yesterday was the same sort of thing. i come to work, and i’m not sure of my place here, yet. i wonder if i am effective in my role, and my response to that is no. i do my job, sure, but i don’t feel that i am a pivotal piece to the puzzle. perhaps just an overlaid glue after all the pieces are already put together. and maybe that’s a blessing, in a way. to be the glue. i just know that i am loyal to this company, and am very interested in long-term employment here, to the point of retirement. i want to be important and beneficial to the team, but part of me feels as though i do my duties, and nothing more. i wonder if i can carve out the “nothing more” into a finite description of additional support. but my current role isn’t as “thinker” or planner, although i am very comfortable in those roles, possibly more so than this one. i have a mind for strategy, and i believe the walls of this building are flexible and make many allowances for change, so long as the return is loyalty, hard work, and a good attitude. so my return is, right now, ideal and functional.
ronan slept the entire ride home, so i listened to a podcast about psychedelics. nick and i did acid less than a month ago, on his birthday. we laughed and listened to music, and went our separate ways at points, but were very much in sync in many ways. i haven’t laughed so much or so hard in years. i was all stuffy and crying from laughing so much.
somehow i often laugh until i cry. some things just catch hold of me and grip me tight, and i cannot control it. the other day, we had a birthday party for our ceo lindsay, and it was avengers themed because she loves the avengers. we had these little toys that you squeeze and shoot a disc fair distances. during an already hilarious conversation between ashton, victoria, and some others, one of the discs shot across the room in my general direction, and i, sitting on the floor, dove for it, instinctively. ashton goes, “what was that?” in the best tone, and then said, “there was no way you were going to catch that,” and it made me laugh until i cried. it really was at least five feet out of my reach, and i was sitting down. something about that situation, and especially her response, absolutely killed me, and we all just sat and laughed about it for a long time. i am smiling thinking about it, as silly as it is.
i find that those moments of laughing until i cry are often with my family. if matt makes fun of me, i don’t know what it is, i laugh until i cry. sometimes even the most random things are so joyous to me, so fulfilling, it overtakes me, and i cannot speak. i don’t even make sound when i’m laughing that hard. i think matt often points out, almost cynically, stupid things i say or do, and they really are so stupid and ridiculous, but having him point them out in his dry way is the most hilarious thing.
my mom came over last night and brought me some klonopin. i’m tapering off it slowly, because i don’t really need it anymore. she held ronan while i finished laying down our new rug, after using our new steam mop (i adore it) to clean the floors. it even got up stickers that were stuck to the hardwoods. i think i will buy my mom one. she seemed very interested in it and exclaimed that she would like a steam mop herself.
she hung out with ronan while i took a bath. i just watched? a podcast on youtube, and relaxed for a little bit. when i got out, i met them outside. ronan loves to get in the driver’s seat of my mom’s car and press buttons. he would accidentally turn on the windshield wipers, having no idea what they do, and gasp when they would turn on, surprising him completely. it was so cute to both my mom and me.
after my mom left, i did my evening stoic questions, and one asked what i did wrong that day. nick and i got in an argument after he turned down a job that the recruiter offered him to interview for. he said he would take the interview but not the job, which is a waste of time on everyone’s part if you ask me, but he wasn’t interested in the position. this was while he was handing off ronan to me, who was asleep. i went from excited that he was offered an interview, to disappointed that he was rejecting it, because i am so desperate for him to make a career change. i am so sick of working opposite schedules, and i want to go home to my entire family, not just my son, every night. i love my time with ronan, but i hate staying home until 1-2 pm every weekend so nick can sleep in and make up for the sleep he’s lost during the week. my frustration just sort of culminated yesterday when he did not want to pursue that position, and i don’t even remember what i said to him, but i walked away, carrying ronan, without even saying goodbye or speaking to him directly.
i didn’t realize how wrong i was in that moment until the stoic question asked me what i could have done better. that. that i could have done better. i need to remember to love first and then let everything else be secondary. and sometimes love does look like frustration, but my frustration was selfish. if i implored nick to take a job he would hate, then i would tyrannically be imprisoning him. i have no desire to rule anyone or anything tyrannically, and should respect the autonomy of his being to decide and rule his life as he deems best, because i trust in the virility of his thinking and the strength of his character.
this led me to apologize, in essence explaining what i just wrote. he didn’t respond, but he did immediately facetime ronan and myself, without a mention of any of it. i guess that frustrates me, because i feel we should talk about these things together, head on, but i reckon he deemed the matter finished and the threat admonished.
as i was falling asleep, i tried to ask myself what my mom was wearing. i felt guilty because i don’t recall even looking at her. i’m sure i did, but not in an engaging way. i felt so distracted, putting the rug down, looking at the tv, but i was present with her in conversation. something about that makes me feel guilty. like i didn’t give her my full attention, especially when she does so much for me and my family. i do think her attention was on ronan, too, so she was fulfilled in her way, and all was well, but i need to be more mindful, i think. and more grateful.
i am not trying to beat myself up, but i do want to acknowledge my weaknesses in my relationships, because those are the most important things in my life, and i want to do service to the people i feel deserve it the most–the best people i know.
i found myself being precariously out of sync with the environment yesterday. my sense of humor just really throws me for a loop, and i’ve gotten to where i just don’t care to control it, or to pander to the scenario and its appropriateness. that may be strength of character, or it may be weakness. i don’t know, i don’t really care.
i was at the library renewing my card, when a volkswagon beetle drove by outside, and one of the employees who i think was a higher-up, because his office was not dealing with patrons, said, “slug bug! we’re going to stop seeing those soon.” and i said, “oh yeah! we always said ‘punch bug, no returns.’” and he said, “no way, it’s got to be slug bug, because of the alliteration,” to which i replied, “you need to google alliteration, because it is not that,” and laughed, then went back to dealing with the person who was renewing my card. he stood there and stared at me for a while, so i looked back at him and said, “you hate me, don’t you?” and he said, “no, you’re probably a sweet person. maybe it’s the bangs,” and i said, “well, i’m alright, but you’re definitely wrong, and you definitely need to google alliteration.” i was laughing the entire time, but i think i came on a little strong and possibly harsh, especially because it was in front of a few of his “inferiors” that worked at the library. they were laughing. i don’t actually care if he knows what it means, but to me, i was thinking it was like a challenge between punch bug and slug bug, and so he stepped it up by saying they rhymed, calling it alliteration, so i had to step my game up and point out his error. it felt a bit competitive in a friendly way, so i just engaged.
it felt good to walk the however many blocks during lunch to get to the library. i was looking at all the architecture of birmingham, the beautiful, historic buildings, the places martin luther king jr. walked, and the streets where so many black people were harmed while protesting segregation and inequality. german shepherds were once attacking these people. firefighters were once spraying them. and i was walking the streets lightly, confidently, with white skin, and no guilt. those sins were not mine. and i grieve for both parties. perpetrating egregious activities against innocent people diminishes the soul, and any strength of character you had. you are not the same after doing ill to people like that. and if you’re a recipient of that kind of evil, you are going to carry anger, resentment, and hatred. and we are seeing the culmination of those things now. unfortunately, the perpetrators are assumed to be everyone with white skin, in some eyes. i don’t know how to redeem my skin color. i just know that i grieve for everyone.
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