The Ties that Bind

As I sat at the reception desk today, feeling powerless, frustrated, pissed beyond words and completely overwhelmed with my emotions, certain things began to dawn on me.

I kept wondering why I was so pissed. I'm not usually the type that isn't a team player, or that minds picking up the slack, so here, now, why is this more than I can handle? Why is being asked to fill in for the receptionist such an insult?

Because I worked my ass off to move beyond this sort of work and finding out that my current place of employment doesn't see or recognize the potential I have, something is triggered deep inside and I freak out.

I have no problem proving myself, but when I do that and still my work sends me back into answering phones and signing for packages, all the work, the effort, the potential doesn't matter and I find myself running my head into a wall over and over again.

I have no problem doing my job, no matter how frustrating it is, knowing that there is either growth opportunity or even lateral movement. I can deal with the muck and mire, if there is a promise of more.

Now, this may be specifically for my work environment, but as I sit fuming, it clicks that this is the same problem I am having in my emotional life. I started therapy 6 years ago. If I am really no better off than I was then, I may as well keep the money and start drinking heavily. At least I wouldn't be so much of a downer.

As sad as that is, big picture is slowly dawning, and I am seeing at least starting to grasp why things have to change.

It's all fun and games when you are young, but when you start getting older and time becomes much less relative and much more real, wasting the precious opportunities that come along seems criminal. The invincibility of youth dies and with it the notion that everything will be okay.

All of the work all of the effort, all of the everything has to, at some point, amount to something more than ending up in the same places. The emotional releases, the healing, the all-nighters in college, they have to bring some sort of ability to look back and say "Look where I've come from" and as of right now, I have none of that.

Which brings me back to my work situation. So I have learned lots about myself in the last year, some of it good, some of it bad. Things such as, my past lends itself to shame. I feel inadequate and rarely rock the boat for what I really want. I give myself over to be revictimized and then when I never succeed, bitch and moan about it. Well, at 26 I am so sick to death of that cycle, and I am so scared of watching myself never move forward, I finally am ready to get off the carousel.

Three options: 1) suck it up and pray someone sees my potential 2) put in my two week notice and pray I land another job that happens into something better 3) have a nice sit down with my boss where I flex the non-existent muscle of asking for what I want and not accepting what I don't want. I think they call this 'boundaries.' I don't know, I have never really worked with the foreign ideas.

Of course the third option makes the most sense, seems the most reasonable, but at the same time scares me the most. Whenever I have put myself in a position of asking for something, I am usually unleashed on for the ten different reasons I was an ass to ask. Here are the ten most recent mistakes you made and this is why you can't have what we promised. That premise just about encapsulates 90% of all my relationships and some of my jobs. I guess I get my need for perfection and my fear of the unknown.

As the loose ends begin to tie and time becomes much more a scarce resource rather than endlessly available, my basic survival techniques are kicking in. I'm finding a little bit of fight I didn't know I have. I guess it's better to find out now what the expectations are, and whether or not this is something I can live with, or if I am looking down another barrel of endless frustration. My therapist says the key to boundaries is the ability to walk away, or let go. I guess she's right. If I am not willing to put my money where my mouth is, there is nothing to bargain with.

I guess maybe the work is paying off. Breaking out of the cycles may actually be possible and the years of therapy may mean more than just being another one of those people that never moves beyond the comfort of the old. I wasn't taught these skills, but if I can get ahold of them now, if can incorporate enough of them, or just get enough courage to stand firm, there's the possbilibty I won't end up being another sad story of wasted potential. Maybe time will stop feeling like the enemy and there will still yet be a chance to look back and think "Look how far I've come." Or, I'm going to get super wasted and it just won't matter anyways.