Category Archives: Gratitude
“No one’s irreplaceable”
That is what I heard today. “No one’s irreplaceable.”
It wasn’t directed at me – but I suppose, indirectly, as it was their philosophy, it was. Especially when taking into consideration the fact that this person has the power to replace me.
I beg to differ with this theory.
I get the logic – of course I do. And yes, you can fill a position with another body. But are they bringing to the table the same qualities as their predecessor? Same skill set perhaps, but what about those extra gifts that are as individual as the person offering them?
In my opinion, the stance that no one is irreplaceable is incredibly short-sighted and unhealthy for a company’s growth.
Shouldn’t employers be nurturing, encouraging and teaching their employees to be some what irreplaceable? Not to the point of debilitating the company should that person have to leave – but in the interest of success, shouldn’t you make your employees feel wanted and needed?
I hope I would do that. If I were in a position of staffing a company, I would want my employees to feel valuable.
I personally give my all – and more, every day.
And I’d be lying if I said I don’t punch things into overdrive when a customer compliments me, or I’m told I am excelling at something.
If I feel appreciated, I want to thank that person by continuing to please them.
I don’t mean that employees should get a pat on the back for performing the job they’re paid to do.
No need to put a gold star on finished work that should be finished.
But I do believe if someone is going the extra mile of their own volition, and in turn, making your company more successful, they should be acknowledged.
If they are making your customers feel amazing and are loyal and hardworking, they should be recognized. And, that person is, to a degree, irreplaceable.
I was reminded of these lines from “You’ve Got Mail”
Joe Fox: It wasn’t… personal.
Kathleen Kelly: What is that supposed to mean? I am so sick of that. All that means is that it wasn’t personal to you. But it was personal to me. It’s *personal* to a lot of people. And what’s so wrong with being personal, anyway?
Joe Fox: Uh, nothing.
Kathleen Kelly: Whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal.
No matter how hard I try not to make work personal, or bring it home with me in my head – I do. I care.
And when you spend more time with the people you work with than your own family – how do you disengage?
Work can be bonkers. Teddy Bonkers. But, as long as I can put my head on my pillow at night knowing I did the best I could – and as long as I stay VERY very grateful for having a job – it’s all good.
Car cursed
I’ll let it tell its own story. Prologue goes like this: my son took his girlfriend to the movies. Son and car returned at 10:30 pm.
I probably shouldn’t have joked with another lady in the waiting room (after we both noticed the ‘shock’ poster) that ‘knock on wood – I’ve NEVER had to buy those!’
Man announced (as I was now 2 hours late to work) “Your back shocks are dead – they are not doing a thing”.
Super.
Duper.
Not today buddy. Today I have spent 3/4 of my paycheck on these flipping tires.
Had to giggle when the salesman told me they would last 50,000 miles. I wanted to say that was probably longer than my car would last. But didn’t. It wasn’t that festive of an occasion and I was afraid my jesting would come out bitter.
I am totally, utterly, completely car cursed.
But! I am VERY blessed when it comes to my son coming out of them unscathed (twice now)
And when it comes to food product vandalism (mustard vs egg yolk)
So! I’ll count my blessings and avoid looking at, let alone counting, my bank account.
Self. Indulge me.
Indulge me – and my foul mood.
You know, I read a friends blog who has Aspergers, and a common thread that I pull from her carefully woven words is that she is trying to process the world around her and her place in it. But what I feel from her words to a degree of envy, is that she knows herself.
I don’t know who I am anymore.
I feel, right now, like a bundle of contradictions – my muscles and my gut tight with the many facets of me that don’t play well with one another.
I despise liars, cannot stand to lie – yet lie to myself.
I cry at romantic movies, and a part of me yearns for the fairy tale ending, while the rest of me knows no one could possibly scale the walls I’ve built around me.
I abhor child abuse – and yet, just this afternoon I spat ugly words over the phone at my son after I perceived that he lied to me, when he was suddenly ‘not hungry’ after I asked him what he wanted from the shop for dinner rather than a drive thru. The sudden, let down, it’s-not-good-enough tone of his voice hit me where it hurt. I seethed. Thinking, ‘Ingrate’. And let him have it.
I might as well have slapped him, because I know how painful venomous words are.
I am impulsive and ugly. I am better alone.
I am always so desperate to please, then resentful that people take so much from me.
I am contradiction incarnate.
And now I am home – and the door to my sons room is closed, and the light is off. And we may as well be a thousand miles apart.
And we are.
I’m in my self-hatred and he is probably letting a nap take him after licking his wounds.
I won’t open his door.
I am stubborn. I am grateful for every day and painfully aware of how, without warning there can be no more days – and yet I squander them.
I don’t plan for the future.
I am content with ‘enough’, yet also settle.
I work hard – I give and I give all that I have. And I am tired. I am not well.
Somedays I only know what day it is because my pill-box reminds me.
I count my blessings, and neglect them.
I am 43 and responsible – and inside right now I just want to curl into the smallest ball I can muster and sob my soul right out of me.
I’ve never felt so alone, and yet have so many friends.
I say I’ll bare it all on my blog and yet, almost every post I find I edit in some way.
Well not this one.
An answered prayer – friends.
Boy, things can flip on a dime if you want them to and you ask them to.
Last night was a cathartic post for me – after feeling awkward as arse about being gussied up all week. But before bed, I was feeling a little down in the dumps and my usual prayers started off a little differently.
I started out with a pray for me. I asked “God, please help me”. My God is of no specific religion. He loves me. He sees into my heart and knows just what I need. Always. My Faith is in Love. That is my God. He is love. A higher power that I see in every blade of grass, every ‘weed,’ every smile, every cloud, every note of music.
Anyway. Last night I was warmed first with a comment from one of my dearest friends on my post. Then with a message from a friend of years and years ago. In 6th grade, when I first transplanted to the US, he teased me and called me an English muffin. He grew into a handsome man who has served his country, makes me laugh on Facebook with his statuses and if I’m being totally honest, if we weren’t in different States, I’d be wanting to spend time with. 😉
Today – I spoke with another friend who I worked with for years in the same industry. It was so lovely to talk to her on the phone. After the initial ‘is this really you? It doesn’t sound like you’ it was as if time hadn’t passed at all.
I came back into my office later in the day to find another friend – who I worked side by side with for 6 years. Literally. lol. Our office was small but we got along so well that it was never a bad thing. We laughed and caught up. She’d just left a salon appointment a few doors down and stopped in.
But what are the odds of that being today? I haven’t seen her in over a year.
I am SO very blessed when it comes to friends. My best friend and I email most every day – and one of my favorite people works in the real estate office next door.
Then I got to thinking on the ride home – listening to my guilty pleasure, the Mama Mia soundtrack. I recant my ‘I have never been in love’ stance in an earlier blog.
I have loved. I have loved as much as I was capable of at the time. I gave all I had.
I’m not as broken as I thought I was. I have issues – who doesn’t? I also have tons of people who love me just as I am.
3, 2, 1 … Wait! Stop!
The day after Christmas reminded me of the way my house used to feel after a party. Back when I had such things. Rooms peppered with gift remnants, me stepping over boxes and paper, dessert type foods left to dry out on the counter tops. Hoping everyone had a great time and dreading the task of taking down the decorations and cleaning up. A part of me glad it’s over for 1 more year.
3 days after Christmas and all I had the energy to take down were the cards. My advent calendars stood baring their empty molds through wide open doors.
I cleaned up this weekend. I have another holiday affording me time off to do so – New Years.
A lot has happened this year … I think of the highlights. My son got his driver’s license, I started this blog, I got a new-to-me car, my son had his first accident in aforementioned new-to-me car. There was Homecoming, ‘end of the world’ survival and right around the corner is 2013.
2013 is going to be a big year. Nic will turn 18, there will be prom and graduation (omg … GRADU-Flipping-ATION!). I’m not ready. I shall cling to this remaining day of 2012 like a toddler on its parents leg.
The unknown is waiting. I don’t do well with ‘the unknown’.
I had a another taste of things to come last night. Nic spent the night out and I was finishing a disturbing book. I squinted at the clock on my bedside table and it was nearing midnight. I’m not afraid of the dark (anymore) and I’m not afraid of ghosts (anymore) but there’s something about ‘the strike of midnight’ that makes me feel like I should have my eyes squeezed shut and not witness it. A macabre Cinderella complex if you will.
I wanted to finish my book though – so I did. Butters growled at something I hadn’t heard. That’s always disconcerting – the low rumble of concern from a creature with hearing much more than you’re capable of picking up.
I was alone in the house and at the tail end of a cold. I had spent the better part of two days thinking when I wasn’t reading.
I even wrote a letter to a friend. A real one, you know, with a writing utensil and paper.
I’m feeling nostalgic about the past 17 3/4 years and while I’m grateful and mostly content – there’s something in me on the verge of panic.
I’ve been looking around me lately and finding things I feel are lacking. My furniture is sparse, even in relation to the small rectangle I call home. Anything I had of value I sold. I don’t regret it, but there’s nothing here I’d pass down through my family.
I think about my job – the job I am blessed to have. But I have no health insurance, no 401K. Am I destined to be a greeter at Wal-Mart when I’m into my 60’s? Never being able to retire?
I thought about being alone. Yesterday I noticed my left front tire needed air and a fleeting thought ‘I have no one to ask to do that for me’. It’s always me – doing everything. Alone.
I thought about my health.
I thought about just about everything.
Have I done enough? Have I provided enough? Have I taught enough?
With 2013 looming I’m coming a little unhinged. Not losing my marbles, just examining them.
I cleaned my sons room last night – found remnants of his childhood in the form of Pokemon cards and old school work. Clothes that used to fit him are now in a box for Goodwill.
No one explained this part of life to me. I’ve heard countless times about worrying when your child is sick, worrying when your child is not home. No one mentions how it feels when your child is on the cusp of no longer being a child.
Yes, I’ve heard of empty nest syndrome. But, I didn’t realize how all-consuming the weight of that impending life event could be.
I’ve always had one constant – being Nic’s mom. I still will be. But it won’t define me. Perhaps it never should have. But it did. That was my thing that I treasured. My role I never once wanted to give up. My drive. My Raison d’être.
A part of me wants to press pause – to stop time. That part of me is selfish. Nic has so much in front of him to look forward to. I’ll be a part of it, God willing. I’ll cheer him on from the sidelines – always be there should he need me.
As for me? This marble examination will pass. I’ll find my center again – I always do. I have faith, gratitude, hope and love in my heart. Those things, once planted, don’t stop growing because time passes. I won’t let them.
Tonight I’ll ring in the New Year with sparkling cider and savor the last “3, 2, 1! HAPPY NEW YEAR!’ with my ‘boy’.
Next year – who knows? He may choose to spend the 3,2,1 with me instead of being at a party, or with a girlfriend or … OR maybe I’ll be at a party? Who knows.
Debauchery Soup 