I needz wun. Here's my deal.
As those of you who are keeping track know, I work every Friday and Saturday, usually all day. Well, as July 4th falls on Saturday this year, all departments in the hospital that are not 365 departments (and we are not) were off today. So I decide to take both today and tomorrow off so that I might have three days off in a row, which never happens and which, frankly, is about the closest I get to a vacation. I thought this was my perfect opportunity to start another home improvement project.
So you know my cell was ringing at 8:15 this morning. I wasn't asleep per se--more in that delightful state where you're dozing off and on, and every time you wake up you think, do I need to be anywhere? do I need to get up and pee? no! just another twenty minutes then... It is, of course, my on-call doc with the sad tale of woe and the guilt-inducing "well, if you can't come in, you can't come in, I suppose we can keep the kid in till Monday..." Well, no, it's not like I have any plans I can't break. (My plans, such as they were, were to go out, do a few errands my dad's been nagging me about, and then come home and start washing the walls in the dining room/living room so D and I can paint tonight or tomorrow.) So I agree to do it and give the on-call doc an estimate of when I'll roll in. He thanks me, apologizes, and lets me know the he too had other things he was planning on doing today that this is totally bollixing up. Well, yeah, the difference is you're on call and I'm not.
So while I drink two mugs of coffee, enough to get me awake enough to get going, and then shower and dress, I try to go all zen and remind myself once again that this is why I have job security and that that's a precious thing to have these days. But I'm still feeling resentful, mainly because I feel like my good nature and my disinclination to say no is being abused. And I hate feeling like that.
My mother, in case you don't remember, was totally unable to say no, much much worse than me, and she lived her life in martyrdom alternately gratified by being needed and being extremely resentful and angry about it. I don't ever want to be my mother, so I try hard to curb myself when I see myself slipping in that direction. It's why I put limits on D and *try* to put limits on my dad: I know they need me but I expect respect from them, a modicum of thanks for what I do, and I reserve the right to say no, not now, and to take the time I need for myself. Work is no different. So saying yes and then feeling pissy about it? Don't like it. Say no and don't feel guilty, or say yes and don't be fucking whiny and resentful about it.
I get to work and my emergency is a beautiful seven week old baby whose parents don't come down with it (thank you Jesus) and who I thus basically end up with in my arms for 40 straight minutes while I test to keep it settled. In case you haven't figured this out, holding a baby for forty minutes puts me in an awesome mood. I leave work in less than two hours and I'm feeling like, okay, you did the right thing and all is well.
Then I go to do my errands. There are more people in friggin Shaws than I can remember ever seeing when there are *not* meteorologists on the air whipping them into a frenzy about three inches of snow, and 70% of them are over 65, very slow, and blocking the aisles with their carts. I go from no-longer-cranky to homicidal. I get to the bank, where I want to just use the ATM to make my dad's deposit he's been nagging me about (he's probably lost five whole cents in interest, yo) because there is a line in there to rival Shaws. The ATM is out of order. I am not about to go to another bank because I've stupidly already gotten the groceries. I am hot because I'm overdressed, partly because of the usually-frigid A/C in work and partly because it was cloudy when I left the house and now the sun is out. The traffic is ridiculous. I finally get home and it's 1:30 and I haven't eaten all day and my dad has eaten the last roll I was saving for my sandwich.
I am back to being a raging bitch.
Right now I am digesting the grilled cheese and tomato I made instead, and wondering if I have a glass of wine if it will interfere with my will to move furniture and wash walls. I'm guessing yes.
That is all.
I will post pics if I ever get anything painted this weekend, so stay tuned.
xoxo
3 comments:
Did we have the same mother? LOL
I fight the "I cant say no" demon almost daily. And also hate HATE feeling guilty when I do and resentful when I dont. Good to know Im not alone, at least.
Babies are good, in small doses, when they're not crying. :)
I hope you had the wine anyways ;)
Is your mom the cautionary tale to you that mine is to me? The older I get and the longer she's been gone the more clearly I am able to see what a deeply unhappy person she was. Part of it may have been actual depression (she had at least one brother and probably two who were alcoholics, so the genetics are as fucked on that side of my family as on the other) but from my perspective now, I can see that she was deeply bitter that she did everything she was "supposed to" and it never gained her what she wanted and probably thought she deserved.
She took really good care of my dad, but had a crappy unhappy dysfunctional marriage. She did her best parenting and yet not only did her only daughter waste her potential and *not* go to medical school, she got impregnated by and married to a person she hated (ok, ma, you were right), plus said daughter was for the most part never quite as thin as she might have wanted. She worked hard her whole life and yet she never ended up with the material things she craved. Like that.
It's taught me a lot about how to approach happiness, lemme tell you. :-)
Just so you know, it's not a gender thing. I'll be spending Sunday morning doing a helpful job for other (richer)people that I've been doing for 25 years with much the same results. All my bad, I know.
I can top Shaw's with the older couple at Stop & Shop who stopped *in the middle of the fricken entrance* to go over their grocery list. On a holiday. Only the line of furious people bearing down on them persuaded them to inch over.
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