Falling to pieces / somebody put me together
Had lunch with old bosses and new yesterday. It was the highlight of my week.
I worked late every night this week to prepare. And worked really late last night over a big fat hairy fuckup I made.
There’s one project I run that has taken 20 hours of my week. That would be fine if I only worked 40 hours, but this was another 80-hour week. And while I was just about to make the fuckup (honestly, I hit a button on a broadcast form I am accustomed to hitting — who knew I wasn’t supposed to hit it on this particular day?), I had my IM and inbox dinging with A) “Where is it? you need to get this done. Did we mention you need to get this done?” and B) “Yeah there’s all this other shit you didn’t manage to get done during these 80-hour weeks. Now we have to meet because of that.”
My colleague, when he heard about the fuckup, said hey, it’s 7 p.m. on a Friday night. Be kind to yourself. Shit happens.
I wasn’t even distracted. I don’t make plans on Friday nights. I know better. The only reason I was even “rushing” was because everyone was whining about going home or on vacation.
Meanwhile I’m sitting here with a stress-induced autoimmune disorder. But sure, everyone go happily along. I was up all night stressed out from this day/week.
Sitting there with my old teams and new, I couldn’t help but think if I could take the best qualities of both, I’d be in an ideal situation. God I would love to have all of us on the same team.
But it occurs to me that my biggest value to them all is the fact that I work constantly. Sure they like and worship me and all. As well they should, because they get everything I have to offer and then some. But if/when this disorder knocks me out and takes me down, what then?
It has been said that we work ourselves to death out of fear — the fear of not being liked/respected/promoted, the fear of not having nice things, the fear of not having a roof over our heads, the fear of failing (either ourselves or others).
I think that’s true. I have a momma to support. I fail her daily. Every time someone tosses me to the curb, it puts her into further jeopardy. So maybe I do try to make myself overly valuable, in hopes that when a big fat hairy fuckup day like yesterday happens, they’ll let it go.
I just wish *I* could let it go. Maybe I’ll get some sleep tomorrow night.
It just kills me that for two hours of joy of seeing my old friends, I have to endure a world of pain afterward.
My good friend Lachlan pointed that out recently, that I deny myself the things I crave and deserve. It’s days like yesterday that perfectly illustrate why.
My fear is that, every time I can breathe or feel happy or even feel a little bit healthy, I should know disaster is on its way.
So if I’m never happy or well, nothing too bad will ever happen to take it away.
And we wonder why I’m falling apart …