Mercury must be out of retrograde…

Ucellina had her babies yesterday. A little boy and a little girl. I think I’m slightly jealous. On the other hand, I’m sure if I’m ever faced with the prospect of recovering from a C-section and setting about to raise twin infants I would probably call such envy crazy.

Things are doing okay. I’ve actually had a really productive couple of days at work lately and its kind of been nice after a long stretch of the frustrating-sort-of-busyness and a lot of tension in the office. The tension is still there but I work around it and get left alone enough to breathe a little. It is not perfect, but it is manageable and that’s a lot.

The repair people broke my office phone (well actually the rats from days gone by had chewed through my telephone cord almost to breaking and the man was silly enough to pull too hard and make it official…), which I have LOVED because the thing that makes me craziest in my office is a constantly ringing phone. Newest Office Manager sends a lot of phone calls my way that her predecessors would have fielded themselves, and the interruptions make me crazy. As I’ve probably said before I think I have a short term memory problem– or at least an insufficient short term memory as compared to my stellar long term memory. So little interruptions like ringing phones seem to put me into a disarray at times, constantly trying to remember what it was I was doing before the phone rang. That somewhat valid excuse aside, however, I do have a sneaking suspicion that my lack of interest in the phone lately has a bit of social inhibition  at play too though. After years of being anti-texting I’ve now become a full fledged textaholic, and I’m sure it has as much to do with an unwillingness to connect with people in so intimate a manner as real-time talking, as with any actual usefulness I find with the technology. I’m a little cautious, a little more into myself these days I suppose.

I realized the past day or two what it really is that has been bothering me about my job and about the question of whether or not to leave it (and if so, how soon). Having poured myself into something that had value, something that I ultimately believed in– it’s extremely difficult to see it trivialized by people I respect. And people I respect have continually looked at this particular NonProfit and found it just a little fucked up. We have our good days and our bad days, and we certainly have our fans and supporters. But for quite a long time, on an organizational level, there has been a disconnect between what we profess to be and what our reputation is. I knew this going in, but I wanted to be part of a turn-around in that department– and maybe part of what I’ve been struggling with is a sense of failure that I didn’t make enough of an impact to change this Place into something respectable, even admirable.

So I’ve renewed the ArtSEARCH subscription, and investigated various Ed.D. programs, and tossed the Peace Corps ideas again. I don’t know where I’m going or what is next, but it’s becoming more clear that a change will need to be made.  In the mean time, time to start planning a road trip to see someone’s Babies of Awesomeness.

This post should have been about my so-exciting cruise

And I will have to remember to fill you in on all those details because really. It.Was.Wonderful. — but instead it’s 20 of 4 on the morning I have to return to work and I just found out something this past evening that is going to make tomorrow, er, today– even more depressing than I was kind of already anticipating it would be. Phooey.

Suffice it to say I think I’ve finally come around to truly question the viability of the NonProfit I work for. Economic viability, programmatic viability, everything. Things have always been rocky here, and I often say the great miracle is the fact that we’re still here. I have tried so hard to fix so much, and certainly it’s fair to say that my identity has gotten quite mixed up in my place here. And for the first time I think I will be truly in a place where I can will myself to consider whether I should stay. It makes me ill to even think of leaving. But until tonight people would say “How can you stay there? Don’t you know there are places where you could be paid more? Appreciated more?” Maybe I haven’t known. Maybe I still don’t. But tonight’s the first night that I haven’t been able to brush those questions off easily with a “well maybe someday I’ll come to my senses…” or a “it’s working as a job for me for the moment” or a “there’s a lot of benefits in this job that I couldn’t get somewhere else.” Tonight’s the first night that I’ve hesitated at all, even let myself grapple with the question for real.

Damn it. And I was so rested.

Is this a light I see at the end of this tunnel?

What a week. I go on a cruise next week and by golly I’ve earned it. As my last post indicated, there was a major crisis at work this week involving some kids. It’s been one of those miracle weeks where emotions are high, and I have often felt that I am navigating through a maze, but not on my own power– I am doing things and watching myself doing them at the same time. There is a sense of right-ness, a sense of I’m doing what I’m called to be doing. A sense that I’m a passenger in my life but I know the way. And yet– it’s peculiar because it’s exactly how I shouldn’t feel. In a crisis like this I think I should be backpedaling and unsure– isn’t that how everyone is? But for all the moments of wringing my hands before summoning up my courage– I’ve felt sure this week about what is right and a… comfort with taking on the courage to do what needed doing. I wouldn’t want to go through this again, and I would do anything to take away some of the suffering here. But there are so many times in life when things are foggy and there’s something… clarifying… in coming to a crossroads where the choices come down to moral courage.

For all that I am afraid of, and there is much– one thing I am proud of, one thing I like about myself, is that I think I am a courageous person. More than once now I have faced hard choices and gone along a path that could have been easier– and I’ve always found I sleep better at night after. Even seemingly trivial choices like whether to give a toast at my sister’s wedding– I knew I needed to say what needed saying, and I was chicken for so long I couldn’t write it or guarantee it would happen for the longest time. But when I read the speech it was almost an auto-pilot thing– I think it’s that I feel free-est when my heart is open and sharing.

So. Miracles happen amidst madness. It is nice to be at the end of a lot of difficult decisions and have survived in one piece. It’s nice to actually now be thinking of my vacation. For a long time this week I didn’t think I could enjoy my vacation– I kept thinking of the many work items tabled in the name of crisis and stressing that it would be the center of my thoughts next week– and THEN all the worse to return. But something in me is shifting this past day or so. It’s not just the “I need a vacation” cliche’ of every week– it’s somehow I think I’m ready for it.

How to Re-Member - OR - I’ll put money down my day sucked worse than yours

One of the causes worth supporting that I’ve linked on this site is a place called Re-Member. It’s an organization that serves the Lakota Indians on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. I volunteered there a couple years back, building bunk beds for families living a dozen to a trailer. I am glad to have done it and would love to go back, it is a wonderful spiritual place that is making a difference in a community that sorely in need of healing. They host volunteer education and “mission” trips (though not of an evangelical variety in any sense of the word) providing service to Remember and Re-Member the Lakota people. That is, first, to Remember what has been done to the Lakota in the past and what continues to afflict them now. But, perhaps even more urgently, Re-Member seeks to Re-Member, that is to do the opposite of dismember– to take something that has been broken and put it back together somehow.

That image has resonated with me ever since that trip. I’ve been thinking about it a lot today, which was, to put it mildly, a very sad day from beginning to end. I wouldn’t even know how to begin to explain. Suffice it to say that children are often extremely cruel to one another and I would like nothing more than to take away some of the pain they so carelessly inflict sometimes. In my position at work I take responsibility for the well-being of hundreds of children a year, and it is a heavy responsibility I take extremely seriously. I care desperately for the kids I work with. Sometimes that isn’t enough. They fuck up. They hurt each other. They disappoint me. And today I spent literally the whole day– from 8:30AM to well-after 10:30PM, sorting through a mess of crazy proportions that included all of this, all in the name of protecting a victim. I made kids cry. I made parents cry. I blamed myself. I’m angry and sad and exhausted and disgusted. But mostly it’s just sad. And I look at all that has been broken in my organization, and these kids lives, and in my trust in certain people and I wonder How could any of this possibly be Re-Membered?

Programmatic Victory

So we have a good show. A really good show, actually. With high production values, a talented cast, and a minimum of amateur hour moments. The less-than-pleasing number of people that have seen it so far are universally thrilled and have offered their congrats. It’s a bit of a mixed blessing because most of them aren’t really sure if I have anything to do with the fact that a good show miraculously appeared– but a less-than-altruistic side of me is secretly relishing contact with a few who probably came to gloat at what they fully expected would be a failure.

It’s hard to talk about work without specifics– even if no one but friends really encounters this little blog I’m just paranoid enough to avoid that. Cuz who knows. Anyhow, I am thrilled to have a show here that I can point to and say SEE!! THIS IS WHAT WE’RE CAPABLE OF IF YOU LISTEN TO ME. I am not entirely confident that THAT will be the result but it can’t hurt.

In another personal victory (I suppose) I am tearing myself away from work tomorrow to go see BestCollegeFriend and her new little girl. It’s killing me a little to contemplate leaving while the show is up but I’ve got to let the place fly without a net and babies are only a few days old for, well, a few days. BestCollegeFriend needs me, and I need a day off. I hope to enjoy myself and not spend the whole day obsessing about work. We’ll see.

Oh! And I finally got my washer-dryer fixed– we think– so life is looking up all around.

Sometimes I just want to blog cuz I wish I had someone to talk to.

So the Lady Who Made Me Cry last week made an attempt at a compliment today, she said that my new haircut was “much more flattering” in that way that implies that whatever I looked like before must have been truly hideous. It sort of amused me the way she did this, because it really did seem like an honest effort gone awry so I graciously accepted it for what it was worth and what I’m sure she meant. Maybe if I was a better person I would have made an effort as well, to come up with some nice thing this evening to say to HER. I’ve decided at this point that while I may find myself critical of the way she deals with those who disagree with her (not just me, but others too– and I say that with full understanding that it probably means that I have a reasonable amount of fault to be had in that department as well)– she really isn’t the problem. Sometimes I think it would be better if I didn’t work in such a small organization, at this very strange transitional moment– and wasn’t exposed to the sometimes painful realities of its inner workings and internal ruminations. It’s a time where everyone has an opinion, and frankly a lot of times people simply don’t agree with me. For better or for worse, my identity is very much mixed up in this place and this job and maybe I take my opinions as to what-we-need and how-we-should-get-there too seriously. I have such a hard time with chaos. I hate watching things go awry, and my experience is so-often well, if you’d listened to me in the first place…

Doctor would say that that experience in my working life is parallel to the experience I had growing up in my family. If everyone would just get along the way I imagine they ought to, I would often think as a child, there would be no problems in sight. Conflict was a bad thing in my eyes then, and total peace the seemingly obvious goal of life. It’s why I’m such a pacifist in my politics. It’s a filter through which all my ideas for the world passed through– from whether to abolish the death penalty to how to navigate a family picnic. What scenario creates the least tension? The least chance for regret? The least possibility for future conflict? Then that’s my position.

As a youth this… methodology… was carried out to an extreme degree in that I tried to generate utopia around me through my own unblemished (and forced) personality. No one could ever have any reason to  have conflict with me, since I would never dream of initiating such a thing with anyone else and I was so meek that only the heartless would consider taking any kind of aggressive position against me. And to those who did come into conflict (as a result of their own personal faults, I assumed) in my vicinity would find me a forgiving and eager listener and counselor, always equally understanding of any side of a disagreement and seamlessly find ways to smooth over the pain I perceived to be the natural consequence of such an event.

Sister, I suspect, always recognized this as bullshit. In my toast on her wedding day one of the roles I said she plays in my life is that she “keeps me honest.” Maybe her “difficult” personality in the midst of my family was really a matter of the one-who-calls-a-spade-a-spade suffering in an world that expected and functioned on illusions. As the “good” child I dutifully stepped in line to feign innocence when necessary and embrace the cause of “keeping the peace.” Sister recognized, in a way I imagine I don’t even now, that living is more important. And I think a lot of the latent guilt I’ve always felt towards Sister and her lot as a child has sprung from the fact that while I played the role masterfully– too masterfully, really– I was still smart enough, deep down, to recognize that she was right. I found out at age 19 that Sister had known, eight years earlier about my parents’ marital problems and the realities of our family life to a level of detail that took me aback so much that I did not recover from the shock for quite some time. I had spent so much time taking good care of my illusion of my problem-free family that I did not recognize our own story.

So I realized at some point around then that I didn’t really want to build my life around illusions, and became a lot more rough around the edges in a lot of ways. Friends celebrated my new-found personality, and I must say there was a definite release of a great burden I had carried around in trying to walk so strict a line in everything I did. But it has been difficult sometimes, as I have emulated those with opinions and then discovered the consequences of having a say. Not everyone wants to hear it. And perhaps not every forum should hear it.  But I have a hard time with disagreements even today, and even when it’s a fair assessment that I “started” it. I too often take dissenting views as personal criticism, and I don’t quite know what to do about that. At work any such reaction right now is made even worse by this sense that Things-Could-Be-Ruined-Forever!, which on one level I know to be ridiculous and on another I know to be quite apt in its description. Sigh.

I think I need a hobby.

Pray for NonProfits

I love the place I work. I am always reminding myself of how lucky I am, to be doing exactly what I want to be doing as a profession and still managing to eat at the same time. Nonprofit middle management is seldom terribly lucrative and I have a sneaking suspicion that mid-sized arts organizations, at least the ones in my general vicinity, teeter on the edge of extinction more often than could ever be reasonably considered healthy. Nonprofits are businesses and they run like a business– but there are a myriad of odd things about  them that sometimes make it seem that the business part of the deal was merely an afterthought. That this particular nonprofit that I work at is still in business today is nothing short of extraordinary– the number of decisions that rightly should have closed the place down in the past two years alone boggles my mind. The more I learn about our history, and the more I dig into our present the more of a mystery it is to me that some great disaster hasn’t already come along. So it makes me wonder just how unique our “sensitive” (as NewBoss puts it) situation is, and how many other organizations out there are actually one misstep away from closing their doors entirely.

I can’t fix everything. If I could I really would. It’s frustrating not to be able to work my magic against the dark clouds that have appeared– the way that I work my magic in resolving my family’s conflicts or come to the rescue in some way by volunteering for a 12-hour workday. So I work as hard as I can until the adrenaline wears thin and then sleep off the discomfort as best I can, when I can. I feel I owe this place my best and I’ve been giving it, as much I’ve been able. But there is a fear this all could fail, and it resides deep in a lot of my experience here lately. I am not alone, and there is a short list now of people who GET IT and have the energy for the moment to make some major changes. Can it last? I stay up late at night wondering about it all the time…

I guess it would be easier to work for a business who’s mission I was indifferent to. It is one thing to worry about a job f alling apart for all the ways such a  circumstance could impact one’s own self. It is quite another to feel responsible for making all that is important in an organization, all that impacts individual lives by virtue OF its existence– for making THAT continue to happen. I don’t think I would ever want to be an Executive Director really. The pressures of my seniority as it is are intense enough, I can’t imagine also being responsible for putting in a payroll that allows people to pay their mortgages. OldBoss always used to say that E.D.’s were the most emotionally wrecked people you could ever come across– he had his own little peer group of other E.D.’s and as far as I’d been able to ascertain it was basically a monthly gathering of teary eyed professionals, draining their anxieties with each other just enough to make getting out bed the next morning a possibility.  Maybe I need a group like that.

I hold onto my hope that things will  get better. It’s nice to see certain initiatives being taken these days. My wish is that my days of being “on my own” at my workplace are behind me. I could definitely use a break.

I’ve always just wished there were more hours or more of me or…

Something.

I took the day off today. By “took the day off” I mean I scribbled “off” on the little board at my office that says when we’ll be back in, and then didn’t physically end up at the office the next day. I did, however, worry about work, answer emails regarding work issues, and make a few phone calls. So while the workaholic in me defines today as a “day off” due to the fact I spent hours sleeping in between all of these activities and I actually (!) feel guilty about that– strictly speaking, it was not.

Fridays are traditionally my day off at work because there are so many Saturday events/programs that come with my job. It is not an ideal day off, because it doesn’t really allow for a true weekend, no one else is free on a Friday, and there are a million ways that work has a way to sneak into the day if I am feeling just the slightest guilt over all there is to do.

It has become clear that I am in desperate need of an assistant. I haven’t gotten one yet because, 1) I don’t really like anyone I’ve interviewed for the job; 2) knowing the sensitive financial state of this little NonProfit has a way of inspiring the White Knight in me to put off asking for help as long as possible; and 3) NewBoss works extremely limited part time hours that follow no discern-able schedule so it’s been hard to get authorization when her attention and time is so focused on the need-to-have-now items like seeing that I get a paycheck next Friday and learning where the bathrooms are.

Anymore than a week without seeing BestNieceEver seems to make me cranky. I thought about going out there today  but was too tired. I could go out Saturday night or Sunday possibly, but even then, much as I love the time there, it isn’t really time for ME. When I fill up what little time is left not working with time spent at my Sister’s, time spent going through drive-thrus, and time spent sleeping off my exhaustion– there isn’t time for dishes or haircuts or reading or trips or seeing shows. Life becomes something to get through.

Alcoholics have sponsors to call when they feel this way, or when they feel trapped into their addiction or tempted to throw away the quality of their lives in pursuit of that familiar chemical rush– I need to get me one of those. Maybe I don’t need an assistant for work but an assistant for life. If I were really wealthy I would totally hire a maid and a cook and have someone make phone calls for me and tell me “time to go to the gym now.”

I am inordinately blessed in seven thousand different ways. I just want more.

Its weird but things are good

It occurs to me that I have spent so much time having so much to get outraged over, so much to exhaust myself over– so much time having so much to bitch about, for so long– that now when suddenly (for work at least) things are going well it seems like I should be looking over my shoulder for some hideous surprise. Did Boss really leave? Did the ProductionManagerSavior really arrive? Is my little NonProfit’s Board actually letting me say the things I’ve wanted to say all this time and even listening sometimes? Maybe some things won’t go exactly the way I would envision in the future, but WOW so much has happened that I never thought was possible, I guess I’ve just been energized to swim through the work and hoping I don’t wake up soon.

NewBoss has a lot on the ball and so far has been really supportive and inclusive. There’s a lot for her to do and learn but my biggest fears of her obstructing or slowing down the things that really need to happen haven’t been a big issue. I am hopeful. And it’s really nice to be hopeful.

Recently– sometime after Boss had announced his resignation and some of the Good Changes were put into place– I was watching movies with the Landlords and they said “Wow you’re happy!” Someone who was with this who only knows me peripherally laughed asking, “What’s that supposed to mean?”  And without any real intention of putting me down, they said “Well she’s always very down, defeated, and over-burdened.” My M.O. is a state of constant frustration and stress. That’s the person people see in me. That’s what gets the word “standoffish” into my performance evaluations– when its the farthest from my feelings for my work and the people around me as could possibly be.

Maybe with things on such a much better path at work, where I won’t have so much to FIX all the time there will actually be space and breathing room for me to discover an Other and give to them from a place inside of me that is whole and not hurting. Certainly this Workaholism and time spent fixing my family and all the problems and projects of my life sucks a great deal of energy out. I keep having this notion that having an Other in my life  would energize me but maybe I’ve been missing the point. Even in times when an Other was possible my mind was filled with so many other Things that I’d never dream of shifting my attention away from the many High Priorities To Worry About. I am so busy thinking ahead, planning the next triage that I barely notice This Present Moment and it’s very easy to miss the person standing in front of me. It’s hard for me to put Myself first, maybe more so to put Myself first FOR me. But maybe I would find it easier if I could convince Myself that it was THEM for now. They– my potential Others– deserve someone who can stop long enough to enjoy their company, who’s rested enough to embrace our adventures, and for whom a happy day doesn’t seem such an extraordinary idea.

The New Era Has Begun

So Boss’ leaving felt very strange when it finally happened. He sort of gave me this semi-awkward hug and then disappeared into the sunset. I definitely feel relief– I’ve just spent so much energy trying to find ways to work with him over the past two years, and I feel so much freer just annoying that energy can go to other things now. I’m nervous about the future though– mostly in my ability to keep up with it. I want good things for this little NonProfit, and I feel so much personal responsibility towards it I’m afraid of failing. Today I have my first Big Meeting with NewBoss, I expect that will either put my mind more at ease or skyrocket these trepidations completely.