This lesson asks us to rehash grief. I'm going to gloss over this, having not lost anyone close to me in a very long time. I'm lucky to have all four of my parents around yet, but I have run out of grandparents. Those losses were not tragic to me per se, but I was more affected on an empathic level. Being midwestern/Nordic, it seems to be impolite to express feelings. You certainly don't want to make other people around you feel burdened by your emotions and so grief is a lonely road you walk alone. Deflect with humor, deflect with alcohol, deflect with food. Deflect, deflect, deflect.
I have stopped crying when I learn that a person has died. My ex's mom. My cousin's son. My godfather uncle, and I was even in the room for that one. I have wondered why this is. If I have become cold and unemotional or if it more has to do with my dabbling in the spiritual realm and psychics. I can't say that we necessarily go to heaven or hell or that we all become ghosts or only some who haven't crossed, but I have talked to enough mediums that I know my grandmother Louise is attached to me because she always comes through. I have watched mediums take on her hand motions, fidgeting, lip licking, laugh. That Wagner laugh. Because she was bossy, I totally believe that she always pushes her way to the front of the line. I count her among my ADD ancestors.
Animals though. I still cry about Phoebe. I have made enough progress that I finally purchased a memorial box with photo frames from Amazon and it turned out to be bigger than I thought. "You could put all your cats ashes in it" a friend of mine said, so now I'm paralyzed with pre-grief and think every time I look at it I'll be reminded they too shall pass. If you think about it in terms of hours spent together, they are the longest relationships of my life thus far.
Today is cloudy and gloomy and I really don't want to spend the day mired in death thoughts, so I'm going to pivot in to what happened this week, which was physically nothing but mentally maybe a tiny shift? Monday I virtually attended a free motivational seminar on confidence-boosting that went on for ten hours. There were some big names in the motivational world (Tony Robbins, Jay Shetty, Brendon Burchard) even Chrissy Metz and it was all free because of some billionaire lady founder of a cosmetics company was doing a book launch. I was working and casting it to a small TV I set up in my office so I could easily mute it when the cheerleader lady came out or my boss called me or some such. And... it kind of worked, at least as a mood booster. Was I actually "Becoming Unstoppable"? Did I buy the book to get more free bonuses? Yes, but only on kindle so it was cheaper.
So here I am on my little high when it is time for our Tuesday department meeting and my associate (no employees here, we are all "associates" (oh shit I think I just realized that goes back to when it was a mob company)) uses her time to just point out every tiny mistake I've made in front of the whole department (which is four people total). I have found small mistakes she has made and I just correct them and move on, no big deal. Usually. I used this opportunity of feeling attacked to bite back and pointed out something she did but also added a callous "no big deal, just something to watch for". She is older and I think it may be a generational thing. Or an accounting personality type.
Wednesday I had my one-on-one with my boss and thought about bringing it up but didn't want to be petty. She did mentioned she would like the weekly meetings to become a collaborative ideas space so maybe nitpicking each other is not that. We did talk about work goals which is something she procrastinated on. It's a requirement to post in your portal your yearly goals for yourself, the department and your long-term and short-term career goals. My boss plans to retire in five years, and so does everyone else. Maybe I want to be the AP manager after she retires? I need to think about my goals.
Thursday I had my second appointment with my new therapist. Let's call her Kathy. Kathy asks me what the best and worst things were to happen since the last time I saw her. I was not prepared for this, so I use it to segue into what I wanted to talk about anyway -- I call the seminar the best thing just because of its mood boosting and the job goals the worst. Well, not the worst, but the most anxiety producing. I'm not dumb, I did notice that everyone was older and wondered if I was hired to be a potential replacement *someday* but I didn't know I'd have to name it right now. That I had to lay claim to it. Would I even want it? It has never seemed like a possibility before. I am usually the silly one of the department. Then it dawned on me that nobody really knows me here. I could be the fucking AP manager someday. Working from home, we don't interact a ton. I'm not even working very hard and I don't think anyone knows, my boss is just pleased that everything is caught up.
Apparently Kathy used to be an accountant and while I was trying to talk about going back to school to finish my English degree, I think she was assuming that I talking about getting a bachelor's in accounting so I could make more money. I don't even use the stuff I learned getting my associates. She says it doesn't matter, then you can sit for the CPA. I do know some ding dongs that are CPAs so how hard can it be?
It has taken me a long time to come to terms with being an accountant. I am not passionate about it, I don't find it fun. Have I always just wanted to be glamorous and artsy? Not a lot of people get to "do art" for a living. I spend a lot of time thinking of art ideas but not executing them (another point in the ADD column). But given how I breezed through most of my accounting classes with easy As, could it turn out that maybe I actually am talented at accounting? That I am more left-brained than I care to admit it? Is it possible to be a dyslexic attention deficit disordered talented accountant? Can I fake it up to middle management where I don't really have to do anything except coach a couple of underlings and come up with goals that are riddled with corporate jargonese?
Kathy did not encourage me to follow my dreams, she encouraged me to make more money. I should have asked her what mid-life crisis made her pivot from accounting to counseling, but then she would have to pay me for counseling her. Kathy said that when we are young, we may also have wanted to be a unicorn farmer but sometimes you have to grow up. Did she call my writerly dreams immature? I didn't book another appointment with her because I don't know if its a match and I don't know what to work on with her. If something comes up, maybe I'll give her a call. Her schedule seems pretty open.
In the meantime, I put succeeding my boss as AP Manager as my long term goal. Now that it's in my file, they might begin grooming me, but I think the main purpose is for me to groom myself. If I start thinking that there is a chance of becoming a manager, maybe that is enough for me to shift my attitude a bit. One thing is for sure, no getting drunk with these people or telling inappropriate stories about that one time I got drunk or about how I stole my stapler when I got laid off.
2 comments:
I think you'll find that most people are not earning a living at something they wanted to do or had planned to do. There are very few that are able to make a living at something that they very early on envisioned themselves doing. Some are able to reconcile that they are doing their job to fund doing fun stuff on their free time. Some are not able to reconcile and become bitter about it.
It's your call. Personally, I enjoyed earning an income versus being a "starving artist".
I went thru a series of jobs that I did to earn a paycheck. I'm fortunate in that due to a series of events, I was pulled into a job that I considered a calling. But I also had many friends and co-workers who did what they had to do to get along. One constantly pointed out that "this was just a job and not a calling for her".
(shrug) That's life!
Happy Easter!
Can you believe it's already April?
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