratio interviews to applications. I am frustrated that no one is willing to give me a chance. I am frustrated that I am stuck here.

 

I feel really disrespected that one particular program told me in phase I that I was on their waiting list if that was okay with me, but would not get an interview in phase I unless someone else was unable to accept the interview offer. They didn’t match and I re-applied in phase II…and didn’t get an interview. Not only that, but they didn’t even give me the dignity of a you’re wait-listed again or you are no longer being considered. That made me angry. It made me feel like the whole waitlist thing was pretty much a lie so they didn’t have to actually say no since they weren’t even interested in acknowledging me in phase II, much less taking me from waitlist to actual interview. I also wish the rule was removed that made it okay in phase II (and the scramble) for programs to just ignore applicants they are not interested in. Even the mass email form letter saying sorry you’re still a loser is better than nothing. We are real people, not just little numbers that didn’t quite line up.

 

Part of me really really really wants to be hopeful and believe this time I might finally get a residency…but there is the other part of me realizing that the more excited I get about a residency the more it will hurt when the answer is no again. I want to be excited and start making plans…and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t already started working on travel plans for licensure in another state…and started thinking about what is important to me in where I live and how I am going to move and…well….I haven’t been guarding my heart very well. I tried to balance that out by thinking about maybe doing like respite care this summer if I don’t match…but if we’re being real, I am very aware that if I don’t match I am probably not going to be emotionally available enough to really give a child the attention they need to thrive…Failing to match is so real in my world. It is kind of the norm and I don’t know where I am going if I don’t match, because I am so frustrated with still being here but don’t really have much in the way of options to go anywhere else.

 

Sometimes I am excited for the possibilities…but then minutes later I am just trying to hold my world together as the reality of potentially failing again comes crashing back into my world. Sometimes the mask rips off and I am crying…and other times I am doing just fine…

 

…but also, I’m still staying up late to make sure I give myself every chance possible of falling asleep without crying…and I’m still playing way too much of games like Vegas Nights and Bejeweled Blitz that let me keep my mind distracted enough to feel at least numb…and sometimes I totally will take numb. It is better than feeling bad. It might not feel good, but it is still better than feeling bad.

All I Need is What You’ve Given Me

(Well of Lies – Flyleaf)

Sometimes it makes me angry when companies try to do something nice and people blast them with hatred because people are entitled brats sometimes…yep, I went there…

 

So build a bear held a pay your age day. Awesome, right? Well, as you can imagine, it was very crowded and not too long after opening they already had to close the lines because they had as many people as they could handle all day lined up. Note, that they closed the LINES, not the STORES. If you were already in line BEFORE the lines were closed you still got to wait for hours in line to get a bear. Is that fair? Absolutely, it was noted from the start that the event was only “while supplies last.” Build a Bear could have let you stand in line all day just to tell you hours later at closing that no, you can’t have a bear, not yours, but instead they had the decency and courtesy to acknowledge as early as they could that they had reached capacity for the event.

 

Build a bear then went the extra mile and offered vouchers to anyone trying to join the line after the cut off. Build a bear then went like an extra marathon and offered a new birthday program extending the pay your age offer to your entire birthday month every year. Build a bear then went another extra couple marathons and offered vouchers to EVERYONE ON THE INTERNET whether they even had any interest or ability to attend the original event in the first place or not. And these vouchers were not chump change. These vouchers were for $15 off, which is BETTER than paying your age anyway, because like some of the sane commenters pointed out, most of the bears are $12-15, so with the voucher, the bear is FREE.

 

And people are insanely upset. Which is retarded. Yep, I definitely did go beyond just stupid to the ultimate elementary school insult, retarded. People are saying that they were discriminated against or disability shamed because they weren’t allowed to cut the line because they or their children has a disability. Umm, you were absolutely not discriminated against or disability shamed. Both of those terms imply you were treated differently because of a disability, when in fact your complaint is that you were treated identically to every other person in line. Unlike seems to be popular opinion, it is a disability, not a gold status for life card. Having a disability doesn’t mean you should expect extra privileges that no one else accesses. Some places do offer special privileges for disabled people, but it should be viewed as a gift, not an expectation. Y’all acting like everyone in the world owes you compensation for having a disability are pretty much why disability shaming became a thing. People resent that you have an entitlement complex.

 

People are also saying that the event should have only been for people who needed it and people who just wanted a discount on a toy should have been turned away. Umm, since when is a stuffed animal EVER a need? I can’t think of a single instance in which a stuffed animal is anything more than a want…they aren’t even a toy most kids actually enjoy playing with. And if for some reason your kid does somehow need a stuffed animal, like another sane commenter pointed out, you can do like she did and take your kids to the local dollar store to pick out an even cheaper stuffed animal…without even having to wait in an hours long line.

 

Yeah, I get really angry about these things. Build a bear went out of their way to do something super nice for the community and did so much that they really didn’t have to do, and people are bashing them for it.

 

It is the same thing with my grocery store. They have coupons and deals advertised on their website every week and post a few of the deals they think might be more exciting on their facebook page…where people berate them for having a deal on this product when that product is the one they would prefer to buy, or why is it only the single cup of yogurt for 25 cents when I think I should be able to buy the 8-pack for 25 cents because that would be a better deal, or why is only the deal only good for fresh carrots when frozen carrots taste better, or it’s not fair that only that brand of granola bars is on sale this week because I’m allergic to that brand so I should be able to substitute whatever brand I can have instead but the cashier said no and that is discrimination. Umm, no, the sale is on whatever items it is on and that is for the store to decide, not you. You may notice that all the stores in your area have deals on almost the same items each week. That isn’t just a weird coincidence. It is because the sales are often based at least in part on deals the manufacturer is willing to give the store to promote purchase of their product. Those items are the special because those re the items whose manufacturer was willing to spend a little extra to promote this week which is why no, unless you get a spineless employee, you can’t substitute the gallon of super premium ultimate milkshake for the 8-oz bottle of shoppers value white skim milk. The manufacturers and the stores have no obligation to give you any discount on any product. The correct response is “thank you,” not “but I wanted more.”

 

Okay, rant over…

 

This post has been on my computer for a few days. I didn’t really know why, but I didn’t feel ready to hit publish. Then I realized why it wasn’t getting published. It doesn’t feel finished because anyone who really knows me would likely quickly identify that I have been through way too much in my life to ever get this angry over something as silly as people getting butt hurt and rude about stuffed animals and groceries. But the other reason I was feeling angry isn’t something I know how to write about on the internet. I guess it is a good reminder that there is often a lot more going on than just the center stage act.

She Wonders Why

(Britt Nicole – When She Cries)

 

So, being real honest here…today was an especially rough day in my world, and I told myself I needed to communicate somewhere instead of just living inside my head…so I decided blogging was easiest…

 

I know I need to trust God’s plans, but sometimes it is hard.

 

Sometimes when I’m struggling I start to isolate myself because despite how deeply I yearn for community, it feels so hard sometimes to do anything but just get through the day.

 

I’m a fighter. I will get through it.

 

There’s that phrase I heard somewhere a long time ago, if a tree falls in a deserted forest does it make a sound…I mean, considering the laws of physics, I would have to say yes…but anyway, yesterday I accidentally cried at work, and was wondering if no one was around to see does it really count as crying in a public place?

 

Sunday is world suicide prevention day. Sometimes I wish I believed in suicide, because that would be so much easier than continuing through all the pain…but I don’t believe in suicide, and I have to believe that God will help get me through. It may be true that prayer changes people more than it changes situations, but even if I am stuck here, being more able to cope with it emotionally will still be good. The residency cruise ship has sailed, and I have to learn how to live on this rowboat in a stormy ocean that God put me on instead and just hold on, trying not to go under.

 

Most days I am doing a lot better…okay, all days I am doing a lot better…but some days are a lot better than others. Today was another day I was struggling to eat dinner. But I am strong. I asked myself what I wanted to eat and the resounding answer was nothing…not even skittles sounded good…but I knew nothing wasn’t a dinner option. It took all evening, but dinner was eaten. I did it. I have to remember, like in Estherday, “the very last minute isn’t late when God is in it.”