role model

We have a consultant at the office for a few weeks.

I was very nervous to meet her, but now I am so grateful that I have. She is such an inspiration to me, not just in her line of work but as a person as well. And I feel that I owe a whole new debt of gratitude to my Aunt, who brought this person into my life, for my good.

When I was a kid, and a young adult, I could never answer the question, "Who is your biggest role model?" I didn't have one. There were a few people in the world that I loved and even admired, but I couldn't say I wanted my life to look like theirs. I couldn't say I wanted to make the same decisions they had made. Long ago I had simply set out blindly, in a direction I could only hope was right.

But now! What a lovely surprise, to find someone I truly want to be like, someone I wish to emulate as a whole. It is wonderfully encouraging to see in her that it really is possible to be the kind of wife, mother, co-worker, and friend that I have always hoped to be.

beautiful, glamorous, confident, brave

At work there was a tiny Korean boy staring at me for at least two minutes from his seat in the shopping cart, while I rang up his mother's purchases.

Tiny boy (quite suddenly): "You are very pretty!"

Me: "Oh! Thank you sweetness; it's very nice of you to say that."

Tiny boy (stage whisper): "Mama, don't you think she is so, so pretty?"

An encounter such as this never ceases to amaze. It also serves to remind me: I have always hoped that my own children will think of me as beautiful and glamorous and confident and brave -- and that it will be easy for them to be proud of me.

I am grateful, today, for the small comforts that conventional beauty can bring... And for bold compliments from children who don't yet know how to be disingenuous.

omg

Really reaching the end of my rope with Customer Service, I think. The last week or so it has been harder than ever before to bite my tongue and be polite to the awful/rude/belligerant/obtuse customers who try to rip me off every day. I was abused by other people for most of my life, but for over a year I have not been a part of any abusive relationships... So it comes as much more of a shock now when people treat me badly, and I am getting angry. REALLY angry. Too angry to be continuously serving customers; I fear I am going to become something of a liabilty if I don't get out very soon.

Today, a horrible woman gave me a very bad time, then gave the assistant manager a bad time, then gave the manager a bad time, carrying on in a loud voice and insulting us and the store and saying she didn't have time for this (um, SHE didn't have time for this?!) and basically trying to get us to do what she wanted. We each said/recited the exact same thing (in effect: "no") and finally she stormed out... But then, just before she got in her car, she walked halfway back, and flung the banged-up shoes she had been trying to return at the store windows!!

Bitch, please.

Thankfully she was a pathetic shot, and the shoes landed miserably short, but still. Such infantile behavior. I'm telling you, it was all I could do not to cut her to bits (verbally, of course) while she was standing there insulting me.

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So. Hope hope hoping that I will get that wonderful phonecall, be able to give my notice, and finally see the light at the end of this tunnel. Once I quit, my dream is to never have to work in retail again. It's just not the thing for me.

eep!

On Monday I went and did an office skills assessment for KP Human Resources, and this morning I got a call from the recruiter: I did really well on my assessment, and they want to call me back and set up an interview for sometime next week.... Fingers crossed! This could (finally) be it, the opportunity I've been waiting for.

a few things

My thoughts are a bit disconnected this morning, tired and rebellious and refusing to be put down in prose; so I present them to you instead in list form. That'll show 'em.

1. Only four days left to enter my giveaway. You could win a free book.
2. Consider submitting an entry to Creme de la Creme; it's for everyone in the ALI (Adoption/Loss/Infertility) community. Even if you don't think your writing is very good, do it anyway. It could really help someone else out there to not feel so alone.
3. Your comments mean the world to me, no matter how brief. Don't be shy.
4. Tell me, if you would, about a holiday tradition that you started yourself. I am curious. Also, I might want to copy you.
5. I have a calendar page on my desk and I am marking down the days until I leave for my trip to Australia. Can't wait!! I am doing a Jillian Michaels workout 4-5 days a week until then, so that I won't be too self-conscious at the beach. Kicking. My. Butt.

So. I guess those are the main things I wanted to tell you. Oh and also, for the record: I hate Black Friday. I have to go to work soon, and I am dreading it. I will be there for at least 9-10 hours, ringing up cranky customers and then trying to put the store back together again after they are all gone. It's going to be awful. I plan to get through it 2 hours at a time. Wish me luck.

exacerbated

Time for some whinging. Feel free to tune out.


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I hate my job.

Hate.

Hate, hate, hatehatehate!

Normally, I would quickly add: "But I am thankful that I at least have a job.
I know I'm really lucky."

But do you want to know a secret?

I'm not thankful. I'm not thankful at all.

And I don't really think I'm lucky. (By what stretch of the imagination am I lucky?) I think my life sucks and it's never going to get any easier and why can't someone just take care of this shit for me? That's what I really think. I think I am always going to be poor and I'm never going to be able to pay back my loans or get my own apartment or travel or do anything fun, ever.

I am so tired of working in stupid stores selling stupid shit to stupid people who don't actually need any of it. I am tired of mean bitches talking to me like I'm an idiot, or some kind of lowly servant girl, or a subclass of human. I am tired of busting my ass for a measly $8-minus-taxes an hour, while my lazy coworkers hide in the breakroom or go outside to smoke or leave early without telling anyone. (M says I think I'm better than them -- but I don't think that. I know it.)

I am tired of being so goddam agreeable all the time.

I am tired all. the. time.

They keep telling me I need to smile more.
My first thought is always, unexpectedly, "Fuck you."


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I fear that there is no justice in the world.

recap & examination

It wasn't so bad. (The night at work, I mean.) A couple of my co-workers managed to cheer me up enough to get me through.

And the experience made me look more closely at a hard truth. The truth about why I said "Okay." Even though I didn't want to. Even though I was rejecting the idea with every part of myself. It is the story of my life. My fight-or-flight response mechanism has been brutally maimed. I'm more of the play-dead type. It's how I survived the horrors. So when I have a visceral response to a situation that tells me it is not good, I also have an ingrained, counterintuitive voice that kicks in and immediately tells me I better just brace myself and shut the fuck up, because if I don't accept the situation as is, it might get even worse, and I can't risk that.

So, it went like this: I was in an environment where I was emotionally overwhelmed, though I hadn't quite registered that fact yet. My phone rang, and even though I had promised myself that morning not to answer if work called, I was feeling so off balance by that point that I decided to go ahead and pick up. I was asked to come in, and I absolutely did not want to. And here's the kicker! Because I absolutely did not want to, I believed, somewhere deep down, that I had to.

I hate this thinking. It makes me feel deeply sad and angry and nauseated and a little dizzy all at the same time. Because even though this was a fairly harmless situation, mildly annoying at worst, in the moment, emotionally and spiritually, it felt so much like my childhood. My power was gone. I laid it down because I believed I had no other choice but to do so. But thankfully, giving up my power made me angry. It has always made me angry, which is why I think I survived this long with my soul intact. If it didn't make me angry, I would have given up on life long ago. I would be scattered to the four winds. I would be dead.

I am grateful for my introspective abilities, and that I did not, in this instance, betray myself in some unforgivable way. There are worse things than picking up an extra shift at work. At least I will have made an additional $20 or so on my next paycheck. It's just the way it came about that irks me. The regression brought on by stressful circumstance. The broken promise to myself, an echo of so many promises broken before.

measuring up

I have an interview with the District Manager tomorrow for a promotion. Spectacular communicators that they are, my supervisors only told me about it, in a rather offhand way, this afternoon. Which either indicates that it is going to be really easy, or that they are all just completely unorganized. Either way, I do not feel in the least prepared.

Insomnia is killing me. I ache everywhere. My short-term memory is shot.
Sleep. Will. Not. Come.

And I am only days away from the anniversary of my son's death. God. How awful it looks in print! Worse still, spoken aloud. The words hit the floor in a crowded room, heavy and volatile as land mines. The anniversary of my son's death. No one should have to string those words together in the same sentence. Ghastly.

In short, I am afraid that in my current state, I will botch the interview and be totally humiliated. Although, to be fair, I fear that even when I am at my best... So perhaps I will muddle through after all?