I’m still in my pajamas

By Mir
April 23, 2005

That’s right. It’s almost 1:00, and I’m still in my jammies. So are the kids. (In their jammies. Not mine. That would be a wee bit too much “family togetherness,” don’t you think?) It’s raining out and we’re not going anywhere, so instead we’re eating pizza in our jammies and watching endless episodes of “Teen Titans.”

My fictitious children (read: my planned-for children, before I actually had children, and, you know, got smacked upside the head by Real Life) never watched more than an hour of television per day, and they never watched anything with any type of violence. My real children have shared in what turned out to be an incredibly long and stressful week and they need a day of total down time just as much as I do, and they happened to bring this DVD home from Daddy’s. And “Teen Titans” makes me giggle, and I haven’t yet noticed it upping their propensity to leap tall buildings in a single bound or anything, so how bad could it be? So, yeah.

I really wanted to post today to say that HEY it was an awful week and IT’S OVER NOW, but I have been foiled. It’s not over yet. BUT. I’m in my jammies in the middle of the day. Tralala!

We need to talk a little bit about the job (cue the blog police). As you may have noticed, in not speaking about the job, this week I had virtually nothing to say. That’s because, I have done little else but work this week. It has been eating up my mind and sucking out my soul and all of those lovely things that I had forgotten about being part and parcel of having a demanding job that you actually care about.

Monday marks the beginning of A Big Thing. We’ve been preparing for it for the last month or so, and this last week was the full-court press to Be Ready. And as I said, I thought that after Friday there would be a collective sigh of relief and then life would return to being manageable. Haha. Hahahahahahahaha!

Today, I’m playing Slugfest with the children. Tomorrow, they’ll go to Daddy’s, so that I can go back to work and finish what needs to be done before Monday’s Big Thing. On account of I was able to fill up about 55 hours last week with Very Important Things for The Big Thing, but not All The Important Things that Absolutely Positively Have To Be Done.

Confused? Yeah. Sorry.

You know how sometimes something seems like a really good idea to do something, and then later, you wonder what exactly you’d been smoking when you made that decision? Apparently, when I applied for this job, I told these people that I could create websites and write volumes and design things and be creative and eat fire and walk on water and pull fresh daisies out of my ass. Well, maybe not ALL of those things; but you get the idea. It SEEMED like such a good idea at the time. Impress them. Make them think they NEED me. Make them think I’m actually CAPABLE.

And then they hired me, and in my joy I worked REALLY REALLY HARD doing MY VERY BEST and GIVING IT MY ALL and blah blah blah because I had forgotten the first rule of employment: Never work at a full 100%, because sooner or later someone will demand 120%.

Ergo, I am a moron.

So, last week–in the preparation for The Big Thing–I dunno, I guess a couple of forces came together. First, everyone knows that when you have a deadline, the tasks at hand start multiplying like crazed bunnies. Your to-do list on Monday is one page, and by Friday–after working like a dog all week–the list has expanded to three pages. Second, all these people are apparently convinced that I can do, um, everything.

I have GOT to stop being brilliant. Expectations need to be lowered. And I’m going to get to work on that JUST AS SOON AS I finish up, tomorrow, on the seventy gazillion web pages I seem to have promised for The Big Thing. Yes.

[Sidebar: Given that I also worked a (more than) full day on the day that my stomach was staging a mutiny, and given that I offered only “I’m not feeling super well today” as a tight-lipped explanation to my concerned coworkers, I am also planning to start filching office supplies. Seems fair.]

By yesterday, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. It remained maddeningly out of reach, however, and I again found myself wondering: Is this really what I want? Does it even MATTER if this is what I want? Do I have any alternatives? It will get better after this week, right? What is that on my shoe? Etc. I suppose that’s a fairly normal response to that sort of stress.

But the doubt about THIS PARTICULAR job… that was really unsettling. It’s hard for me; I was out of the workforce for so long, I don’t feel like I have a good reference base for what’s “normal.” Feeling so overwhelmed, for so long, had me wondering if this is just my lot in the working world (was I like this before? I don’t know, but I also know I wasn’t a single mom to two, before) or if THIS JOB is just too much stress.

At the same time, the idea of heading back into the job search is about as appealing as snorting hot sauce.

All in all, twas not a comfy feeling. And it certainly didn’t help that others around me were fraying around the edges, as well.

Anyway. Friday. Yesterday. There came a moment of clarity. Well, no. I’m not sure clarity is the right word. There came a moment of acceptance, I guess I should say. I still can’t actually SEE a damn thing… I’m just feeling a little more settled in my myopia.

My boss and I were looking at something on my computer… I don’t even remember what. We were deep in discussion/thought/seriousness, when another coworker BOUNCED into the doorway and said, “Have you heard the good news??”

She was SO BOUNCY that it would’ve IRRITATED THE CRAP OUT OF ME if it hadn’t struck me the other way, instead–that is to say, rather than immediately wanting to smack her, I found her cheerfulness contagious in an exaggerated and more-than-this kind of way. And so my response flew out of my mouth, matching her tone and liveliness and then soaring way over the top in giddiness.

Thus:
Her:
Have you heard the good news??
Me: JESUS IS RISEN, HE IS RISEN INDEED????

Followed by:
Her:
*crickets*
Him: I was JUST going to say that!

And then:
Her:
Ahhh… ha. ha. *leaving*
Me and him: *prolonged hysterical laughter borne of too much stress rendering something mildly amusing completely hilarious*

So yeah, I have to work tomorrow; but if I feel the need to make an irreverent Jesus joke, that’ll be cool. It all balances out.

9 Comments

  1. alektra

    I don’t ever recall a job being that enjoyable, and I’ve had the good and the bad. I think the most important thing for me is having A) a good boss and B) human coworkers.

    Hugs, and I hope the stress-monsters do leave you alone for today. Teen Titans rules, even if Wil Wheaton is Aqualad.

  2. Dj

    Teen Titans is cool! I like Totally Spies too.

  3. Colleen

    Yeah me too! On both accounts. We got dressed at 4! I know the feelings all too well…welcome to the working world of 2005!

  4. The Zero Boss

    Holy shit, Alektra’s right – Wil Wheaton’s Aqualad!! Thank the Goddess he’s not a regular character.

    Oh, and if Wil’s reading – no offense, big guy. Feel free to link to my blog any time.

  5. Kris

    Hey, it’s PJ day here as often as we can manage it! If you’re not going out of the house, why add to the laundry pile? LOL!

  6. diane

    Mir, sweetie, if the weather there is anything like it is in Chicago (as in 30 something and SNOW!) by all means stay in your jammies as long as you wish.
    As for work, yeah, I totally can relate. I love my job, my boss, my company at large, but I had 2 weeks that gave me knots in my stomach and my back. So know that you are definitely not alone in what you’re feeling.

  7. ben

    My kids don’t watch Teen Titans. My kids watch Cyberchase, and then look at me like I’m a moron because I don’t figure out the puzzle before they (my kids) do.

  8. La Pix

    Good luck today, Mir!
    Hope it is going great for you and that you’ll be able to relax later.

  9. laura

    That makes me remember a contempo-Christian song sung in my youth at Forest Meadows Baptist Church: “HE is alive, He is aLIVE, He IS alive…” chanted over and over again as the soloist did her thing. Anyway, having a job sucks. Not having one sucks more. Jammie days rule. Being irreverant and having fun at the job: priceless.

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