Back To Shore

Lyrics: “Be More Kind” ~ Frank Turner, 2018

I’ve been dreading sub-task for a project at work for a few days. Not dreading as such, but been troubled by it’s slow progress, which was due to uncooperative coworkers in other departments. Even though the rational part of me tells me, it’s not my fault and even though my team members support me and let me bitch to them about these uncooperative coworkers, the emotional part worries and blames herself for not getting this thing done. The Morning Pages I mentioned a few days ago, this morning ended Frank Turner lyrics mantra style.

I don’t know if it helped. It did not manifest a cooperative coworker. Or rather it did, just not the one I actually had needed. But it was fine in the end and I could finalize this currently biggest project on my desk. Department head still needs to sign off, which will happen tomorrow, I hope.

Anyway, I mostly worried for nothing. Which is nothing new; on the contrary.

Not much more to tell. The most April-y day this March so far it seems. Rain and sun and rain and sun…

I’ve been quite disappointed with my Green Party this week after the government coalition had met for several days and agreed on some new / changed policies. I’ve listened to a web call from the regional party with some members of parliament, where they explained, but also listened to critics from the local level. I understand why they negotiated the strategies they way they did a bit better now. For the past few days I was wondering if this party still can be my political home. I’m mollified. For now anyway.

When I dropped by Bro3 in the family home for a chat, he led me into the rooms we (well he mostly) are clearing out at the moment. “These have been yours, right? Can I throw them out?” he asked with a bit of smirk.

I wasn’t as embarrassed as he might have hoped I’d be. I do remember reading those. Just vaguely, but I do. I could not for the life of me recall any kind of plot from any of them though. There always was a girl or young woman and ghosts, spooky things, but no horror as such, I think. It’s been 30 – 35 years ago. I’m very amused to think that I must have enjoyed those at some point in my life. I’m so not a fan of spooky or horror stories anymore. I can’t recall if friends of mine read those as well. How did I get into it? I honestly have no recollection, expect the vague memory of in fact having read those dime novels. For many many years obviously, the first one in this collection was vom 1986. I was just 11 then. Why did my parents not intervene ;-)?

Besides that, it was another ordinary day working from home. Two big tasks on my agenda at the moment: dealing with HR stuff for our team, as long as our supervisor is out on some personal time off. He’ll be back on Friday. Hallelujah! It’s been busy without him.

The other task is compiling the bi-annual activity report. Our former supervisor used to be in charge of that and sometimes not complained, but stressed that it’s always much more work than it seems. We never quite believed him. I’m in charge of it now. Yesterday I called him in his retirement to tell him, he was right. It’s so much work. Especially as we’ve switched content and format a bit and now include much more projects from other departments. Which means I’m sending mails and reminder mails about deadlines and try to get people on the phone to remind them. A bit annoying.

There is not much more to say about my day. Ran some errands after work, enjoyed the sun and daylight a bit. Watched some more Big Bang Theory while having dinner. I was hit by a wall of exhaustion (once more) while I was hanging out with Bro3 (not his fault *g*), so I’ll call it a day early today.

Not the Beatles song. I considered using some of the lyrics as title, but nothing really worked and it would just have been a weird gimmick. More than most of the rest of my lyrical titles anyway.

I’ve tried to establish something like the “Morning Pages” routine recently. I read “The Artist’s Way” in German way back. I really mean WAY back, over 25 years ago, when I tried to figure out who I was or what was “wrong” with me. What I could to about it. How I could change to be someone different. Someone “better”. But I digress, this post wasn’t supposed to be a trip down memory lane of my messed up mind.

For the past few weeks I’ve tried to write a bit in the morning; not every morning, but a few times a week. Not 3 whole pages either. What size of page, anyway? I set an alarm for 10 minutes and just start writing. Stream-of-consciousness and all that. I know you’re not supposed to read it back or do anything with these pages. But why “play by the rules”, right? And I don’t really read them back, but when I notice that I write down something I might want to remember or something that I feel could use some more introspection, I circle it. To get back to it after.

One work-related ‘problem’ has been popping up and been circled a few times and while trying to dig into it a bit more, I might have started to figure out what my problem with it might be. Vague and vaguer, I know. I’m a work in progress. But here’s how I see it:

Sometimes I’m really, really bad at asking for help.

Not with the easy “can you drive me to the train station?” kind of help. Asking for help with the difficult things. Asking for help with the things (e.g. projects at work) I’m struggling with. Asking for help, when I’m struggling. Period. Again… I have a vague idea why that might be. Spoiler alert: Something about not being allowed to show weakness. Something about not deserving help. All that messed up lack of self-worth crap.

I’ll need to think about it some more. One tiny revelation at a time.

The rest of the day a regular day working from home. Some chores. Some local politics stuff, though I bowed out of the meeting tonight. I’ve been more frustrated than motivated by it all recently and I think some things might need to give. But also… I wanted to be home (in time) for Jess Guise’s Patreons only March livestream tonight.

I used the (sun)light when I was done with all the errands to head out with my camera to finally take some flower / blossom photos.