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.

What am I really like?

It hit me when I was sitting on the train on my way home from work one day. I had been staring thoughtlessly at the ground when a tiny gem of a thought had flittered in from nowhere and sparked off a self-realisation that was hard to put down.

There is a point in any situation where you are able to make the ultimate decision over what your reaction or response is going to be when presented with any given information or a developing situation. Its the briefest moment of chance where the situation can go either way, and you have the power to determine what the general outcome of that situation will be.

In that moment on the train, with the carriage gently rocking me deeper into my reverie, and the late afternoon sun streaming into the windows causing those opposite me to squint their eyes from the glare, I finally understood myself just a little bit more than I had done before.

It occured to me that the majority of the time where I'm afforded the opportunity in choosing how it is that Im going to react, I fail to make the correct choice, even though I have recognised that window of opportunity. There have been countless times where I could have put a good spin on a bad situation. Where I could have stopped myself from reacting negatively, thereby not allowing the situation to grow worse.

For example, the one day I was on the train when I got a phonecall from my Boyfriend saying that I would have to walk home from the station, but that he would meet me half way, as my brother, not having his own transport at the moment, had taken the car out, and had mistakenly taken the bike keys along with him.

For that very brief moment I could have made a choice based on the fact that there was nothing to be done that could change the situation. I could have said to myself that sure, even though it was an inconvenience it wasnt very far to walk, and maybe I would find the walk to be enjoyable. But of course I chose to be upset by those circumstances beyond my control. I expressed irritableness and remained grumpy for a large part of the walk home, whereas I could so easily have decided to make light of it and just deal with the situation without getting all upset about it.

My point here is that its as if I neither felt upset or okay about it. It was as if I was in a limbo where I was still deciding on how it was that I was going to feel about having to walk home instead of being picked up from the station. Usually it doesnt really matter to me how Im going to react, but of course my reactions have consequences when it comes to how someone else responds to my reactions. Its almost as if Im pushing the boundaries. Trying to see how much I can get away with.

A lot of the time I dont even feel all that upset about whatever situation has arisen, yet I choose to express irritation, which more often than not creates an even worse situation, with Boyfriend or whoever concerned, getting upset with me for the way in which I'm reacting. Making that decision to be upset rather than letting the issue go actually results in me starting to feel real irritation and anger at whatever has happened. So in effect I have the chance to create my mood, and nine times out of ten - and as strange as this may sound, I choose to create a bad mood by responding with a bad attitude to the situation that has presented itself.

Sometimes I think I do it because its the way in which I feel I should react. As if its the accepted and expected response to a particular situation. Yes, one would expect that I would be upset about having to walk home from the train station after work instead of being picked up as I usually am, but do I really have to act accordingly? Surely all I need do is express that I am upset about it, but adopt the attitude that nothing can be done about it but to just walk home and make the best of it?

Its a very strange concept, and Im not sure if anyone else has experienced this and come to notice it in their personality.

All of this lead me to ask myself: "What am I really like, since Im often expressing feelings that I didnt really even feel in the first place?".

Overload

I've been away from the blogging world for a long time. A very long time. I don't know why that is, but for many years I have felt as if my creative juices and love of writing has been diminishing, and now I somehow feel that it has dried up completely.

I know that even after this post I will probably be away for a similarly long period of time. It's not a case of not having much going on in my life right now, but a case of too much going on.

My older brother is about to go through a divorce, and has already separated from his wife, who happens to be a friend of mine since we were about 10 or 11 years old. At the moment he is fragile and needing lots of contact and support from family, especially as he is temporarily living with my father in Mossel Bay while he sorts himself out, but he is slowly, bit by bit trying to put himself back together if not for her, then for himself. I have long been meaning to write a post about him and his wife, and in fact was in the middle of mapping out their story when I got the news that she had instituted divorce proceedings and that he would have to move out by a certain date. Their story is complicated, and one which makes me feel guilty and appreciative at the same time because of the contrast between our standards of living.

At the same time, Boyfriend has lost his job due to the sub-company he was working in not being altogether successful. He loved his job, the people and the atmosphere, but his boss felt that the company was running at a loss and wanted to shut it down. He'd given the company a period of grace just to keep an eye on things, but sadly the situation hadnt improved. Thank goodness it isnt a reflection on Boyfriend as a number of people had worked in that particular position and hadn't seemed to make a difference to the amount of money and success the company was making, but sadly he was the last to have that job, and therefore the one to lose it. He was paid out three months salary and told that they would understand if he chose not to come to work to finish out the month. So, now he is now looking for a new job, and has been for the last month or so, our funds slowly depleting each day. I dont know what we are going to do if he doesnt find one soon. One of the job ads he's applied for sounds like it might be promising since he's passed through the first interview, but he just needs to wait on the more senior person to phone him to arrange a second interview. My brother has gone for an interview as a job as a Guesthouse Night Manager where he would be offered accommodation, and since he doesnt want to live there as he's already organised to live with us, he's waiting on them to let him know if they are prepared to increase the salary as he would then have a rent expense as opposed to having free accommodation with them. Im crossing my fingers for the both of them, as well as my older brother in Mossel Bay who is also applied for a number of jobs.

Just before he'd lost his job we had given our notice to our landlord, who happened to know of a student looking for a place to stay right then. She had initially turned the student down, but said that she would phone her right away to let her know that we had given our notice. Since plans were already made that my brother would be moving back down to Cape Town from Bloemfontein to live with us, and since our notice had already been given and a new tenant found, we had to continue looking for a new place. Its a pretty nerve-wracking thing looking for places to rent and meeting prospective landlords when one of you has just recently lost a job, not to mention actually filling out a lease application form or signing a lease agreement. All lease agreements are different and request different information. Our previous lease required personal and employment details of both of us, but thank goodness the lease we have recently signed only asked for the details of the person who's account would be debited with the rental amount, and thats me. We both let off a mental sigh of relief at that.

Next we had to tell my brother, so that he could make an informed decision about whether he still thought it a good idea to move in with us. We put it off and put it off until Boyfriend eventually confided in him. Of course my brother and I havent told my mom because she'll just worry about it. In fact, we havent really told anyone. So far there are only six of us who know about it, and that includes Boyfriend and I. The other three who know are Boyfriend's parents and sister, who were especially not to know about it. They found out by mistake when one of the parents phoned Boyfriend's ex-office and was told he wasnt there. When they asked to leave a message for him they were told that he wouldnt be coming back because he no longer worked there. Shock was followed by copious amounts of tears on his moms part as expected, followed by countless questions and an eventual shouting match when Boyfriend felt that she was being too pushy about applying for jobs. I hate the way he reacts to her efforts to help motivate him to stop procrastinating, but she can be a little too pushy in her need to help. Hence why we didnt want them to know.

Despite our precarious financial situation, my brother decided to go ahead with the plans to move in with us, and booked his flight down. He arrived on Wednesday last week and is now looking for a part time job so that he can go to college but still earn enough money to be able to contribute to our rent and have some spending money to his name. So its now three men in my life on the job hunt, as my older brother living in Mossel Bay is also looking for a job as he hasn't has one in almost three years, the entire time he has been married. But that is part of his story, which I will continue to work on and possibly publish here on this blog as I had intended.

This weekend we are moving into our new place. A house. Finally. I think I've had quite enough of flats and garden cottages. Finally some space! A big back garden! A decorative front garden! Being allowed to have a dog! In our free time we have been doing some frantic gardening, trying to make the place look attractive and more like a garden than say, a little bit of wilderness, and I'm proud to say that we're doing a rather good job of it. Luckily we wont have to worry about the rent being paid each month, now we just have to worry about where our food is going to come from if Boyfriend doesnt get a job soon.

So this week is going to be filled with packing and sorting if we can just find some boxes. Since the two men of my household are out of jobs at the moment I have delegated the task to them, but they seem adamant to procrastinate as much as possible as when I phoned to check on progress before lunch they were "looking for boxes", but ended up looking at bikes. When I then phoned them at 3:40 they were yet again apparently "on their way to look for some boxes".

Men.

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P.S: Happy 85th Birthday Gran! I'm looking forward to chatting to you later on this evening!

Catching a Breather

The past three days have been utterly hectic. I'm hoping that today will be different, but somehow I doubt it. I've been buried under loads of work, and I just can't seem to see a way out from under it. The muscles in my back are tensed up so that they are constantly hurting, and I've been getting those damned headaches again, although I'm almost totally convinced that it's because my eyesight isn't too great, which will be confirmed when I finally get my ass into gear and make an appointment to have them tested. I'm so not a specs kind of girl, so it'll have to be contacts if in fact it is my eyes that is causing so much pain and frustration in my life right now.

Anyway, besides there being loads of work to do, some of which is staring me in the face right now, but will have to wait until I'm done here, I am thoroughly pissed off and frustrated with the bank right now. In December last year I had an original General Power of Attorney of one of our overseas clients delivered to the branch down the road from my office after confirming with an employee of the branch in Town that she could get it delivered to her. Well, what do you know! Somewhere along the line the bank has lost it! You wouldn't expect that of a big, well known bank, especially as they are always so sticky about all that sort of thing, but hey, now its my issue and I've been getting calls from them every day as they try to figure out where they went wrong.

But I'm just getting myself all upset again, and I really shouldn't since I'm going to have to deal with it today sometime. There's plenty of time to get upset about it when I actually get to it.

Off the point now, but look what I came across!! A giant squid was caught in New Zealand. Go check out the video. It's quite amazing. (I hope it'll still be there by the time you take a look, as they have added some more videos. Just scroll down and you'll see it).

Hmmmm, Calamari the size of truck tires. Bring it on!!

But right now its back to work I go.....

Withdrawal Symptoms

I think I might have discovered the reason for all these headaches and sudden drops in energy levels halfway through the day. The main keywords being sugar and caffeine. For the past 2 weeks or so I've been marking off a little dash each time I drink a glass of water. The aim is to drink about 6 glasses per day, although the lowest I ever drop is 4, with the exception of one day where I only had 3. The reason for all of this effort is due to one of the resolutions I wrote up in January. While it's unlikely that 6 glasses of water equals 1 and a half to 2 litres, it's still a start. A side effect to having all this added liquid sloshing around in my body, is that I'm constantly running to the loo, so surely I'm drinking more than enough for now.

Before I started glugging down copious amounts of water, bringing healthy snacks and a packed lunch to work each day, I used coffee as a way to warm me up and / or to fill me up. It got to the stage where I would be drinking about 5 or 6 mugs of coffee in a day, two of which I would have at home as my morning coffee, and then another one as soon as I got home from work. Surely all that caffeine can't be good for the system. So for these past 2 weeks I've been replacing all those mugs of coffee for cool, crisp fridge water, except of course for my morning coffee, which I refuse to give up.

But during this mini-detox I'm almost certain that the headaches have been more frequent, and that my energy levels have been dropping quite drastically. For some time I was confused as to why I've been feeling like this. I mean, I exercise, I've been eating fairly healthily (aside from the occasional take away on the boyfriend's insistence), and I've been drinking what I consider to be a good amount of water each day, so why should I be feeling as tired, headachy and generally blah, if not more, than if I wasn't doing all these good things for my body? It just doesn't add up.

Yesterday on the way home I voiced an idea to my boyfriend about why I might be feeling this way. I had heard from an acquaintance at Boot Camp, (which, by the way is now over - sniff-, but more on that later), that caffeine in small doses can be quite beneficial in terms of giving a quick burst of energy and alertness, which I think is true if you aren't overdoing it. I think my tiredness and lack of energy might have something to do with the fact that I'm not drinking as much coffee as I used to. Of course I don't need to, and in fact shouldn't go back to 5 - 6 mugs of coffee a day, but possibly one coffee in the middle of the day might do me some good. Besides the caffeine effect, it could possibly be the fact that I'm not having as much sugar as I used to, considering that I had 2 heaped teaspoons of sugar with each coffee.

Another find to support my sugar theory is that today it is one of the attorneys' celebrated his birthday. You might be wondering what this has to do with sugar levels, when in actual fact the link is quite obvious really. What are birthdays if they don't mean cake? Hmm? There was lots of it too. While I recently turned down a slice of cake that was bought for the office "just because" by the Conveyancer, one look at this cake and I thought, "Oh, what the hell, eh!" I only had one slice, but it was a very rich, very dreamy chocolate cake, which I'm sure was packed with sugar galore, and voilà! I'm still sitting here at my desk as alert and alive as ever.

So it would seem that the logical solution to an energy depletion crisis would be to keep a good supply of yummy cake on hand, which does wonders to pick you up. It's great! You should all try it!! And I think I might have overdone the sugar intake a bit!!!

But seriously, I think I might have to work on a more balance diet of some kind as I would hate to see what I look like after a month of eating cake every day.

Boot Camp, as I mentioned earlier, is sadly at an end, and I am entertaining all kinds of jealous feelings when I think about the people from the Boot Camp that I attended, who have signed up for the next one starting on Monday, and the Conveyancer here who will also be attending from next week with a group of friends.

Of course I will be attending another one in the future. (Once I've paid up my dentist bill - or rather repaid my boss for lending me the money to pay my dentist, but its pretty much the same thing). But knowing that I will be taking part in another one some day doesn't stop me from being a little envious about it.

I'm almost tempted to pitch up at the Boot Camp venue in my gym gear, copying all the exercises and stretches that they do, but with a little bit of distance between myself and the legitimate Boot Campers of course, so that they can't quite complain that I shouldn't be there. Hey, its a free world, and if I want to practice what I've learnt at Boot Camp and I happen to be at the same place at the same time as a Boot Camp session is taking place, then who can blame me really. I think it could be very comical actually. I just wish I had the guts to pull a stunt like that to see what their reactions are, although I'm sure it won't come close to the time when three pale, skinny guys ran up to our class, each wearing shocking pink speedos, who proceeded to stretch and pull muscleman poses right in amongst us without a hint of a smile on their faces while being filmed by a buddy standing off to the side, but anyway, it would still be a laugh, I'm sure.

One thing I'm quite proud of in terms of Boot Camp, is that besides the certificate of completion that everyone gets, I was given one of the special certificates which were being handed out with small gifts from Boot Camp's sponsors. My special certificate was for being the fastest runner at that particular Boot Camp, which made me feel pretty good actually. And on the certificate of completion a gold star had been stuck in one of the corners with "Perfect Attendance" written on it. Such simple things really, but they made me feel proud of myself for deciding to do something for myself, and going at it alone.

And you'll never guess what my particular gift from one of the sponsors was (because they are all different).

A box of tampons and a roll on anti-persperant. Admittedly the roll on smells really good and actually works, but I just cant get myself excited over a box of tampons. Sorry.

Its that time of year again...

So it's Valentine's Day tomorrow, as well as a friend's birthday.

While I'm not really one who looks forward to Valentine's Day or even does anything to celebrate it, I thought it would be fun to do this little test that I came across on M's blog.

Your Five Variable Love Profile

Propensity for Monogamy: Your propensity for monogamy is medium. In general, you prefer to have only one love interest. But it's hard for you to stay devoted for too long! There's too much eye candy to keep you from wandering. Experience Level: Your experience level is high. You've loved, lost, and loved again. You have had a wide range of love experiences. And when the real thing comes along, you know it! Dominance: Your dominance is medium. You tend to be the one with more power. You aren't a total control freak in relationships.. But of course you don't mind getting you way! Cynicism: Your cynicism is low. You are an eternal optimist when it comes to love and romance. No matter how many times you've been hurt - you're never bitter. You believe in one true love, your perfect soulmate. And if you haven't found true love yet, you know you will soon. Independence: Your independence is medium. In relationships, you need both "me time" and "we time." You usually find it easy to be part of a couple. But occasionally you start to feel a little smothered.

The Five Variable Love Test

Hmmmm......interesting......

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.