Drained

I feel incredibly blue today. On top of this I feel hugely tired and worn out, which Im sure is a consequence of my mood.

I have tried to put my foot down and I have tried to wait it out. I have tried to keep the peace to keep the household running smoothly, but now I think Im done trying to do anything. I feel completely walked over and taken advantage of.

I cannot take anymore of the tension and the constant bitching about everything and everyone.

Why wont anyone take us seriously when we try to speak out about our unhappiness with the situation? And why is everyone else allowed to say enough is enough, but when we do the same nothing changes?

Im tired of being the middleman for each and every issue that crops up.

Im so, so tired of all this. Physically and emotionally.

I wont even try to explain just yet.

I cant get myself all worked up here in the office.

Such is my life

Today, although I should be feeling relieved that it is Friday, I'm feeling a little miserable. Maybe there is not enough work right now to keep me busy. Usually I am quite thankful for the rest periods between work loads, but those files have been sitting on my boss' desk for weeks and weeks and he has still not touched them. They aren't going to create work for themselves, that's for sure.

Besides that, my patience for answering that telephone is wearing thin. People with attitude. People with stupid questions. People who are freaking out on the phone because the Police have arrived to arrest them. It just seems to go on and on today. I really couldn't care less right now.

I also feel quite miserable because quite possibly the only real friend I have has been drifting further and further away from me and I don't know what to do to bridge the gap. This morning while we chatted on MSN Messenger I confided that I miss her company, and that I am putting my pride aside just to say that. She asked me why it was that I needed to put my pride aside to say something like that. To be honest, I don't know why pride has anything to do with it besides the fact that I feel rather pathetic saying that I miss her. That I might sound lonely and friendless without her, which in essence is true. She says she wants to chat to me later about something regarding why she thinks we don't see much of each other. I'm intrigued to know what she thinks, but worried too. Is it my new found passion for all things active? Do I test her patience by constantly talking about running, Boot Camp, blogging, and my wish to go for nice long walks in the forest? For all of these interests don't seem to be entirely, if at all shared by us.

I really just feel like walking right out of this office and taking a stroll along the canal with the sun warming my skin and the breeze in my hair. I would take my shoes off and sit on the edge of the canal wall and dangle my feet in the cool water. I would listen to the birds twittering in the trees above me, and no one would be demanding my time for things that really have no bearing on my life. Such is life that I am stuck here in an artificially lit office. The best I could do was to escape to a toilet cubicle to take a moment to compose myself after a phone call from a particularly irate client.

During a staff meeting yesterday I asked that when people go in and out of the office they close the door since I am not always sitting in front to watch my personal belongings or to greet clients coming in. If I'm doing something in the back of the office and someone leaves the front door open, clients tend to walk straight into the back office which is strictly for staff. Invariably everyone will turn to stare at me as if it's my fault. Meanwhile I had closed the door before going to the back, but someone had left the office without closing it behind them. This pisses me off because anybody could walk in and rummage through my handbag before anyone realises.

The second issue is that I do a lot of running around in the back office since I'm not only a receptionist, but a secretary to three people. As if I don't do enough running around the office doing my work, people actually expect to go out for a cigarette and ring the doorbell for me to come running to let them in. It's ridiculous. I've asked countless times that people make sure the door is closed behind them and to take their keys with them when they go for a smoke or to the toilet. I always take my key to avoid having to make people get up and buzz the door for me.

Does anybody think I'm over-reacting about this? I certainly don't think so.

And you would think that people would remember to close the door and take their keys since they were spoken to yesterday evening, but no. Still I have to run to open the door. Still the door is left open. For the first couple of times that people went out, they remembered, shaking their keys in the air and giving me a corny smile, which made me feel like I was being silly and unreasonable in my request. But from then on we were back to square one. It's a frustrating, never ending cycle, I tell you.

Anyway, I have been thinking again about what it is that I would really like to do with my life. Even though I have no idea, I'm starting to think that this is not it.

P.S: Since the two questions in the last post are relevant to this one, I'd be grateful if you would give your view on them.

Two Things Amongst all the Babble

I am standing in the office kitchen boiling the kettle for coffee and heating up my lunch when the New Girl comes in, mug in hand.

“So, how are things in the Litigation Department?” she asks, casually stealing the teaspoon I had just washed and put in my mug without me noticing.

“Well, it’s getting busier these days. A little bored when the New Year started and there wasn’t much to do.” I reply, giving just enough of a response so as not to appear rude.

“So would you say that when it comes to Litigation you’re - what’s the word…independent?” She asks, spooning coffee granules into her mug.

“So-so. Pretty much”. I'm getting bored of "work-talk". I couldn’t really care much less.

“I think you should start thinking about moving on to a bigger firm soon, don’t you think?”

“Well, I don’t really –“ I begin, but she cuts me off.

“Oh, not now, of course! But eventually. I mean, you've been here for about two years now, right?”

“Right. But I’m not so much bothered working for a small firm. If I moved it would probably be because of medical aid”. Because it is all about medical aid with me right now.

“My old company had medical aid, so I’m quite pissed off that I don’t have it now. Oh well, I’m here for the work experience anyway.” She says breezily.

The kettle has boiled and she's pouring the steaming water into her mug and stirring. I suddenly remember that I was about to make myself some coffee before she arrived, but when I reach out to grab my spoon, I see that it has in fact disappeared. I look at New Girl and it all clicks into place.

“Did you just steal my teaspoon?” I ask, a little shocked.

It always surprises me when people do things like that, whether they are aware of it or not. It just astounds me that some people walk around in a kind of daze without considering the other people around them.

I know it’s just a teaspoon, but it’s the principle of it all. In this case it was someone taking a teaspoon that I had freshly washed and dried and was about to use.

In other cases it might be someone striding up to the fax machine and tapping out the number when you have just finished shuffling your papers to pop yours in.

It could be someone who takes the last muffin or cupcake when they could see that you had just placed a saucer out for said muffin or cupcake to be enjoyed with a cup of hot coffee that had just been made.

“No! I don’t think so!” New Girl exclaims, looking around her in confusion.

"Yes you did. I'd just washed it".

"Oh, I didn’t realise".

No apology. No attempt to wash another teaspoon to replace the one she'd taken.

Instead, she starts talking once again about work and everything she says is infused with what I start to see as her need to show just how driven she is to get somewhere, and how deeply entrenched she is in her chosen profession.

It annoys me.

Is it wrong that I couldn't really care less about discussing my job and moving up the career ladder? I feel like I should care, that I should be more driven, but I just don’t as much as I used to, or as much as I thought I would.

I understand that she probably is as passionate about her job as she seems, and who knows, maybe she doesn’t know what else to talk to me about. Maybe I'm boring and have this great big wall up around me that she is trying bravely to scale for the sake of small talk between colleagues.

I've wondered about that wall sometimes. Sometimes I can feel it towering high up around me. Invisible, yet frustratingly impenetrable, largely due to my stupid inhibitions. Other times in certain social situations I can feel myself building it up brick by brick, blocking myself off from the friendly advances of others.

Often I catch myself walking around with a frown on my face and wonder what people must think. Is my frown another defence mechanism? As you can tell, I worry about my approachability at times. I like to think of myself as open and easy to talk to, but sometimes I feel that my body language is saying something else entirely.

But it's not always like that, mind you. In fact this past Sunday one of Boyfriend's aunts commented something to the effect that I used to be the shy one and have now come out of my shell quite a lot in the (almost) four years that I've known them. It was nice to hear that because I know it's true. It's frustratingly true that the way I come across to people, largely depends on the company I'm in. With Boyfriends' family, immediate and extended, it has taken me about three years to relax, be myself, and actually feel comfortable around them. It's a hell of a long time. And that, dear readers, is why it's so difficult for me to make friends.

I'm almost certain that people can sense this wall around me which may possibly appear to be a somewhat offish "I'm doing just fine by myself" attitude, but in fact is just protecting my naturally shy, slightly self-doubting self from the world. But if that is in fact true, what am I actually hiding? I feel there really isn't much that I would be ashamed of or worried of being discovered about me.

Even though I have been through some incredibly tough periods of depression, and in fact continue to have these episodes now and then, I do not believe that the depression I feel at times is due to me believing that I am a person who is unworthy of being loved or enjoying a friendship. When I have felt down in the dumps, it usually doesn't have much to do with myself and the ways in which I feel that I might have failed myself or those who know me - the whole "I'm not good enough" vibe. It's usually for an unknown reason (the most frustrating of all to myself and especially Boyfriend), or a general lack of motivation for everyday tasks and the endless days of these everyday tasks which entails the rest of my life stretching out ahead of me.

I guess that what I'm trying to say here is that even though depression is a very isolating condition, I don't think that I can blame it entirely for the fact that I don't have many friends, and that it appears to be hard for me to make any new ones.

It takes quite a while for me to openly, and face to face, refer to a particular person as my friend. Am I being too guarded in this friendship thing?

IN SUMMATION, (because I am known to ramble on and on while switching from one topic to the next and back again), I am pondering the following two points:

• Is the fact that I don't seem to have any real kind of career goal or need to get anywhere in my career something I should spend more time thinking and possibly worrying about? Shouldn't I feel something? Or am I just one of those people who goes to work, gets the work done, and generally just gets on with life. Somehow I feel that my career doesn't define me the way it would someone who works hard at something they love. Someone who's career is a huge part of their life.

• Am I making this whole friend making process into a bigger and harder thing than it really is? Because I don't ever really seem to get anywhere with it.

That is all.

BLAH! - update on previous post

I feel miserable. Absolutely miserable. Its like I have been walking along the narrow path of happiness and confidence in myself, but grew a little too confident and walked right off of it and into the thorny bushes alongside, where the branches are twisted, tangled and knotted in their confusion and hopelessness. I am just as tangled and confused as they are. Restricted and held back.

All of a sudden I dont feel so carefree and easygoing as I have been for these past months. I had forgotten what it felt like to feel so low and hopeless. It shows how easily one can forget about their lows, no matter how many there were, once they are feeling perfectly fine and content. It just makes feeling this way all the worse for having known what it is like without it.

I know that some part of this is because Boyfriend is stopping me from emailing D. Besides the feeling I might still have for him from almost four years ago, Im really more sad about the fact that he was someone I could talk to about things that I know Boyfriend isnt really interested about. We have things in common, and I really enjoyed being able to chat to someone like-minded. Its different with a Boyfriend sometimes. I mean, I can chat to him about basically anything, but often certain subjects get boring or overtalked and its not the same. So I am really sad about losing contact with someone who I consider a good friend. I cant guarantee that I wont email him again, or that he wont email me again. I mean, my birthday is coming up (this Thursday), so we'll see a) if he remembers it, and b) if he'll write to me, knowing that Boyfriend wants us to stop.

This, on top of other things, is making me feel alone, miserable, tearful. I wish this would end.