Forgive me, Father...

... for it has been 8 days since my last 'blog.

Rats. Only 8? :-/

Still, that's 8 days of struggles, challenges, small successes, and personal victories. Let me illustrate:

Struggles:
  - Getting up in the morning and going to work. Yeah, BIG trial there, let me tell you. Every day until February 8th, anyway! I cannot wait to get out of that place... Found out bright and early Monday morning that my supervisor - the only person in that joint that I felt really supported me and helped me focus on the good works that needed to be done, the only person that gave a rat's butt when my consumer died unexpectedly and it messed me up all kinds of crazy - was no longer with the company. Needless to say, I have been having serious feelings of hostility toward the rest of the management team. I am not comfortable sitting in the same room as my department head. I don't get "not comfortable" when sitting in the midst of someone who thinks their poo doesn't smell. This is very out of character for me, even though I have my bouts of passive aggression.
  - Playing by the rules. I constantly find myself skirting the line about these so-called "rules," and I have done that for the majority of my life (even though some might say that I live by the rules and without rules I would be more anxious than I already am). For example, at my previous job I broke several of the piddly don't-mean-crap-to-me rules. Yes, I messed up a few times because of that... but the bottom line is, my production didn't noticeably suffer. I still came to work, got my work done, and went home. I even got promoted a few times. Because playing by the rules would have made me go nutso long before it actually happened. Seriously. I'm not going to say anything about the job I currently have, but suffice to say I still get my work done and frankly I feel like I do a better job when I'm not sitting at a desk in front of a phone that sometimes just won't. stop. ringing.

Challenges:
  - Continuing to look at life positively. I have my moments of clarity, to be sure -- in fact, I was talking with one of my clients yesterday and it kinda hit me how wrong I have been in my life thus far. I used to tell everyone "I am where I am because I choose to be here." Boy, was I wrong... I am where I am because God wants me to be here. It's all part of the Plan. I grasped that a little when I entered this field, and I told all of my clients who were concerned about caseworker turnover that I didn't plan to leave unless something beyond my control indicated it was my time. I suppose, as the old adage goes, "the time is nigh." So thankfully, many of my clients have a strong faith presence... so this revelation makes sense to them, even though I have had at least three people break down in tears upon hearing news that I am leaving. Two of which have been diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, and one who is Bipolar. See? Challenging.
  - Maintaining an air of civility with supervision. I'm pissed. Anyone who talks to me for five minutes about my job will hear only a smidgeon of just how pissed I am, and why. My supe is dismissed, I try to take the next day off to recoup (legitimately, I told my temporary supe that I was feeling 'off' and wanted to take Tuesday off) and I TRY to play by the rules and I give them way more than the 2-hour minimum notice for calling in... and lo and behold, about 10am on Tuesday my temporary supe calls and tells me that once someone puts in their notice, all absences have to be approved. This, of course, is something I have NEVER heard of. To be clear, one of my teammates NO CALL/NO SHOWED FOR TWO DAYS AND A WEEKEND and my department head called him and ASKED him to come back. And I give 9 hours notice, a valid reason, and explain that I am planning to return on Wednesday. What's even better about the situation is that she tells me that I will need to come in to the office after I get done teaching my class. My inside voice said, "Lady I told you I was coming back on Wednesday. GTFO my back, mkay?" Bonus information for the day: My TEAM LEAD had no idea what this supe was talking about. My team lead has been with the company for OVER A YEAR. Just saying.

Small successes:
  - I finally got the picture I wanted of an old building and sign downtown. I love aged architecture.
  - I made it to work on Tuesday after teaching my class. I even pulled 3 1/2 service hours that afternoon -- scheduled on the fly!
  - I made it to work this morning, and made it to see all of the clients who didn't cancel. I even picked up a few hours scheduling on the fly, and attending to a pretty urgent situation.
  - I feel that the class I taught on Tuesday went very well.
  - Only one real argument with boyfriend this week (so far)! This is down from the previous tally, which has been disposed of due to the importance of forgiving and forgetting.

Personal victories:
  - Please see above
  - I had a smile in my voice yesterday afternoon when I talked with the above-mentioned temporary supe after she called to check on me to make sure I came back to work and started seeing clients. Similarly, I was very pleasant with said supe this afternoon when dealing with the "pretty urgent situation."

So. Long story short: I have been on a dang roller coaster this week. It's hard to remember to do things for myself. I guess taking Tuesday morning off was my attempt at doing something for myself... It must've worked, since I got a confidence boost from talking with the head of the Behavioral Sciences department and I got to re-work the class activity so that I could try to better engage my students. Second "self" thing would be to write this 'blog. It's important to remember lessons learned from the challenges, but it's also important to remind ourselves of the successes, victories, and positive impacts that we make. That I make. That will be forever made.

Nevermind, I don't need forgiveness... I need to survive the next 7 business days so I can start wholeheartedly getting back to ME.