Reconciling with my office

I had a really dumb moment yesterday.

For a decently intelligent person, this happens more often than I wish. One of the ones my mom likes to giggle about was two years ago when my mom was teaching me how to play backgammon. I was kicking around her house just after Christmas and my brother, mom, and I had all been snowed in and were a little stir crazy. For my bro this manifested as retreating to a TV and monosyllabic communication. For me this brought out my silly version of cabin fever, and for my mom she was bustling around the kitchen. All of a sudden I had a memory of a similar night years ago, and my parents sitting at the kitchen table of the house I grew up in playfully baiting each other in a game of backgammon.

I realized I had never learned. This seemed ridiculous since my parents used to play all the time. So, on a whim I went into the kitchen and said, "Mom, do you have a backgammon board? Would you be willing to teach me?" This, in case you were wondering, was my "smart" moment. As she almost skipped to the basement to get the backgammon set up, I put together a snack. Within about 10 minutes of her teaching me, my brother had come into the kitchen and said, "Can I play you once you learn?" It was great. We went from all being antsy and separate to doing something together in about 10 minutes.

My mom explained to me that at the beginning of a game each player rolls one die and whoever gets the higher roll uses the combined roll as their first turn. Now, this is a "fancy" backgammon set with the leather cups for rolling the dice. So, she handed me the cup and the two die. I looked at her bewildered and said, "How do you roll only one?"

Pause. And she looked at me like, Are you kidding me?! And then pointedly picked up one of her die, put it to the side, and put the second die in the cup and then gave me the "Ta-da!" face.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh. (Duh)

Now, whenever we play backgammon she says, "How do you roll only one?" in a mocking tone and sometimes if she thinks I'm being particularly flaky in some other situation I hear this phrase mumbled under her breath in the, I'm purposely making it so you can hear it volume.

That's ok, I deserve it.

I have these moments. We all do. Secretly, it's actually great for me when my family ribs me about these things since I am often a little more sharp-tongued than I should be and quick to tease them. It balances things out.

Yesterday, I had a dumb moment that revealed something interesting to me though.

Here is the scenario. A very interested company wanted to do an initial interview with me via Skype. I am tres interested in the company, and let me just say it is a name that would not be too shabby to be associated with, but was pleased to have an opportunity to learn more about the job itself.

I am new to Skype in the last couple of weeks but it seems like a pretty sweet deal. However, for this Skype meeting, I wanted to be very prepared. I thought about what questions might be asked, I prepared my questions, and had paper and pen on hand in order to take notes. I even got up early and put on makeup and an interview outfit so that I would appear professional.

About 30 minutes before the interview, I set my computer down on the kitchen table and turned on the camera on my laptop so I could check and make sure I looked ok. I looked fine, but saw a few distracting things in the background behind me. One of them is a very hilarious book, but, well, let's just say, not one I leave out if children are visiting me. (Smile). So, I scrambled around trying to move things. As I did, it occurred to me that the blank yellow wall behind me was a little overwhelming visually. Then I started to fret thinking, "Well, I could sit on the couch, but then he's seeing the back of my couch. The bedroom, but then that's unprofessional." After a few minutes more of pondering what to move and where to be . . . it hit me.

There is ANOTHER room in my house. In fact it is a room that is white walled, and basically empty. It even has decent lighting and a desk. Imagine that. That's right, my office still stands empty.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh. (Duh)

This is to say, I have not yet re-established that room. I do ALL of my job hunting and applying in the arm chair in my living room or from my kitchen table. If I'm writing this blog, or messing around on Facebook I can probably be found sprawled on my bed (as I am now) or on my couch (and on one emotional occasion, standing up at my kitchen counter).

I go into the office once a week to copy something for my (awesome) trainer and/or print something for a job interview. Other than that I treat it much as I did before. It's a separate land, not intersecting with my home. Think of it as Middle Earth or something.

When it was literally my office it was as if it was a nearly completely indepenedent sphere from anything else my house touched. Once a year I would go in there on personal time to do my taxes. The rest of the time, I was only in there if actually working. And it felt like I was sequestering myself and entering a different place. I realized in my last year of work how profound this conception of my office was in a couple of different ways. If I "cleaned the house" I would sweep and mop the kitchen, living room and dining room. As I headed down the hall I would get the laundry room and bathroom on the right, but sail right past the office on the left and head directly into the master bedroom. I also discovered that I would give tours of my house to people visiting and skip over that room. People would be like, "Ummm, what's in there??" (is it a murder room?!) And I would respond, ""Oh, that's my office." and keep walking.

So, in my mind, it is STILL my office, and why would I go in there unless I'm working.

Which of course I am NOT. Sooooooooooo, yeah.

Basically this means I haven't been in there or considered that room as having a place in my life since a month ago when it was cleaned out.

Partially, this is because unemployment has been unexpectedly busy for me. There are certainly days I don't get up until after 8. And there are days I watch TV at 2pm, to be sure. But, I have been blessed with a lot to do. I've caught up with friends, and while that doesn't, perhaps, have significance in terms of landing a job, it has been instrumental in my healing from all of this sudden change. I had a real awakening right after I lost my job when so, so many friends contacted me to offer me support and then worked into the conversation, "So, if you're not working when you return from the holidays, do you have time to hang out?" It was an epiphany for me how much the last job had restricted me from being the friend I wanted to be, hell, from having a life.

I also got my car fixed from an accident that happened, literally, a week before my position was eliminated, an with the very supervisor, in my very car,  who let me go. Luckily, the accident was the fault of the person who hit me and was thus completely covered. The cost to me was only time.

And, yes, I have, been applying a lot, and I have been very encouraged to have response to a job I've applied for EVERY week since my unemployment commenced, and an interview on each week except the first. So, I've been busy.

Still, it seems a little silly that in the last four weeks I haven't put any time into re-acquainting myself with that room, going through the things in it, re-organizing, or even putting realistic thought into what I'd like that room to be. (Having said that, of course in the last day I've thought about it. The words of my cool, hilarious chicca friend on the very night I lost my job ring in my ears, "That is the room your foster baby will sleep in." But, that's a little bit cart before the horse at this point. Exercise room? If I get a well paying job I'd be happy to put an elliptical in there. Guest room? Upgrade my bed, and get a futon couch set up going in there? Hmmmmm)

This is a little like when my fiance and I broke up. During the conversation about done-ness he was indicating that maybe he'd come back for his things. I wanted to be smart and realized he had never paid a single cent of rent on this place, and was secondary on the lease so I wanted to reduce ambiguity and suggested he get his things right then, many of which were still in boxes. It seemed to make sense. I started hauling his stuff out, and eventually he (grudgingly) joined me. Of course, in our haste, things got left behind. Months later I found myself in various conversations about my need for him to get his things or give me permission to get rid of them.

A lot of things happened, and he didn't seem to understand that he could divorce himself from his stuff if he needed to, but that given some of his actions and threats, I wouldn't remove those things unless I had written permission. He was stubborn and stupid (and of course, I wasn't stubborn at ALL!), so this went on for a ridiculous amount of time. The result was that 6 months after our break up he was still cycling through "I'll be nice, get her to do what I need, and then disassociate myself as soon as she mentions anything she needs . . . even if it's as simple as sending her permission to dump my stuff."

I finally got the permission I needed, and felt I was really, truly DONE (I mean, other things happened. In fact it got really complicated and, regrettably, bitter.) about 9 months after the break up.

But somehow it took awhile for me to actually throw his shit OUT. And when I did, it felt incredibly good, momentous, even. And nothing could have been simpler than taking 45 minutes to gather it all up, check through the house, and carry the boxes out. I wondered why I had waited so long. But I did.

In that case, it was definitely hard for me to completely let go and move on. It took a lot of work and tears, and hard conversations with people who loved me. I wanted things to go differently than they did, even once I had accepted that we weren't right for each other. I wanted more closure than walking his stuff to a dumpster. And I had to take my time to reconcile myself with the fact that what I got was a watermelon story (ask if you want to know!), some really inexplicable emails, a court date to keep him out of my life, and a quiet Sunday where I enjoyed the sun and the feeling of releasing the last vestiges of our relationship into the dumpster. I couldn't change the hand dealt to me, just how I played it. It just took me a beat (or you know, however many beats fit into that number of months) to re-strategize and resolve to play it out.

I process slowly sometimes. This is, I think, not related to my occasional brain dead moment. It's more related to things I've mentioned before. Somehow my emotional path, and the roles I played in my family have lead me to a . . . hmm, strategy sounds too contrived and planned and it's not . . . I'd say, it's lead me to a HABIT of processing things all on my lonesome, off in a corner, and often disconnected from whatever event first gave rise to those feelings. There are benefits to this - it means it is RARE for me to have a sudden passionate bad reaction. It happens more than it used to, and more with people who I know really deeply and trust more. In a weird way, if I'm reacting to something in the moment badly, it's a compliment to that person because I can't do it unless I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I'm fully loved. as a result, it's only happened with my mom, sister, and best best bestbestbest friend in recent years.

On the flip side, those same people (and others!) would tell you that I sometimes baffle them by reacting to something that happened days (or weeks, or months) ago. They feel lost and . . . betrayed? I don't want to speak for them, but know this is the liability of my peculiarity of appearing to be emotive and open, but actually packing up emotions, putting them in boxes, and taking my time getting around to unpacking them and actually DEALING WITH the stuff inside.

People like me often have ulcers and migraines. And all of this emotional delay mirrors what I do with ACTUAL STUFF. I took almost a year to throw his crappy shit out! Almost 3 months after he gave me the permission to do so! I put it in boxes and then put it away, where I couldn't see it, but where it still took up space in my house.If that's not the outward picture of what I do inwardly, I don't know what is.

I know I have to take my time with that room. Not because I miss my job like I miss relationships once they end. Mostly, I feel relief when I think about NOT working for that company. I don't miss the tasks, the lifestyle, or the stress. The gratitude to be released from that is so immense that it eclipses the real missing of 5 of the people I worked with. I miss the certainty of a paycheck, that's it.

But I had a dysfunctional relationship with that job, and as a result, I had a dysfunctional relationship with that room. It will take some time for the room and I to receive each other differently.

If I was a person with more means, it would be great to go out, get some furniture and paint and posters and just go to town on that room. But I'm not, so it will take some time for me to re-friend that room. I, however, aspire for it to take less than a year. And so it starts with just going in there more to remember that that is space that belongs to me, not to my former company. It's MINES!!! (hahahah)

Patience and Forgiveness, part 1

Here's the thing -  a long time ago I asked for feedback on what people would like to hear more about. One friend encouraged me to write about singing, and about my children's book ideas. Another about judgement, patience, and forgiveness. I haven't written either of those posts, but they haven't left my thoughts either. Given my recent religious questioning it's probably not surprising that I'm thinking about judgement, patience, and forgiveness, but the truth is I was thinking about it before, and before my friend brought the idea up.

It has been on my mind since July when I first felt the full weight of my boyfriend's issues and found a broader perspective on them. I saw the lies, the loss of control, the broken promises, the misleading statements and manipulation. And he began to see them. I wanted so badly to forgive him for that, and to put it in the past. Instead, it became part of a larger pattern, and that made it so hard to let it go. Recently I was able to articulate to him that I can forgive him, but it would help enormously if he sincerely apologizes for the things he thinks he did wrong and asks for my forgiveness. But real forgiveness is just given, no asking and begging required - see I'm bad at this. I should give it over and above is breaking up with me, and I should give it freely, not in spite of, that.

Patience and forgiveness are my values, but I often fail at my values and need to be reminded of them and brought back to my center. I have been described as being "black and white." I don't think I am, I actually think I analyze a lot, collect a lot of data on my world and consider a lot of possibilities - black, white, and a lot of shades of grey in between. The thing that people may pick up on is that once I do decide on something, I tend to stick to my guns. To be honest, some of that comes from my tendency to be stubborn. But also, if I've spent a lot of time thinking about something, and collecting information on why that thing is the way it is, and forming my opinion or tracking down the best course of action, when I act, I'm usually pretty committed and convinced of how it should be. Maybe that's hubris, maybe that's being pig-headed, maybe that's being judgmental, maybe it's being black-and-white, but to me it's about dedication and seeing things through and making sure that when I do make a decision its backed up by the best information gathering I can manage.

I also have a very weird blessing/curse - I remember things more accurately and completely than most people do. I also have a nearly perfect audiographic memory which means I tend to remember exactly what people said. It's nice when I want to recall a sequence of events, or think back to what someone said to me. But, on the other hand . . . I can't forget. If someone says something that hurt me, I remember their exact words. I remember how it sounded. If someone did something that hurt me on July 4th, I'll remember it every time I think of July 4th. It makes it hard not to dwell on the things that have hurt me, let me down, or made me angry when I can remember them ALL all the time.

I am able to forgive, but not to forget. It's a complicated issue for me. I am capable of letting something go, but it's rare that not remember it. It's also a complicated issue for the people in my life. Something that is cognitively true is that we ALL more easily recall and recount negative things. It is for this reason  that if someone asks you how your most recent performance review at work went, the first thing you think of is the one negative thing your supervisor said, and it takes work to remember the 6 positive things that were mentioned. I'm not making this up out of folk wisdom - I was required to take a class on memory and attention as part of my Ph.D program in Cognitive Psych.

So, when my ex-fiance (yep, the same one who left like three minutes after I moved here, and was all alone dealing with my dad who had just died. We don't use his name anymore) told me that he felt like I only remembered things he did wrong, not things he did right. I tempered that with the fact that while my cognition might mean I remember everything more thoroughly than I really should, his cognition (and everyone's) meant that he was not remembering the times I appreciated him, was grateful for things he did or said, or was positive.

The truth is this is no gift unless I want to recall how-to instructions someone gave me orally or music. It is much more of a curse when it comes to my relationships (romantic or otherwise) because what they experience is me remembering exactly what they did and their words and tone, even when they'd rather gloss over what they said and smooth it into meaning something a little less harsh. I often can't let that slide because the computer in my head spits out, "Ummm, no. that's NOT what you said, so don't tell me I'm wrong in thinking this is what you meant." To be perfectly honest, the most harm this does is to me. I know it troubles other people about me, but the part people don't think about when they are praising or lamenting my freakish memory is that it doesn't just turn on them . . . it turns on me too. I remember all the stupid, embarrassing, mean, cruel, inconsiderate, angry, crazy, wrong, horrible things I have done or said too. And I can't make the computer not spit those things out either.

I can't stop that computer from running. But maybe I can work on being more forgiving, and to act in ways that are more forgiving. First stop, be less judgmental. This doesn't mean not having judgments. I can judge that someone who texts and drives is putting themselves and others in harms way. I can decide that when people park ridiculously badly, they were oblivious and should pay more attention. But I can also work to adopt less of a mentality of judging others and thinking harsh thoughts about them as a whole person.

As I sat at a church service last night, the questions was raised of Can we trust God. And I don't have answers to that, nor the fortitude to go looking for those answers right now. But the conversation and thought process went something like this, "Other people break promises and let me down. Other people point their fingers in my chest and remind me of how many things I screw up. So, how can I count on God not to give up on me, let me down, leave me hanging, and accuse me of being a bad person." And as the service moved forward the pastor admitted something that I had been thinking since he brought up the judgments of others . . . when we think about other people giving us a hard time, judging us, reminding us of how much we fail usually the biggest offender is ourselves. I know that's true for me. I know that I spend most of every day either trying not to think or catching myself thinking really harsh, difficult things about myself. I quit grad school, I made a dill potato salad with dill that had bugs in it because I didn't have money or time to go buy more. I had a really hard year growing up where I lied about everything to my parents, and stole loose change and dollar bills. I promised myself I would reform my eating and then ate an entire frozen pizza. I threw a watermelon on the night my ex-fiance left (ok, to be perfectly honest, there is part of met hat is horribly ashamed I did that, but part of me is proud of that too), I yelled horrible things at my most current boyfriend at one point because I couldn't believe he had spent so much time avoiding me and breaking promises . . . and no, his actions do not justify mine. I once spent an entire work day surfing the web and shopping online, which to me is like stealing from my employer. Once, in grad school (2001), I was so poor that I stole over the counter allergy meds that I badly needed . . . and no, that doesn't make it ok. You'll notice, some of those things are past actions that I worked to reform, but some of those are issues I continue to face now.

I seem really unlikable when I list those things. And this is the short version. I seem really ugly, and small, and like I deserve the finger of accusation in my chest 24/7 when I read just those things here.

So, I need to practice forgiveness with myself. Luckily, it's better for me to practice on me, and possibly fail at it sometimes, than to practice with someone else. But I need to forgive other people too. I need to forgive people who were supposed to love me and protect me and didn't. It would be better for everyone if I could forgive my ex-fiance, because then I wouldn't carry around residual anger about what he did or didn't do. (Left me alone to grieve my father and the ending of our relationship in a place where I knew nobody because I moved here for him. Left me sitting like an idiot in a couples counseling waiting room! Aggghhhh. Just listing it is a demonstration that I'm not there yet. Epic fail.) I need to decide to either forgive myself for the watermelon, or embrace that that was a true moment of standing up for myself and be proud of it. I need to right my wrongs. i need to make ammends where I am able. I need to forgive myself when I slip on the changes I'm trying to make, when I fall off the wagon as it were, because beating myself up about it keeps me from moving forward and trying to be better the next day. I need to stop yelling at myself and move past the conversations where I have yelled at other people. (I don't like yelling. )

But I need to be patient too, and realize that it's not all going to happen right away . . . and patience, I have in abundance except when it comes to myself. Irony. So much irony.