Golem

I had this dream that I was a golem

only I didn't know what I was

I was created out of flesh, not clay

and I just did what I was told, always

At a certain point in the dream

I started to realize who I was

gaining consciousness of my

existence

In the dream, I woke up and

looked around

realizing I had been living this life

others had chosen for me

I packed a bag and walked away

from what I was told to be

and decided to be who I wanted

to be, instead

All Work, Little Play

I should have written something last week because this week is going to be all me bitching about work and how busy we are and how I had to work on Sunday, and that I also was doing training at the shelter on Saturday, and basically had no weekend.  I feel sincerely needing some downtime.  More than just a night. Thankfully this weekend is going to involve nothing but fun.

Heart On Her Sleeve

I'm Facebook friends with a few people at work.  This one woman, someone whom I like a lot, posts status messages all the time about what is going on in her head.  Like if someone pisses her off in the building, she posts about it.  She doesn't post their names, but sometimes it's pretty clear who she is talking about.  And if something sad is going on in her life, she posts that too.  Like today, a family friend is near the end, and she posted something about that.  I saw her in the hall and gave her a hug, wishing her well.

But this story isn't about her.  It's about me.  And how I feel sometimes like I would be better off if I could open up a little like that.  Not just on Facebook but maybe in general.  To myself.  To others.  Talk about my feelings.  I could just say that I'm not that comfortable talking about my feelings, which is true, but I remember at some point I was.  I'm not sure when it all changed, when I started pushing my feelings down more, to keep them secretive and hidden.  Because I remember when I used to be that over-sharing type of person, and sometimes I felt over exposed by it.  The more information that is out there, that is in public, the more I think I'm better off keeping my mouth shut, and maybe resurrecting a personal diary.

I read this a week or two ago.  I'm not that interested in gluten-free recipes or recipes in general, but I know a lot of people are.  Anyway that's not really the point.  It's just kind of amazing reading about a woman who got these horrible nasty comments and all she does is write a blog about food.  I'm not talking about the satire stuff but the whole thing with people wishing she'd die, saying her three-year-old is fat.  What the hell.  Like how twisted do people get where they start sending a total stranger shitty emails like that?

I feel like I've been struggling a lot lately with feelings, trying to figure things out in my head, analyzing and just dealing day to day with my thoughts.  And I wonder if I were putting all those thoughts out there, what kind of response would I get?  And would I even want to communicate them with anyone else?

Long Walks and Anxiety

Just vacuumed and cleaned the floors here.  A week of being sick, and it being too hot on the little free time I did have, made that kind of thing seem impossible.  In the Assertiveness class I took in the spring, there was a discussion about vacuuming, namely how much one "should" vacuum and how we have these judgements about the right way to keep house.  Anyway, I was kind of surprised that most people don't think you should vacuum every week.  I thought that is what one does.  Particularly when having pets around, shedding all over.  Apparently not.

I had a really good weekend, with nary a dull moment.  I will be putting up a post on Gals About Town soon about what I did on Sunday, but I also had a good rest of the long weekend.  Despite being ill, I went to a ladies night with some women from work on Friday, then did my usual volunteering on Saturday, followed by hanging out with my friend from there afterwards.

Then Monday I met my therapy group for brunch and took a walk with some of them.  One of the women from there does a lot of serious hikes and walks, and she had some ideas of where to walk, but I picked a more urban location near our breakfast place.  Hiking is fine and dandy but I am trying to get in as much urban walking in as possible before my trip to Italy next month with DMA.  I know we are going to be walking everywhere.  I walk almost every day at lunch for thirty minutes.  It's weird that even though this is the most consistent exercise that I've done in years and years, I keep worrying that I'm not enough in shape and I'm going to be exhausted and left behind.

Anxiety is such a large part of traveling.  I don't know why it is getting to me more this trip than our last ones.  Maybe because I know more.  Maybe the anticipation of this trip, which was in the planning stages for over a year, including me studying Italian.  I just feel like I've been working very hard for a very long time in preparation of this trip, and really need a vacation first and foremost.  This time of year is when we start getting really busy at work too, and none of that helps.

I'd like to remember this year not as the year of great anxiety, but that seems like what most of it has been like so far.  I know there are plenty of people who thrive on anxiety, but I'm not one of them.  I feel like I worry about things from not being fit enough to traipse through Italy, not having enough money for everything, having to clean my apartment (where I've been living for five years and still have boxes), not meeting men to date, not really caring about meeting men to date, something happening to my cats when I'm away, what is going on at work, how I'll cope with all these things...  I am sure some people thrive on anxiety, but for me, it all kind of spins in my head and makes me feel like doing nothing until the head-spinning stops.  I remember in college when I had a week of extreme headaches and tunnel-vision around finals, when I felt myself barely hanging onto the edge of my life by my fingernails...  At a certain point, the anxiety took over and there was no rational way to get out of it.  So I just went through it, knowing that the finals would happen, that I would move on to different classes, would have different choices to make.

But we all know, once you get out of college, your life doesn't move in the same fast way.  Sometimes I think about, well what do I want to do when I really grow up.  And I'm scared that the answer is what I'm doing right now is what I have to do when I grow up.

Working Sick

I think some day when blogger can link with the chip in our brains, my blog will be more interesting.   I have interesting thoughts, but they don't necessarily make it into the blog.

Part of the problem this week is that I've been fighting a cold, or something.  It started Monday with about four hours of headache at work in the afternoon, and I came home, went to bed a little after 8 pm, and then woke up at 6:30 with still having a headache, so I called in sick, and slept all day.  Literally all day.  (One of my pet peeves is when people use the word "literally" to mean the opposite of what it means, and I worry that this usage is going to be stuck in our language.  So I should add here that I didn't literally sleep all day because I woke up for a few hours in the middle of the day to eat lunch.)  Then was back at work on Wednesday, though feeling rough and pushing myself through it.  And then today when this sort of broke into feeling more like a cold, with swollen throat and congestion.

I'm really not sure sometimes WHY I push myself to go to work when I'm not feeling well.  I get plenty of sick time (about a day a month) and I am not sick that often.  The last time I was out sick was earlier in the year, when I was still taking Italian, and that was a few days of stomach flu.  I feel like I should come into work most of the time, even when I'm borderline sick.  I feel like my presence there is necessary, particularly since my often ailing coworker is out sick often (including all of this week so far).  But I don't feel like my pushing myself is especially appreciated.  My boss is one of those people who rarely calls in sick, and even if she is sick, she's going into work.  She acts sympathetic, sometimes, but so infrequently.  If I am calling in sick, I usually time it to leave a message on her voicemail before she gets into work so I don't have to actually talk to her about it.  Also, it's not like I have piles of crap waiting to do at work if I'm not there.  If I'm not at work, shit gets done anyway.

The real downside is that if you are sick, what you need is rest and sleep, and I can't really get that at work.  And instead of rest and sleep, I sometimes end up getting aggravation and annoyance.  I had someone who was a little highly strung go off on me yesterday.  It was really illogical, what she was saying, and when someone is telling you that they don't have time to deal with things, but then they are making time to yell at you and give you grief for wasting their time.  I just hope I can avoid this individual in the future.  I know we are all different, people come in great variety, as my therapist said, but I don't like having to bear the brunt of someone's issues like that.