I'm just your average, everyday, divorced 38 year old girl -- overweight, tragically unhip,
and trying to make a life for myself. I live with two furry beasts, Dave and Abby, whose
feline mission in life is to choke me with their fur. Nothing special.
Saturday afternoon. You know, it's not just my weight that needs attention and energy, my poor condo does, too. As I was sitting and listening to presentations on the different committees within Junior League this morning, I kept hearing that some committees rotate their meetings through their members' houses and I started getting really worried. Sure, I could spend an entire weekend (or two) scrubbing and it would be OK for friends and family, but, in order to have strangers over, it's going to require many visits to Home Depot, Goodwill, and some professional help. It's a terrible feeling, knowing that I can't have any of my new and potential friends over because of my house, but it will cost money in addition to being time consuming, neither of which are in my budget at this moment. Threadbare carpet, peeling and stained wallpaper, broken cabinet doors, cracked tile, a leaking faucet, and doors and door frames that need to be sanded and repainted - what a long, unwieldly list. (There's also the new curtain rods to be installed and curtains to be hung, but that's more optional/would-be-nice than required.) More stress and worry, just what I needed.
Friday morning. I've tried, really, I have, but it's like when someone tells you not to think about oranges and suddenly the only thing you can think about is oranges. Not writing about something that is so central to my life (at least at this point in my life) just feels forced - forced and wrong. I have enough things to do without having to try to find things other than this struggle to write about, so I'm not going to fight it anymore.
I'm going to keep the comments turned on, too, and just ask that no one tell me I'm overreacting or minimize what I'm talking about here. You are all entitled to your opinions about what I write, but this is, in the end, my journal about my thoughts and feelings, so please respect that and don't tell me to, in essence, "get over it" because this is a fight for my life - literally - and it's very hard to want this so much yet not be willing (for whatever reason) to do something about it. I cannot say strongly enough how much this upsets me, and so you're going to read a lot of soul searching, a lot of questioning of why the suffering I'm going through doesn't seem to be enough to get me to do what I need to do. I'll ask you to please resist the urge to tell me that "it's all going to be OK" because I'm not sure that it will be and you can't possibly know that, either.
Finally, a small matter but one which is very important to me. I try to respond to each comment I receive, no matter how much it might upset me. This is something that's very important to me because, if someone is going to give of their time and thought to communicate to me, they deserve to know that I've received their comment and appreciate their effort. From now on, however, if you don't have your email address associated with your Blogger account, if I don't have it already in my archives, or if you don't include it in the body of your comment, I won't be able to respond to you. I've been taking hours every week to research email addresses for "no reply" and "anonymous" commenters and, while I will still read and appreciate your thoughts, I just don't have the time to spend digging around for a way to respond.
Wednesday night. Well, I decided to postpone the start of my next class. I'm just too stressed out with too much on my mind and my schedule right now to be able to properly focus on school. I've got the same class scheduled for June so it's all good and a weight off of my mind.
With that dealt with, there's still my upcoming first hearing with Alcott in front of the judge. My report went in on time (yay me!) and my supervisor let me know today that she thinks it looks great (double yay!), so that's reassuring. I went to the Voices for Children volunteer recognition luncheon yesterday and it couldn't have been timed any better for me. I talked to my CASA mentor, Ruth, as well as a five year veteran, Marj, and both told me that the way I'm feeling is totally normal and will pass. They both shared with me stories about their cases and the fact that they got through the tough times, and that really helps. Maybe it's because I don't have any kids of my own or maybe it's just my overdeveloped need to be perfect at everything I do, but I've just really been stressing out about not being "good enough" at my CASA-ing, and those ladies really helped me see that just being there, listening, and trying my best will be "good enough". I need to be more patient with myself and stop trying to get it all right the first time and figure everything out immediately upon starting a new project. I know that there are people who are just naturally good at everything, but I need to potter around for a bit and figure things out as I go, so that's what I'm going to (continue to) do. I'm sure if you asked Alcott he'd tell you that I'm not a bad CASA and that's not faint praise from a 13 year old.
I've got Junior League Provisional training on Saturday in addition to the Placement Fair next Tuesday, where I will (hopefully) get put on the political action committee. If I don't get the SPAC assignment, my next choice is Education and Training Council, which will be interesting and satisfying, too, so it's a total win-win. It will be nice to see the remaining girls from my small group within the provisional class. We're down to just seven of us from 12 when we started, and I haven't seen several of them since February, so we've not done a particularly good job of staying connected, which is the point of the small groups. On the other hand, there are four of us that have seen each other quite a bit (several times a month), and I consider all of them friends, so it's not a total wash. I don't think any of them are looking at the committee assignments that I am, but that's OK.
Monday afternoon. OK, I just made such a bonehead move. I'm a project manager at a high tech company and am supposed to know my head from a hole in the ground, yet I just sent a private message to everyone on a virtual meeting instead of the one person I intended it for. Oops - is my face red!
Yesterday was so incredibly lazy for me. Oh, I did get several loads of laundry done and I got to the dry cleaners and WalMart, but I didn't do any of the reading/studying that I should have done for my class on Wednesday. Worse, because I haven't done the reading, I can't do the 5-7 page paper that's due on Wednesday, either. Yikes! My Junior League placement advisor cancelled our scheduled meeting for tonight, so I'm still hoping this can work out. Procrastination is such a bad, bad thing!
I'm feeling a little disheartened with my CASA responsibilities. It's nothing that Alcott's done, it's just about me, my strengths and weaknesses, and whether or not this is really something I'm cut out for. I can't go into the details (it's the confidentiality thing), but I'm starting to think that I'm too involved emotionally and that, given my emotional makeup, it might not be something that will change. I'm going to talk with my Voices for Children supervisor today and see what she thinks about where my head is right now.
