(no subject)

[elainegrey]

I slipped into blue yesterday. I think part of it was a mental narrative that said, "You let yourself take care of yourself and now look what happened." After a 90 minute presentation, i decided i would walk to the grocery, get lunch there, get some groceries, and walk home. Christine joined me. On the way home i glanced at my work email on the phone and found yet another email from a colleague to whom i submitted requests for hardware deployment. I feel maddened by the repetitive amount of explaining i'm required to do, and also frustrated by my imperfections in communication. But i also had that guilt -- i was away from responding for a couple hours and this happened.

I was over-reacting, and blurted out my frustration to Christine. That triggered a negative reactions in her. She's able to process that reaction, but i wish i'd had a little more self control about the angry blurt.

Then email was down for hours.

I know, in retrospect, the frustration with the communication is uncorrelated with me taking a break to exercise and have a lunch away from the desk.

I had an email interaction with the New Director, one that took my previous emotional frustration and fluffed it up some more. Do people not *read* anymore? A person external to our team sent us questions and proposals, people on the team were discussing the answer, and New Director (who has added himself to all the team lists) suddenly pops in to forward the thread to the external team to keep them in the loop. (He and i will talk about this next hour.)

Exhale.

I tried a few things to help me center. I made up a dinner recipe with the fresh dover sole filets we had acquired. Inspired by Dover+sole paupiette vin blanc, i wrapped the sole around long strips of red pepper and poached them in a coconut milk, lime, onion, and curry sauce. Not bad -- my heavy casserole dish needed longer to get warm so cooking took a little longer. Pouring the boiling sauce over the fish and putting them in a 350 degree oven for five minutes actually did get the fish kind of cooked, but i found zapping for another five minutes was what was needed to get things hot and steaming.

As i went to bed, i pulled out the box of crayons and just sketched, a long curve turning into the torso of a seated female nude. Bah, headless torsos. Still, just sketching, just letting the color play on the paper.

I need to find a way to practice microbreaks of creativity, let my heart and eye play a few minutes and relax from my reactive state. I want to weep in meta-frustration: look how frustrated i am, how reactive i am after just a few weeks back at work! Look at how i build up demands and expectations for myself in my mind! How can i tame this inner demanding self that puts these demands on me?

No one but myself is standing over me, judging my performance, demanding i get my act together. Others praise me (although i fill in the judgements they Should be making).

I acknowledge i miss having my parental-figure boss to turn to, to verify that i'm on track, to say "Here are the gaps, the places i'm not getting tab A in slot B," and hearing that i am getting the right things done. I need to do that for myself: this is deeper than just work, this is the arc of maturity. I am middle aged, and the number of folks i can turn to for advice and support will be diminishing compared to the number who turn to me.

An echo of this sense, in Meeting, an email to me as clerk of our Care and Concerns Committee had me in a dither. Do we do this? i pondered as i read the request. I felt overwhelmed and could not trust my split reactions. Thank heavens for a good committee of more experienced Friends!

But i am aware that many of the people i wrote for clarity are older and will not always be there for me to turn to.