equilibrium-girl.com

In a Nutshell

Lunch today consisted of me coming home and bawling my eyes out, wiping them dry, re-applying my makeup, and eating a cold pasta salad.

I then returned to work.

Everyone tells me I need to "grow a thicker skin" and that I take my work too personally. The funny thing is that I am good at what I do because I put my heart into it. And it fulfills me and makes me an interesting person. Of course I take criticism personally. But I'm supposed to act like I don't because people take advantage of the "weak," whatever that means.

So I guess add that to the list of hypocritical standards that I'm supposed to meet.

Pre-weekend tally

Number of work-related calls after I left work this evening: 4

Number of items to review and comment on by Monday morning: 4

Folders with background information: 2

Tantrumy child: 1

Tantrumy husband: 1

Tantrumy self: 0-er, I mean 1.

Red cheeks

I'm embarassed for myself. I have this weird and totally inappropriate crush, and it's so silly that I feel odd just writing about it. Pure, run-of-the-mill kindness impresses me, which is really sort of pathetic. But I have the urge to gush, and so that's what I'm doing here. Really, though, these things get put into perspective after a while, and it passes but remains a pleasant factor. All I have to say for now is the following: some people can be so darn cute it's criminal.

sweet things

For the longest time I had this aversion to using teardrops in bracelets. Last weekend, however, I decided that I was going to try new things. I decided to go full stop into it, and ended up with what I call my "jelly bean" bracelet.

It's so cool that 6 year old girls compliment me. "Hey, nice bracelet," they say. 6 year olds are the true style mavens, so that it does me proud.

The Larger Child

Conan looks so peaceful when he is sleeping. I swing my legs around and lift my upper body to get out of bed each morning, and he is always still sound asleep. He and his harem of pillows occupy the majority of our king-sized bed, and yet he looks so young with his eyes are closed and face expressionless. I like to kiss his angular pink cheeks when he is like this--he's still that adorable after 5 years of marriage.

Inner Quandries

I hate to be the bearer of anything quasi-depressing, but being the working mommy of a preschooler is sometimes as heartbreaking as being the working mommy of a baby. Sometimes, it is more so, as your preschooler has learned the art of the heartwrenching statement. I love it and hate it when The Governor says, "I miss you when you go to work," or even "I don't have any friends at summer camp (which apparently isn't true)." I don't know if this is some sort of long-standing concern or just the passing throes of miniature adolescence, and it gets to me.

He's been painfully shy to separate himself from me when I drop him off a preschool during the regular school year. Since he started summer camp, it's a little bit better since he is really enjoying it and gets to ride the bus, but there is always something and I'm still not sure if I'm "doing this right," whatever that means. I have less confidence in my parenting skills than when he was under one. I've never parented any child who is so full of energy and who talks non-stop. I have tried the gentle way of getting him to relax or use his "inside voice," but he is quite the chatterbox and question-asker. Conan and I try and have perspective-gathering sessions after he is in bed and asleep to remind ourselves that he really is a good kid (he is), bright and funny and curious. He is shy and sensitive, but cuddly and fun. He is loyal and stubborn, and a very, very generous friend. When you are in the midst of chaos, however, it's sometimes hard to remember those things. I'm still working on ridding myself of that idyllic image of a staid, quiet child who likes to sit still in the hammock while we swing in the breeze, reading page after page. Not everyone lives in the pastel-hued world of Beatrix Potter. He did, however, watch a bit of Finding Neverland with us.

The thunder outside of my window makes me sad, because The Governor and I had agreed to going "running" as our "special time" this afternoon. If it rains, we will need to reschedule for a different day. I hope I'm doing this parenting thing correctly-always some doubts along the way.

The Only Thing Certain: Uncertainty

one of my mentors called me last week, and since he's been going through a transition at his job, i asked how things were going.

"Miserable," he said, after a pause of about 2.45 seconds. He then explained that they'd been quite busy, which I'd known already: most inside-the-Beltway practitioners in our area have a habit of already knowing things like this. We couldn't really talk, since he had to take a transatlantic call that he'd been expecting, but I've been wondering how he is doing.

Many of my former colleagues have been swamped to the gills, and I guess we're all dealing with some of the same types of things. But in many ways, I don't have a lot of people to talk to about my current work. There is a risk of confidentiality--everyone is extremely close-knit and if I inadvertently leak some bit of information, it gets passed along a chain of communications. They funny thing is that all of it is inadvertent: we all want to keep each other apprised of how our friends are doing, and the status of a particular project or sometimes even one's temporary mental state can be quite telling.

The other thing is that there are only a handful of peole who know about the specific balance between "everyday" work and "big project" work that I try to accomplish. And all of those people are managers or co-workers of mine. If I were to vent about it a bit, I would wonder if it would affect my reviews. Not that I need help in that area--sometimes I feel like I'm just bumbling along in my job, making mistake after mistake. Nobody ever tells you before "transitioning" that this form of practice is hard too: while there are none of stresses than those that accompany private practice, there are still stresses. Fucking up so that the lesson sticks with you like quality jasmine rice is really the only way to learn this job. I got thrown into the deep end since day 1, and I still can't tell if I've learned to tread water. The clients all seem to like me, regardless of the amount of times I'd forgotten to send the redlined document, so I think I may be doing something right. But deep in my gut, I feel that I'm really not quite sure.

I haven't felt the urge to make any jewelry lately, although there is a necklace that I need to photograph for PrincessJeanne. I haven't written much, and I haven't sewn in a very, very long time. The human experiement of creativity is not yielding very good results, but it's not one that I'm going to scrap just yet.