Downs and Ups

This has been an interesting time to say the least...

My job carries with it some degree of stress that I live with all the time. I work on a fairly small team We have a fairly aggressive approach to multitasking and project scheduling. There is always too much to do, never enough time to finish a project and many distractions that make focusing on anything for long rather difficult.

Then over the summer, one team member resigned, moving on to something more attractive for him. Someone I really enjoyed working with and valued his expertise and input into the chaos of the environment.

Then a month later my manager resigned. Our relationship hadn't always been easy but I had come to respect his vision and the objective way he set about things.

Then 3 weeks later another team member resigned. I had worked with him for 8+ years and it was tough to see him move on.

2 months, 3 men down from an already small and overwhelmed team.

At this point, I began to wonder if I was the ignorant one for staying put and not seeking a less stressful environment, a more satisfactory job. It was tough to see each of them go. It was hard to contemplate what the coming months would hold and how stressful they would be.

In addition, situations like this, involving rejection, transitions, loss and uncertainty have quite often been extremely hard for me to work through. In fact in some ways I still don't trust my responses or reactions in those settings.

Nevertheless I seem to have managed to maintain a fairly even keel and avoided becoming overly depressed about these difficult events like things that have knocked me for a loop in the past. I can't quite explain it. but I'm grateful for the positive attitude that I've managed to keep through  it all.

Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware of the challenges, stress and incredibly busy months that are ahead, but I'm in a much better headspace than I've been when faced with lesser challenges in the past.

Then today, I got some good news. I won't divulge the nature of it, but it was unexpected and encouraging. I'm glad to be in a place where I can appreciate it instead of in the doldrums. At times like these, I feel like I'm more fortunate than I have any right to be.

I tend to not get carried away with it, but as Thanksgiving day approaches (It's still a couple weeks away, but it's approaching...) I have much to be thankful for.

These aren't deep or inspiring thoughts, but they are where I'm at right now. And I know I'm more positive than I often seem to be. For this I'm grateful.

On loss

When I lose things, especially things that are very important to me, I struggle to adjust to the new reality of no longer having that thing that I valued. I like to think I'm pragmatic, at least sometimes. That adjusting on the fly and coping with new challenges is something I do well. While that may be true in some sense, and in certain situations, I'm finding that it is much more common for me to second guess, worry about and basically struggle to come to grips with loss, particularly when it is the loss of a person or friendship. I second guess what I do and say and if I could have done something different to prevent the loss. I worry that I could have inadvertently hurt or pushed away someone important to me. I guess adjusting to loss is just more of a challenge for me than I expected.

Some of it may be that adjusting to change is something that unsettles and bothers me. I am quick to withdraw and try to convince myself that that change is not hurtful to me, and even if it is, perhaps if I ignore it then it won't hurt as bad. This seems to be the case for changes in structure and responsibilities at work, or changes in relationships with family and friends, or even in the much less important misplacing of talismans or totems (The things I carry in my pocket are very important to me. For years I have carried a stone that reminds me of a time I was happy, and 3 pennies. 1 found under the table when my lovely wife and I decided to stop pursuing fertility treatments, 1 found in the elevator at the hospital when we visited our newborn daughter for the first time, and 1 found the day of the finalization of our daughter's adoption. Carrying these things around may be odd and seem a bit unimportant, but they were important to me. Some of these musings stem from the fact that in the space of a week, I lost all three of the pennies. I still carry the stone. And I hate that I lost the pennies, yet it reminds me that part of life is dealing with loss, so there's that.)

Also when the loss is of a person, whether through death, or relocation, or job-change, or just the ebb and flow of relationships, I find that it is additionally upsetting. I attach a great deal of importance to people and relationships. (I attached importance to the pennies, but not in the same way that I value relationship.) When that loss occurs, I find my thoughts turning inward in two ways. What should I have done differently to prevent the loss from happening or from hurting so much? And what can I do differently in the future to prevent additional losses from happening or hurting? In some ways this is how I'm wired. That's taken a while to understand and still longer to accept. I think that's an important thing to remember and to not try and prevent that introspection and self evaluation, yet getting stuck in that phase doesn't help when you are trying to move on. My second tendency is to pull away from people to prevent someone else from leaving and causing pain. Without doubt this attempt to be "safer" leaves me with fewer close friendships and support systems, and causes more issues in the long run.

I guess from the perspective I occupy right now, one where I see more clearly than sometimes the dangers of responding to loss completely based on my instinct, I see several things to try and improve.1) Allow my natural introspection to register hurt and disappointment without dismissing and ignoring them. 2) Choose to not get stuck in mourning and depending on the way things used to be. 3) Choose to get up and try again, instead of isolating and insulating myself. ("safety" consisting of entirely isolating oneself is sad and lonely)

Of course it's one thing to sit and drink and ponder and say these are areas to improve. It's a different matter entirely to put it into practice when loss cracks your heart they way it inevitably will. To put it into practical terms, I've handled the loss of my pennies pretty well. I know better than to think that the next friendship I lose will be handled so smoothly.

I guess putting simple thoughts together like this, ('cause trust me, I know there's nothing groundbreaking here. Just concepts that most people don't have as much problems working through, that I can't seem to grasp) is helpful to me. I'll be the first to acknowledge that these things have given me, and still give me, a lot of trouble. I'm just hoping that there's still personal growth that can take place despite my poor tendencies.

Summer evening ramblings

It's a quiet summer evening. The air is still. The chirp of insects is easier to hear than the hum of passing cars. Today has been a full day, lots of things accomplished. Overall I feel good at what I was able to get done. I feel good that a large chunk of the day was spent doing things to help other people. I've had a bit of time to myself and was able to just sit and think, something I don't spend enough time doing.

This week had some rough times for me. In trying to be sensitive some of those I love reminded me that their first response to me is to worry about what I will say and do, rather than to worry about how I feel. This saddens me and makes me feel that they don't care about what I really feel and who I really am, only whether my actions cause problems for them. This was pretty difficult. My remarkable wife argued with me consistently and forced me to recognize that this was assigning intent to actions that probably carried none to begin with. While I do accept that and have calmed down, I am still bothered greatly by the lack of understanding or even interest in how I feel.

So in many ways it reminds me that I'm still not fully adjusted to the way "things are" instead of the way things used to be or could be. This adjustment is proving hard and I'm not sure when I'll ever be "ok" with the way things are.

Also this week saw me lose 3 things that are important to me. No one else understands fully, and I still have some thinking to do on that one, but that also points to adjusting and learning to get used to the way things are.

Of course in the positive sense (I guess) the very people who consistently provide the biggest challenge for me to remain confident of their love, acted as if nothing had happened and this afternoon provided a perfectly "normal" interchange. I'm glad it wasn't negative, yet I still struggle with feeling fully accepted and not held at arms length.

There may come a time.... but probably not.

Out of sync

Quite often of late, I have felt completely out of sync with the people around me, in a number of different ways.

• Dealing with difficult family relationships
• Just when it seemed that real improvement and good wholesome interchange was a legitimate part of this particularly difficult relationship, everything returns to distant and disengaged. 
• Sleeping
• When the rest of the world is ready to sleep I'm nowhere close. Some late late nights over the past week.
• Working
• When I'm working, everyone I'd like to hang out with is free. When I'm free, many others are working.
• Having "fun"
• I have found that the ways that I choose to have fun has caused someone else to not have fun. Yet when I willingly curtail what I would like to do to allow them to have fun, the concession isn't noticed.
• Spiritually
• Out of sync to say the least. My skepticism doesn't mesh well with the faith based principles of family, friends, and other acquaintances
• Politically
• likewise. My liberal perspective often causes conflict with the people / family / friends that are around me and important to me.
• Friends
• When a few, important relationships seem distant, my assumption and application of that extends even to those people whom I trust as friends and who have no idea I am assuming they are distancing themselves as well.

But life continues. Out of Sync or not.

Friends, Old and New, to Play with

Today was a busy day getting ready for friends coming over for supper. I spent some time mowing and cleaning up the lawn. Took a short shopping trip with Baby X to get sand for her sandbox. It took a while to locate and purchase the sand, but I did finally come home with enough so her sandbox could be emptied of the nasty remnants of what was in there before. She was able to help me full it with the new sand so that was exciting. We flew kites for a bit this afternoon, and then waited for the arrival of the family of an old friend of ours.

This is a family that has had many challenges and changes over the years, as have we. The parents are some of our oldest friends, and there is a bond between us that is stronger than the surface, gone-at-the-first-hint-of-trouble variety. They understand some of the struggles that I have dealt with and have not rejected me for them. They are encouraging of me and I consider them both close friends.

Their kids are people who Baby X has seen occasionally, but doesn't have a current, ongoing context for a great deal of interaction / friendship.

Due to the (figurative) water that has gone under the bridge for all of us, I am grateful for opportunities to interact. They are some of my oldest friends and some of the best.

Baby X had an absolute blast playing with their children tonight. They played hard, with passion, with kindness and with respect for her  3 year old perspective. The friendship here while not "brand new" still was something that they all had to get used to. They got used to it and by the end of the night, as they were leaving, she was begging them to "please, please come back again."

I don't think it's especially profound, just important to realize, but we need both kinds, and we need to be both kinds.

When we are old friends we have a long term commitment to that friendship. It goes both ways, we trust and are trusted. We are there for our friends and they are there for us.

Yet, if we remain insulated and only interact with the people we have known for a long time, we will inevitably stagnate. We need the influx of new friendship that spur us to do better and help us prepare when something new comes along. Baby X is building memories and friendships that will last and provide the basis for friendships in the coming years.

We should rely on old friendships, prove ourselves worthy of the same reliance, yet not pass up opportunities to form new friendships and offer our friendships to new friends. It's not easy, but this balance helps us maintain the truth of who we are and acknowledges that the future will most likely bring changes and other things that will be out of our control. Regardless of if they are old or new we need and will continue to need friends. And our friends need us and will continue to need us.


Random thoughts

• I am so ready for warm weather
• Watching the streaming coverage of Coachella allows access to all kinds of music. The dubstep / EDM is so easy to zone out to and let the bass carry you along. 
• Looked for the Northern Lights tonight, but didn't see anything of interest.
• The chance to just sit, think, and then ramble on about something is therapeutic.
• My eyelids are heavy, but my mind wants to hang out. Just wish sleep wasn't that important.
• There are some friends who I miss, sometimes painfully much.