Wet and Wonderful Wednesday
Well, this week has had quite a few ups and downs. I'm grateful for each and every one of them.
Sunday night after I had done my last post, just a lot of stuff had happened as far as being on duty. I had more resident conflicts to try and manage and tried to facilitate a talk and I failed miserably. I had another thing happen which wasn't that bad, but just the stacking of things kind of put me on edge. And finally when trying to write an IR which took a long time, and the page timed out, and we lost all the information, I just lost it. I broke down crying. Last straw. And again, I know logically it would all be okay and it would get submitted, but I just felt like such an awful RA. I was too emotional to even write my own IR and Cassady had to sort out everything and organize it while I'd go in and fix it.
It's at this point in time where the lies come in. I'm not sure if you ever get this, but I kind of have a bit of this problem with insecurities just in general. I just kind of hold myself to this standard, which can sometimes be really bad when I can't reach it. It's not a standard placed upon me, just one I place on myself. So, that evening, when I was emotionally incapable of writing my own IR, couldn't facilitate a discussion, didn't edit the IR fast enough to have it time out, I just got frustrated with myself. "You're not good at your job." "You can't do anything right." "Why are you an RA? You can't even facilitate a discussion." "You should quit, you're not good enough."
All of these lies swim in my head, and for that brief moment of weakness it over takes me and sends me into a sea of salty tears. That gasping for air, sobbing, body shaking, mess of an emotional wreck. The one where you hate it when people see you go through it, but you have to do it just to get it out of your system.
Cassady wouldn't let me do rounds after that and told me to go to bed. I seriously feel like he is one of my best guy friends, and even though he may not open up to me, the fact that he can see me like that, and still think well of me and encourage me, believe in me, is one of the nicest friendships in a brother I've ever had. I seriously don't know what I'd do without him on staff with me.
Bah, I'm crying just thinking about how blessed I am by his friendship. Haha. It's just been an emotional one of those weeks.
Last night however, we had our staff meeting and I talked with my boss, and we were able to have a successful facilitation, and it ended really really well. I was so over joyed that even after I felt I had royal-y messed up, that it was still fixable. Both of the individuals were thankful for our support and effort in the issue, and I thought "Why in the world do I believe those stupid lies that get put in my head?". I also found candy outside my door from a resident and a note from one. Not to mention a flower left on my door handle from another one of them. I sometimes feel like the luckiest girl in the world and I'm really sad that several of my residents are moving out this weekend. It's going to be so empty. I feel like a mom sending kids off to college, though they're already here. It's funny. This is good preparation for being a mom I think.
There has also been a bit of sun lately. I got to lay out in the sun and work on our hall newsletter for a bit and pump it out in a half hour or so. My friend Karl came over and we played cribbage again. He beat me this time. We also just have really humor filled conversations and we just understand one another's sense of humor. He too recently went through a break up and so sometimes it is good to just talk about the differences and similarities and just mutual encouragement and seeing God's plan amidst it all. I really do think it is for the best, for God is already showing me where to place my time and effort.
This term, I'm getting to go to Jesus in the Qu'ran and Shasta with my small group, church every Sunday, and the girls bible study which today was the first day of it. It was absolutely marvelous. We went around and kind of shared a bit about ourselves, major, passions in life. Then to the more deeper level of where we were spiritually or what we'd grown up doing as far as 'religion' goes. Then we got to talk about the Gospel. Just asking questions like, what do you think of when you hear 'The Gospel'? What is it? What does it mean to you? Then going to Scripture to see what it says 'The Gospel' is. (1 Corinthians 15: 1-11) What does this mean to you? Does the Gospel affect your day to day living? if so how? How would we live differently if we got up every day thinking that Christ died so that we may live in communion with the Holy Spirit?
We had some wonderful discussion. The ground rules were laid that it was a safe space to talk and not judge where one another is at, because we have girls of different denominations there. We even all prayed afterwards holding hands in one our soft lounges in the building. How great it is to know that we can meet, talk, and pray so openly without worry of being arrested or ridicule in our country!
It's just been a great week. Academics are going pretty good. I finished the majority of it that is due this week, just four more statics problems and I'll be done and start working on next weeks work. This consists of Technical Writing, speech, Engineering homework and Electrical Fundamental homework. It's kind of a lot, and I'm most scared for the speech and Technical writing. Doing math and excel sheets, well that is just second nature and only a matter of time to me. It can be done and learned easily for me, but putting together my thoughts logically on paper and then delivering it to a classroom or in a way where there is only the information and no fluff, well, you can obviously see that this may be a bit of a struggle for me.
Well my good friend Seth is going on a night walk and he is coming over shortly. I'm gonna go get myself some tea and have myself a chat with the lad.
I hope your week is going wonderfully. I wish I had more time to write something more worth reading rather than just a re-cap of my week. I hope that it still gives you hope for though, even though you can be worried that things aren't going how you've planned them, you may never know the victories that await you! :)
Thanks for reading!
-M.E.
Sunday night after I had done my last post, just a lot of stuff had happened as far as being on duty. I had more resident conflicts to try and manage and tried to facilitate a talk and I failed miserably. I had another thing happen which wasn't that bad, but just the stacking of things kind of put me on edge. And finally when trying to write an IR which took a long time, and the page timed out, and we lost all the information, I just lost it. I broke down crying. Last straw. And again, I know logically it would all be okay and it would get submitted, but I just felt like such an awful RA. I was too emotional to even write my own IR and Cassady had to sort out everything and organize it while I'd go in and fix it.
It's at this point in time where the lies come in. I'm not sure if you ever get this, but I kind of have a bit of this problem with insecurities just in general. I just kind of hold myself to this standard, which can sometimes be really bad when I can't reach it. It's not a standard placed upon me, just one I place on myself. So, that evening, when I was emotionally incapable of writing my own IR, couldn't facilitate a discussion, didn't edit the IR fast enough to have it time out, I just got frustrated with myself. "You're not good at your job." "You can't do anything right." "Why are you an RA? You can't even facilitate a discussion." "You should quit, you're not good enough."
All of these lies swim in my head, and for that brief moment of weakness it over takes me and sends me into a sea of salty tears. That gasping for air, sobbing, body shaking, mess of an emotional wreck. The one where you hate it when people see you go through it, but you have to do it just to get it out of your system.
Cassady wouldn't let me do rounds after that and told me to go to bed. I seriously feel like he is one of my best guy friends, and even though he may not open up to me, the fact that he can see me like that, and still think well of me and encourage me, believe in me, is one of the nicest friendships in a brother I've ever had. I seriously don't know what I'd do without him on staff with me.
Bah, I'm crying just thinking about how blessed I am by his friendship. Haha. It's just been an emotional one of those weeks.
Last night however, we had our staff meeting and I talked with my boss, and we were able to have a successful facilitation, and it ended really really well. I was so over joyed that even after I felt I had royal-y messed up, that it was still fixable. Both of the individuals were thankful for our support and effort in the issue, and I thought "Why in the world do I believe those stupid lies that get put in my head?". I also found candy outside my door from a resident and a note from one. Not to mention a flower left on my door handle from another one of them. I sometimes feel like the luckiest girl in the world and I'm really sad that several of my residents are moving out this weekend. It's going to be so empty. I feel like a mom sending kids off to college, though they're already here. It's funny. This is good preparation for being a mom I think.
There has also been a bit of sun lately. I got to lay out in the sun and work on our hall newsletter for a bit and pump it out in a half hour or so. My friend Karl came over and we played cribbage again. He beat me this time. We also just have really humor filled conversations and we just understand one another's sense of humor. He too recently went through a break up and so sometimes it is good to just talk about the differences and similarities and just mutual encouragement and seeing God's plan amidst it all. I really do think it is for the best, for God is already showing me where to place my time and effort.
This term, I'm getting to go to Jesus in the Qu'ran and Shasta with my small group, church every Sunday, and the girls bible study which today was the first day of it. It was absolutely marvelous. We went around and kind of shared a bit about ourselves, major, passions in life. Then to the more deeper level of where we were spiritually or what we'd grown up doing as far as 'religion' goes. Then we got to talk about the Gospel. Just asking questions like, what do you think of when you hear 'The Gospel'? What is it? What does it mean to you? Then going to Scripture to see what it says 'The Gospel' is. (1 Corinthians 15: 1-11) What does this mean to you? Does the Gospel affect your day to day living? if so how? How would we live differently if we got up every day thinking that Christ died so that we may live in communion with the Holy Spirit?
We had some wonderful discussion. The ground rules were laid that it was a safe space to talk and not judge where one another is at, because we have girls of different denominations there. We even all prayed afterwards holding hands in one our soft lounges in the building. How great it is to know that we can meet, talk, and pray so openly without worry of being arrested or ridicule in our country!
It's just been a great week. Academics are going pretty good. I finished the majority of it that is due this week, just four more statics problems and I'll be done and start working on next weeks work. This consists of Technical Writing, speech, Engineering homework and Electrical Fundamental homework. It's kind of a lot, and I'm most scared for the speech and Technical writing. Doing math and excel sheets, well that is just second nature and only a matter of time to me. It can be done and learned easily for me, but putting together my thoughts logically on paper and then delivering it to a classroom or in a way where there is only the information and no fluff, well, you can obviously see that this may be a bit of a struggle for me.
Well my good friend Seth is going on a night walk and he is coming over shortly. I'm gonna go get myself some tea and have myself a chat with the lad.
I hope your week is going wonderfully. I wish I had more time to write something more worth reading rather than just a re-cap of my week. I hope that it still gives you hope for though, even though you can be worried that things aren't going how you've planned them, you may never know the victories that await you! :)
Thanks for reading!
-M.E.
Good to read your post as always Mary Elizabeth. I understand what you were saying about insecurities and holding yourself to a high standard. I think we all deal with insecurities on some type of level. I think if we hold ourselves to too high of a standard, that those insecurities can become exacerbated. It’s important to “let yourself off of the hook” now and again :) after all - we all make dozens of mistakes a day!! We would drive ourselves crazy if we didn’t let ourselves off of the hook every once in a while. It certainly sounds as if your residents appreciate you! That’s so awesome about the candy and flowers! Have a spectacular day my friend :)
ReplyDeleteAh thank you for the reassurance. I also think that when we make mistakes, it just signifies that there is room for growth. It's nice to know that I'm far from perfect and that these mistakes can call my attention to things to work on and develop in character.
DeleteAnd yes, I have the best residents on the planet. Though I'm so sad, 5 of them are all moving into a house together this weekend. They're all wonderful individuals which I'm going to miss terribly. It'll be so empty feeling and at the end of the year, I'm more than likely bound to cry. Alas, they're just growing too.
Today was wonderful and I thank you for the warm wishes!