I posted this everywhere else, and it just occurred to me to post it here.
I met Lil Bub today!!!! SQUEE!!!!!!!!!! I posted a bunch of photos on flickr in case you want to see more. 
finally
Some of you probably understand exactly how I felt when my new therapist listened to me tell her how out of control my life feels right now and she offered to keep helping me through this instead of telling me I could just do some breathing exercises to get over it, but in case you have no idea how that feels: I felt relieved. So relieved.
Also, there’s a door code to the bathroom in her building but I can’t (won’t) tell you what it is.
legacy
Today I removed myself from a project I didn’t believe in. It was a volunteer project, something that someone in the technology community proposed and then when I showed enthusiasm for it she nominated me to run the whole thing by myself, but with her vision and timeline. I made my decision to exit from the project after some self reflection and speaking with the leader of that community and realized I have a slightly different vision that will develop into a similar but fundamentally different project. I told the people who were also involved in brainstorming the project that I was giving it up for someone else to champion. And I will be pitching the project I believe in a bit later in the year when I have more time to dedicate to it. A project I will gladly champion. Because that’s how I need all of my projects to go. They need to be championed. Raving successes. No halfassing it.
This is the most frustrating realization I have had workwise lately. If other people on a team are not supporting you to be successful, if they don’t give a flying fuck if you fail, and you don’t even support the goal, then it’s time to remove that priority and find a new one that is worth your time and energy even if everyone around you isn’t as enthusiastic about the project and is less than helpful with turning an idea into a reality.
After freeing myself from the project that wasn’t the right fit my mind finally unblocked to allow other creativity in and by the afternoon I co-launched another project with someone who is equally as enthusiastic, if not more so, about an idea we came up with together about two months ago. We don’t work in the same departments, but both our supervisors support our work on this project, so we’re going for it.
I finally feel like I am leaving a positive mark on this workplace, and that is a wonderful feeling.
top hat octopus
Sharing the happy. I think the original was first posted in the comments at Reddit.
vacation
Work has been rough lately. In addition to having a very full workload, I have also been attending a leadership program that challenges me to become a better leader than I thought I already was. (I really did think I was a good one, and now I am beginning realize how much work I have to do.) And I also volunteered for a technology community planning group that has great ideas, but very few people are interested or willing to take the risk of implementing the ideas. I am going through the growing pains of resenting that I am trying to change for the better while no one around me wants to join the journey. That might not be their reality or The Reality, but that’s my reality of the situation. And it sucks.
Also I am physically very unfit, my own fault, have been eating like crap, my own fault, and have gained way more weight than I can blame on any pill that I’m taking or mid-life metabolism shift. It’s really lack of exercise and stress that are enabling my sedentary lifestyle.
Which also leads me to my mental lack of wellbeing. I have taken several online depression quizzes and always score in the Severe Depression range.
As a result, I chose to take a break from Twitter and Facebook because I was absorbing other people’s issues as my own and it was overwhelming on top of my own shit and was allowing me to trigger that part of my personality where I believe that my life sucks because your life sucks and my problems are the same as your problems. (They’re not. Mine are mine.)
I also took the step to find a therapist covered under my insurance. I will start seeing her on April Fool’s Day, ironically but seriously. I am looking forward to untangling the mess in my head and finding out if I just need more tools in my emotional wellbeing toolbox, or if I need medication, or if I need to change a life circumstance, or if my life is actually perfect and I’m just a pretty, pretty princess who is lying on top of a pea and crying about it. (I wouldn’t put this past myself.)
The manifestation is that I don’t care about much of life in general and am a lousy person to be around. And I hate that. I want to be fun. I want to be happy. I want to love myself again. (I still Eeyore love myself, but I need the Eeyore part to back off.)
As of this evening I also started a 4-day long weekend vacation. I plan to stay home and sleep, clean, bake (a fun dish I used to make in Vermont), cook (a fun soup one of my blog buds posted), cuddle the kitties, talk with and hug on Dawg when he is home and conscious (he doesn’t have Friday or Monday off like I do), and just try to be happy. We also plan to start pretending to train for a walking 5k this weekend by walking around a park several times. Baby steps.
I also learned today that you need three things to stay happy: Something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to.
Tonight I am way happier than I’ve felt in a while. Same shit different day, but the mood in the room is turning up again.
priorities
Today we had plans to go to a restaurant we had wanted to go to the weekend we both unexpectedly came down with the flu then I was going to make the dinner I had planned to make for Dawg for Valentine’s Day but he broke his tooth and couldn’t eat solid food for several days.
I woke up at 11:00am after having those insecure dreams where people who love me so much in real life try to sabotage my relationship in my dreams. I let Dawg know about them and was having trouble getting out of the fog of them so took a shower. When I got out of the shower Dawg made sure to tell me how much he loves me and how he’s not going anywhere. A little while later we were supposed to put the laundry together so we could get on the road to activate our plan of laundry drop-off, lunch, shopping for dinner ingredients, and dinner with Apple TV movies. Instead we decided to cuddle in bed. It was one of the best cuddle sessions we’ve had ever, so comforting and void filling and bond enhancing. We didn’t leave the house until 2:30pm, and the lunch restaurant was over an hour away, we still had to drop off the laundry, and had to wait for a table when we arrived, so didn’t get to eat lunch until 5:00pm.
I suggested over appetizers that we skip me cooking dinner tonight since it was already early dinnertime and we were stuffing ourselves silly. He agreed. Instead we had ice cream and popcorn with our movies.
Cuddle time was totally worth pushing off Valentine’s Day dinner another week.
miss
I don’t regret my decision to resign from the ambulance corps, but I sure do miss the people.
Looking forward to seeing them in warmer weather, as a visitor. And as their friend.
whyyyyyyy
There are many wonderful changes I have experienced since moving to The Big Apple (including my apple of choice now being the Pink Lady, although Macintosh will always be close to my heart), but the one I’m enjoying at the moment is that I will hear a dangling piece of a story from any source — the news, Twitter, Facebook, email, text, an overheard conversation, a conversation in which I am a participant, etc. etc. etc. — and either know or will be told that I will never know the rest of it, and I don’t even care.
I used to care so much and obsess over other people’s stories. Probably because I had so much time to do so, and was so bored with my life. Now, unless it directly affects me, I’m good with not knowing.
Maybe that’s just an age thing.
Whatever the reason, it’s very freeing.
tuned
Tomorrow is the 5th anniversary of our first date. I honestly cannot believe it has been 5 years that we’ve been together. It always feels like forever but at the same time brand new. I’m saving all my gush for the card I’m giving to Dawg, but trust me when I say my heart is overflowing with happiness.
Love you, baby.
quitter
Tonight I sent in my resignation letter to the ambulance corps.
Several things have happened to or around me lately that led me to know in my heart this was the right thing to do. I was 90% of the way to deciding that this was the right choice. And then on Monday I got an email that started out “Rick is ok, but…”
Rick is my leadership coach for the new technology leadership program at my university. He leads our sessions but he also is my phone coach, helping me between program sessions to identify, develop, and succeed in my personal and professional goals. During our first session Rick told me a lot about himself, including where he went to college (Vermont, although a different school than I went to) and which sports teams he roots for (Boston… ME TOO!) and what car he drives (Subaru, which was the first car I bought myself). A kindred spirit. A father figure in a way that I truly appreciate.
He had a heart attack on Monday. He didn’t die, but I let myself imagine “what if”. I played back our last group day together, where several of us independently chose Rick as an example of a true leader. We think of him as a mentor, someone we want to be like. And we almost lost him.
Today was supposed to be our phone coaching time, but he’s in bed recovering. So, in his honor, I reached out to someone else I trust to help coach me to bravely make this decision, and I followed through with it.
Life is too short to waste on other people’s priorities. It’s time for me to work on my own priorities.
You too, if you like.