So, I will preface this with a bit of a caveat. I know that, in the big picture, I have nothing to complain about. I know I have a good job and live in a safe, warm, place, and I am relatively healthy and all the rest. I know this, and realize that I am better off than millions, likely billions of people.
We all know this, we are all in the top 10% of lucky people. But this does not stop us from worrying and stressing-out and being frustrated with our lives sometimes.
In the fall, I find it a very cozy season, where I want to draw into myself, and focus on making my home and self happy and healthy. But this season, it seems, I am not to have that chance yet.
I have friends I've been neglecting. Not on purpose - but just by the way life happens. One of my very best friends I haven't seen since April. Her little boy is growing up so fast, and I swore I'd be right there watching every step of the way, and I haven't. I live on the opposite side of a gigantic city, and somehow something always comes up. On my end or theirs, and I'm missing them so so much. Even friends closer to me geographically, say 'hey, let's make plans'... I say 'yeah, for sure let's do that..." But then nothing happens. And I feel like I'm letting them down. And it's not that I don't want to see them, I REALLY do. And always feel better after seeing them. But in the immediate here-and-now all I want to do is hide from the things that are worrying me.
I have Grandparents on both sides who are sick and frail and not quite here and not quite gone. My maternal Grandmother doesn't recognize us granddaughters, and I don't know what to say or how to feel about it, except sad. And so, I usually have something else I'd rather do than to visit, as much as I feel so evil saying it. My paternal Grandmother recently was placed in a 'care facility' because she stopped recognizing her husband of 70 years. She is not being told the truth about where she is, or where her husband is, because the doctors don't think she can handle the fact that she won't be going home, and won't live with my grandfather anymore. And then there's my grandfather - who is physically and mentally remarkably healthy, but so so heart-sick, because of his wife's mental and physical sickness, and feels that it is HIS JOB ALONE to care for her and provide all the help she needs. It's been that way for 70 years, how can he do anything different now? They are living about 30 minutes away from eachother right now, and he hasn't driven more than 10 minutes for years, so can only visit her a few times a week, when other relatives drive him over there. We hope so dearly that he will pick up some of his old hobbies and interests again now that she won't be his full time job anymore, but are so so worried that he will just be lost without her.
And, more selfishly, I am stressed out about work. I was in the field (Whitecourt) last week all week, and tomorrow I leave (Athabasca, Whitecourt, Swant Hills) for another four days. Then I get to be home for 2 weeks, and then have another solid week in/around Fairview. This sort of travel wears me out. It uses me up and runs me down. I'm not sure what it is that is so exhausting, but I always come home feeling like I haven't slept in days. Last week I got home on Thursday, and stayed home on Friday - and slept in until 12, making that 14 hours of sleep. That is not normal!!!
When I travel with Brian, it is exciting and it lifts me up. It makes me so happy with myself and my life, and has really transformative, even healing powers. Travel for fun can heal so much in me. But this business travel stuff... Just pulls me out of my environment, my patterns, my safe places. It forces me out and puts me in situations I am not familiar or comfortable with, and I just have to deal. When I am on these trips, I can't stop worrying about whether the projector bulb will burn out, or my company-loaner-laptop will die on me, or corrupt my files. Or what if a moose wanders across the highway in front of me and I land in the ditch? Or what if I don't know the edges of the monstrous truck I've rented, and side-swipe someone else? What if I'm not entirely safe out there on my own? What if someone has miscommunicated the schedule, and I show up a couple days early, or a couple hours late? What if my alarm doesn't go off? What if I can't find the field office and have no cell reception to call for better directions? What if ANYTHING goes wrong while I have no cell reception? What about the BIG things? Plane crash, car crash, anything...
I know these things can happen anywhere at anytime... But I feel so much more vulnerable to it when I'm out there by myself, in a place I don't know, and to some extent don't understand.
This is a part of my job, and I know that. I have always made sure my boss knows I can only handle a certain level of it. In the past, it's generally been a field trip of a few days, every 3 months or so. When it happens like that, it's short and I can just hold my breath and deal with it, and come out saying "that wasn't so bad". But when it's 3 out of 5 weeks in a row, it gets to me. I've often said that if it got that frequent, I would quit. But I know this is not permanent. It's just right now. And partly because I didn't do much travel earlier in the year, so it's just getting all stacked up now, while everyone's panicking that we're heading into Q4 and still have a long list of stuff to get done. And I'm pretty sure after Fairview in October, that will be it for the year... And I MAY not have to travel next year.
And this is yet one more bit of aggravation in my life... I don't really know how much detail I should have on here, regarding my job. So I will try to keep it minimal, and apologize if it is way too vague to get. But there is a certain 'process' that I run here. There's this one 'thing' I'm in charge of, and it's currently done in a spreadsheet form. Various spreadsheets - approximately 150. I have recently been informed that this 'process' is changing. They're going to a database of sorts. It'll be more automatic, but cover-off a lot more than our current process does. And this is honestly pretty-much all I know. My boss has told me two things:
1. Your work life will change drastically.
2. You'll still have a job... Honest.
So I've been told this new process will require very minimal human input, and that my job will be to oversee it. To me, this raises an eyebrow. Am I being replaced by a computer, or not? It makes sense for the process to go this way, and if that's the fact, then I just want to know about it. But they insist I won't be out of a job... without actually telling me what my job might consist of. Does this seem odd to anyone else? Could they be setting up to lay me off, without telling me ahead of time so I keep up the 'good work' in the mean-time? I mean, I don't think so... But there's this little voice at the back of my head...
And, I think that's all the whining that's fit to share... I don't mean to whine, I really don't. But sometimes it just builds up and up and I've gotta let it out somehow. This morning I've been having problems with some new rules about how we can and cannot move files around, and it's making everything that much more complicated and annoying, and I was either about to scream or throw something, and thought a little rant might get some of this worry and frustration off my chest.
I know it doesn't fix anything, and I know I still need to figure out how to be there for my family and friends and job all at the same time, with no energy whatsoever.
Although... I've finally got an appointment with an endocrinologist in late October. Endocrinology is the study of hormones, and of course my thyroid problems are hormone problems, and my own doctor has stuck me on pills and advised me to "just deal with it" for about 10 years now. My boss was the one who actually suggested I see a specialist. Maybe she will also tell me to just deal with it, and then I'll continue to do that as best I can - but at least she might be in a position to answer my questions which I've previously only been able to turn to the internet for. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but sometimes hypothyroid sufferers do find a new doctor who manages to find a fix that turns their whole lives around... I can't even imagine how awesome it would be if my metabolism suddenly started to work properly! Omg! Energy, what's that???
Haha. Okay, enough is enough. I actually have a LOT of work to get done here before heading north again tomorrow... So instead of procrastinating and whining, I'm going to go try to get it done now. Wish me luck!
