Be brave. Without bravery, you will never know the world as richly as it wants to be known. Without bravery, your life will remain small- far smaller than you probably wanted your life to be.”-Elizabeth Gilbert

A special friend of mine has a show right now. In her words, the project is: We all have stories we tell ourselves. “You are fat, and ugly, and no one wants you” we say. Or, “You are strong and beautiful and I love you.” The stories change from day to day, hour to hour. Some of the stories were written for us years ago with other people’s words. Some we are writing now, willfully, choosing carefully, deciding what we will become. It isn’t easy.

In this project we will explore the words we use to tell these stories, and the marks they leave on us.

I attended the opening reception and even though I know the project and people who participated, it is amazing the effect there is when seeing the photos together and with some of the stories. Be prepared to leave the show affected and deep in thought. It is interesting to see how different people take in the show and when you discuss it with friends later. In talking with one gentleman, he was saying how he felt the trigger for the horrible thoughts women have is due to boys who don’t have the maturity to handle puberty and breasts and hormones. He seemed to think most of the problems come from males. A discussion with a girlfriend led to how we both agree that other females can be even harsher critics that boys and sometimes all it takes is a comment from a seemingly well-meaning family member to start a life of self-criticism. And let’s be honest, we are our own worst enemies. In one course I was in, we were discussing the words that we say to ourselves every day, every hour, whatever. If we said these things to other people, we would be horrified. And yet, we don’t question it when we say these words to ourselves.

I had dinner with a great friend of mine, S, recently and when she took off her coat, I couldn’t help but notice how lean she looks. When I mentioned it, she said that ever since she had a break-through recently in her thoughts, noticed that her body had changed – like she was holding literally on to weight, size, whatever, because of the mental obstacles. I made a joke that I was obviously holding on to a lot of mental issues. I think we both knew that there was truth in that statement, but being the good queen of de-nial, I adjusted the topic and left it to stew in the back of my thoughts. It takes me a long time to think things through and want to share the thoughts. And usually by the time I am ready to talk, there is no one around to talk to. Whether that is because it took me a while to work up to talking during a girls’ night and now it’s time to go home or whether because I am having so much fun catching up and talking about other things that it never seems the right time to discuss these seemingly random thoughts in my head.
Sadly, this means I usually keep the thoughts to myself. And what are some of these random thoughts:
- Why am I the one who got interested in sex so early and yet my currently life is so vacant of sex?
- Why am I someone who was interested early in polyamory and BDSM and such and yet I’m the one not living this to my full interest?
- Why is my well so damaged and empty that I am full of exhaustion (mental, physical, emotional)?
- How do I fill my well when it seems like my usual methods aren’t doing a very good job?
- How do I find interest and joy in my job again? Is it time for a change? What do I want to do?
- Why am I constantly self-sabotaging my efforts to be healthier and happier?
- Why does it seem like there is less time in the day and less sleep during the night?

At work, the team is not doing well. One is in the hospital and expected to be off for 6 weeks. Another is taking medical appointments every week. The third, who like me does the most work, keeps getting sick and her bouts seem to be getting worse. We have a part-timer who is doing well and has little to do because the rest of us can’t get caught up with our own work to provide her feedback on her work. We finally have another who has returned for a special project, so while he will help with that, it doesn’t help us with the regular work. And then there is me. Fortunately, I haven’t been getting sick, but headaches, tension in the shoulders, tightness and soreness in the legs – it all adds up to the effects of stress. And my boss’s response is that I need to let go, accept that we may have to do less quality work, accept that the others won’t do as good as a job, and give up the few things that bring me joy – like mentoring any new folks, training, and maintenance and improvements on some spreadsheets that I’ve called ‘my babies.’ Fair – hell no. And she approaches me with these ideas and I feel like I can’t say what I want to say. Her latest is that we may be getting a new person. This person has already identified to me that they are coming over because of me and wants to be mentored by me, but the boss wants someone else to do the mentoring to bring up their skills. Do I get where my boss is coming from? Absolutely. Do I think this person needs to work on their leaderships skills? Heck yes. Is it something I would rather do? Oh yeah. So part of me feels like I am doing such great work that I am getting punished; that someone who is not doing very well in their job is getting this honour; that I feel sorry for the new person because I don’t think they’ll get mentored well. I am hopeful that this will be something that will engage this team member and she will return to being on track for being a great person for this position. But I still hear what everyone else is doing and I’m doing triple the work that this person is doing. There is a part of me that is wanting to get out – try something new – take an assignment elsewhere. The problem with an assignment is that they could pull operational needs and pull me back and do I really want to come back to a place where the quality will have decreased significantly with me gone. I see what work these people do and I just think they are not there yet. Some because they are new – some for reasons I can’t fathom. But I am also aware the grass is not always greener and if I don’t do an assignment, then I have no fallback. But really – could I come back knowing how different the quality would be? Do I want to come back if nothing has changed, just the standards lowered? I just don’t know. And to some extent, I feel like my boss wants me to leave – so the standards could be lowered, so that the higher ups could see we are under-resourced and trained, and hopefully, some in the team would pick up their socks and maybe do better. Honestly, it is a very hard environment to work in.

And then I come home and I’m mentally exhausted. I am physically sore and I am uninterested in doing a lot of things. Add in an absentee D who is involved in lots of things and yet can’t seem to make an effort to understand and respect our differences so to help me recover. Who wants to have people over and yet doesn’t understand how coming home at 7 in the evening reduces the opportunity to have people over. Let alone leaving me to be the one to clean the house and prep for people isn’t exactly fair, especially when D comes in and then tries to take over. Uh – no – people who don’t help plan, clean, prep (let alone clean up) for the party, don’t get take over.

I am just finding things quite frustrating right now.

Add in ‘ndie’s mom is in the hospital again and there is worry there. My dad had one knee replaced and goes in for the other in June. Mom’s back is still in utter pain. I rarely get to see my brother and the kids. I barely talk to my other niece and her mother. I feel like I can’t do anything well right now. And this include relaxing, letting go, organizing, cleaning, being. Thank goodness for my kitty – who makes me laugh daily and loves me a lot.

I’m just tired. I found a cute pic of kitty:

I want the three months of sleep. Teehee.
Anyway, I should move on to finishing chores and thinking about supper.