Rollercoaster Ride from Hell in Everything Else

I am not sure if I want to throw up or cry. I think I am more likely to cry since I have nothing in my stomach. It would appear as though I made a $9,500 mistake in June. Fucking federal grant was the bane of my existence and I thought since we heard nothing everything was fine. Only now we learn it is not. It would appear that in the rush to get this grant out from under us, one department pushed through the paperwork before the payment division updated and so they show they overpaid us. All those hours with the numbers and the push from the new agency and it results in this. I have to explain it to the CFO and the CEO. I don’t know how to do it. Own my mistake I guess. Of course I will own it. It is my fault.

This on top of a shitty weekend. I was an emotional wreck all weekend and I thought I was better and now this and I just feel like I can’t even think about ever being happy again. I can’t laugh, I can’t feel good. If I could go back to June and have a complete re-do I would do it in a heartbeat. I would live through everything again and make so many changes. But I can’t do that. I can’t go back and undo everything. I can only go forward with the knowledge I have.

I feel empty and like a void right now. I have not been this afraid in a long time. A very long time. It is funny because I was thinking about the last time I felt this way when I left work on Friday. Not knowing that I would come into this mess today. I told myself I was ready to forgive and forget what happened so many years ago. I would write the letter of forgiveness, burn it, and forget it. And now all that fear is back only it is magnified by 1,000. I don’t know if I will lose my job over this mistake. I would like to think that I do a good job and that I would be given the benefit of the doubt. That this error was a result of something we never fully understood. But the truth is, I was supposed to understand it, I was not supposed to be so rushed that I made this mistake. Suckier even more is that this is a prior fiscal year error that shows up this fiscal year. So we are already in the red and this puts another $10,000 on top of that.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to go in and tell our CFO that I fucked up and we owe this. I am scared to death to do it. It would be easier if I could tell the CEO I think. If I don’t have a complete breakdown by the end of the day I will consider this day a huge success. I might actually lose some weight because I don’t think I can eat.

Well I did it. I gave the report and I asked if they needed a letter of resignation. I know it was probably stupid to ask that, but I don’t think I could have not done it.

Drank a bottle of water and mouth is still dry as ever.

For the past four days now I have needed a cry room. Just a place where I could go that nobody could see or hear me cry. Just a place where I could lay down and cry my eyes out. Some sort of magical room that would make everything better. I wonder if today’s revelation would have affected me this way if I hadn’t had such a shitty emotional weekend. I am going to blame hormones. I think I had a rush of hormones and this is the result. I am not trying to use that as an excuse, but there really is no way to explain the weekend emotions. I am not one of those women who blames PMS or hormones. I am just saying that with getting older and the way my body is, that is a likely cause for this weekend’s bursting dam.

Today, well today would have happened anyway. I am scared to death of losing my job. Of screwing up and losing my job. I don’t think I have ever really told anyone the story of what happened long ago aside from my family.

It was my first real job out of college. I went to work for the police department as a records clerk. At first things were great. It was boring, they didn’t give me a lot to do in the beginning. I don’t know if it was because I was new and they didn’t want to overwhelm me or if it was because nobody wanted to give up the pieces they had been doing. I notice that in government they tend to have a lot of people when they only need a few. Either way, I was bored, but I made the best of it. It was a good job. The supervisor was a nightmare. A total bitch and every single person in the office I worked in put the fear of God into me. They told me stories of a woman who had worked there who left in an ambulance thinking she was having a heart attack after being scolded by the supervisor. I didn’t have a big reason to fear her. She had been mostly nice to me. I did a special project for the chief of detectives, the sheriff. Things were going great. I had a six month probation period. I made two mistakes in retrospect. First I confirmed someone’s theory that files could be accessed because the internal network was not secure. Everyone could go to Networks on the desktop and maneuver around. I had just finished college and a course on networking. It was still the early years in office networks and the IT department for the city was not top notch. Second I went to a council of commissioners meeting. I’m allowed as a free citizen to do this. It just so happened to be at that meeting that the sheriff got up and basically told the commission to go fuck themselves, he was doing what he wanted to do. Now why was this a mistake? Because it was an election year and Carolyn (my supervisor) decided to poison the waters and start a campaign that I was a “plant” or a “spy” and that is the only reason I went to the commission meeting and thus what ultimately led to my dismissal. Two weeks before my probationary period ended. In the morning, I am told I am doing a great job. At the end of the day I am summoned to the sheriff’s office with a union rep. No answers. No reason why. I had to make an appointment with the county personnel officer who read lie after lie after lie. I thought about grieving it, but in the end I knew I could not work there if I “won”. I had the support of so many officers and staff. They were not able to fill my position. The chief executive (mayor) would not let them. He lost the race that year.

I found another job and about a year or year and a half later the supervisor sued the city again and I was subpoenaed. I was amazed at the way the truth had been twisted and manipulated. How key pieces of information were left out. How I was badgered in an arbitration hearing by her attorney. I was even more surprised at how I handled myself. I was told after she lost that the attorney for the county was wary of putting me on the stand so to speak because he thought I would breakdown, but after it was all over he told them I was strong and didn’t back down and was one of the most effective “witnesses”. That made me happy. But I still have trust issues when it comes to work. I am fearful whenever something goes wrong. I panic. I am paranoid that I will be without a job and I have bills to pay.

I can’t trust people when they tell me I am doing a good job because in an hour they could fire me. I love this company. I love the CEO and in my heart I don’t think he would fire me for this, but in my brain I am scared and untrusting. I don’t know what I would do. I don’t know how I would handle it. I don’t know if I could be strong and rise above it.

It has been over fourteen years since the incident above and it still bothers me. It still destroys my faith in myself and in employers. It still haunts me, no matter how many times I have proven myself, it still sits in the back of my mind like a little gnat, gnawing at my self-confidence. Suddenly I am not smart enough, not fearless enough. I am a little kid who knows nothing and runs home crying.

There is nothing worse than not believing in yourself because of someone who was a corrupt pile of shit. I wanted to stay home today. I had even planned on calling in last night to recover from my weekend breakdown. But I had an email I had to take care of and some other stuff to get done so I balled up and came in and then…this. It does not help that I read my horoscope and it was not good. It was not good at all. It was almost spot on. I don’t read my horoscope because I don’t believe in them. How could every Aries on the planet have the same horoscope? How could we all have one giant shitfest of a day? It does not make sense. But after reading four different ones, I am scared. They were all filled with emotion, past situations, breakdowns, problems at work. Fuck me. Seriously.

I should probably start backing some things up right? Today might be my last day. Or maybe I should just delve in and do my job. Make myself seem indispensable.

Can I also say that I fucking hate Veronica Roth. Because I do. I hate her for writing Allegiant. I hate her so much. Maybe things wouldn’t be shitty if she hadn’t written that book.

My stomach feels full & empty at the same time. There is nothing in there but some water. But I don’t feel hungry. I should, I didn’t eat anything but three bites of toast and it tasted horrible. I should feel hungry. Instead I don’t. I feel nothing. I feel like I shouldn’t eat. Like eating is something of a reward and I am something of a failure.

I have to wonder if part of my breakdown is that I am in the last few days of this year in my life. My birthday is coming up and I am inching ever so close to an age where I have not done anything with my life. An age where I really don’t want to start over. I made a list of things to do before I reach this age. It was hard to come up with things that would feel like accomplishments. And thinking about it, really sitting down and thinking about it, I know that I am not likely to complete even half that list.

I am drained. Completely drained.