A Disappointing Day...

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~~  This is one of several posts 
~~  I started and hadn't been able 
~~  to finish.  They will be 
~~  appearing out of the chronology 
~~  of events.

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Friday was a long, hard day.  It was a day of big emotions and big emotional swings.  I didn't handle things well.  It seems I never really do.  I can never do things the easy way.  I know the way I live my life must be a source of consternation and concern for the people I love and who love me.  It started early and didn't end 'til after midnight.  I was physically tired but more than that I was emotionally wrung out, emotionally tired.

Around 4AM I was roused by an IM message asking if I could take a friend to urgent care later in the day after they woke up.  Of course I can do this, and I told them so.  And rolled over and back to sleep.  My Dear-Heart of a puppy, Xena, does not have any concept of sleeping in.  She woke me around 7 and insisted we play or go outside so she could do her duty.  And my day was off and running.

I had hoped to try to go play golf, but not knowing when my friend would wake, I putzed around the apartment and did some chores.  And I, of course, did my usual 'net surfing.  One of the things I've been trying to change is being so dependent on my Second Daughter. I hate being needy! So, instead of my usual routine, I didn't say good morning to her first thing like usual.  I was hoping she'd initiate the day with me.  It didn't happen and I got a little more out of sorts as the day went on.  Silly Momma. 

A few days before, I had stared to fill out the online job application for barista at Starbucks.  I came to a place where I had to explain why I left my last employer.  Here, things got really hard.  I can answer the question, "I was terminated" just fine, but the "why" is really hard for me.  It brings the scene back to me in full force.  The things they accused me of doing just knots my bowels.  And the accusations are false; it's just what they used to fire the transsexual who had come out just a few weeks before.  But the shame stays with me still.  Still, I want to fill out the application honestly, so what do I do?

Last year I had the opportunity to share my experiences going to San Mateo with a young woman who has become like…  Annabelle's become another Daughter to me.  I gave her all the information I had and the links and pointers to information  that would help her through her surgery.  I offered my phone number and email to her to give to her mom who was going with her to San Mateo.  Her Mom, Sandie, and I have become so close these days that we are definitely Sisters.  She is another of the wonderful blessings Poppa has graced me with in this journey.  Sandie is sort-of retired from a career in Human Resources.  She asked me for my resume' last week to help me improve it, if that's possible.  I sent her an email asking how I address the firing.  She asked for more information and, in tears, I wrote the story again.  I waited for her response.  And I put off finishing the application.

I shared this with my Second Daughter.  She felt that this was a disappointing decision.  That I was putting off getting the application in seemed to be … not what I needed to do.  She knows better than anyone else that I really need work; that I need work with medical benefits and I need it soon.  I was already a week later than I wanted to be getting it done.  And she was right, I did need to get it done ASAP!  Friday, I was already upset with myself that I hadn't acted on this before.  I knew it was coming but I subconsciously did not want to go there.  

So my Second Daughter, Daughter of my Heart, was disappointed in me.  Like everyone else in my life.  I grew up, if you can call it that, in a household where good wasn't good enough.  My father never, ever, had any praises for me.  Very few expressions of disappointment, but I absolutely never felt like he was proud of me.  That left me with disappointed.  He never made many of my sports events and I felt he was disappointed with me, that I was less than he wanted me to be.  Mom on the rare occasions she was paying attention to me, would always tell me, "Good job, but …"  But it wasn't a good job because it always, _Always!_ could have been better.  Always, not good enough.  For as far back as I long as I can remember.  And the most important person in my life now, thought my decision to put off finishing my application was disappointing.  On the one hand, I understood her disappointment and she wasn't wrong, but I was crushed!  I tried to work through it because I knew I had to know the right way to address my firing, oh Poppa! it was hard.  

I took Xena out for a walk and to check my mail.  I saw that I had a bill from Swedish where I had gone when I had my stroke..  I have been waiting for this since I went in for my stroke.  Opening the bill and seeing the charges just floored me.  My Daughter was disappointed at me and I have bills that were going to be higher than if I had been able to get my surgery.  In tears again, walking back to my apartment, I heard myself mutter something  haven't said in almost 3 years, "I wish I was dead!"  I haven't been this low in a long time.  And background to this is Friday night was my son's graduation ceremony from seminary.  The graduation he very plainly didn't want me to attend.

Sandie got back to me eventually and I finished up my Starbucks app.  I told Debra that I'd finished the application and she said she was proud of me and that she knew I could do it.  But I continued to struggle with feeling "less than"  It was a couple days before I was able to come out of that funk.