Stress and Survival

[float_on_alright]

Today went okay, I suppose. Either way, I’m very grateful it’s done. I was feeling ridiculously overwhelmed. I’m still a little stressed and overwhelmed, but the training thing today was one of the things most stressing me about my life currently. I still have a lot to get through and do and take care of. That’s life I suppose. It’s not like I haven’t put off doing real work on a number of occasions because I wanted to play or watch Hallmark movies lately. I will say preparation for today was largely not my fault. I asked for a meeting several times. I asked for information quite a few times. And what I got was vague and confusing at best. Most often I was told something along the lines of “we’ll meet up seeon beforehand to prepare.” Right up until a few days ago when they were finally like, “oh I guess we don’t have time--just figure out some activities to do with this other person you’ve never been in the same room with.” To say I was frustrated would be a gross understatement.

Listen, I’m all for winging things, but I need some sort of outline. I need some sort of context. The people who have been doing these types of classes hand never provided a training session on the topic we were doing today so even they really didn’t have anything prepared. I honestly wanted to throttle everyone involved. Then the girl who is doing the most to be helpful was sick. She didn’t call out, but she’d lost a lot of her voice so she couldn’t do all the things she’d planned. That’s obviously not her fault. But I need to know I’m not stepping on people’s toes and I’m not reinventing the wheel. And when you give me an agenda that’s supposed to be helpful, make sure it is ACTUALLY helpful.

The whole mess of circumstances around everything going on certainly wasn’t the norm. I know that already. Then we added the fact that we were trying to coordinate four people for a meeting not just two as had previously been the team. It’s not easy to pull together four people from different branches spread out over the county at the best and most convenient of times. These were not the best and most convenient of times for any of us.

We did survive. I survived.

It’s not that I didn't know that everything would be fine. Intellectually, I told myself and I knew that everything would be fine. I even have a reminder on my phone now that pops up every day to tell me that “everything is going to be okay” so that I see it in writing as well.

When I was at Scholastic and struggling like this all the time and perhaps even more so, I remember reading something that did kind of help. It said, “You’ve survived 100% of the bad days you’ve had so far.” One day I will die, but it’s not likely to be because a presentation about recommending books to customers killed me. I guess I could die under a stack of books to heavy for me to withstand. Still not particularly likely. I can withstand a lot of books. If I did die that way though, I think I’d be okay with it. I mean, what better way for a book nerd like me to go than under a giant stack of heavy books. I’m hoping that I’ll go peacefully and painlessly in my sleep many, many years--hell many decades from now--but if I have to go some other way, I think I’d like it to be book related. That seems appropriate.

But yeah, I’ve survived all the things that life has thrown at me up to this point and that’s a really great track record.

Tomorrow is another day. One that I’m hoping will be a little quieter or at least less stressful and with me in the spotlight less. I have some stuff I reallllly need to get done. Some of which I really wanted to have done already, but I was even busier than I anticipated being and that just couldn’t be helped. For once, it’s not my fault.

Still, tomorrow will be busy I want to get some sleep before I have to face it. Night all.