You Gotta Know When to Walk Away
Been exactly six weeks since Jim's surgery and now I have a mrsa spot on my nose. It never fails. I cannot go near a hospital without picking up a hospital infection, even if I'm not the patient. I had to fish out my tube of ointment and grit my teeth. It's way more painful that a regular skin infection. Stupid body, stupid immunio suppression therapy for the mast cell.
But I've learned, to deal with things quickly. First throbbing this afternoon I'm slathering it with my prescription cream instead of of waiting. I'm getting better to figuring out needs and taking immediate action.
Knowing when I need to let go and rest happen now that never happened in the past. I was thinking about that on Monday when the dizziness was insanely bad, I never even bothered to get dressed. I had coffee, did the minimum and lay in the bed listening to podcasts silently thankful I didn't have to get up and go anyway I always joke that it's always Tuesday afternoon here, like the Moody Blues song.
There have been times in the past where I was terrible at it, and not knowing how to make a graceful exit from something that no longer served me. After tendering notice with Patheos because of my health I cannot help but contrast leaving this time with the crazy disastrous times nearly twenty years ago when I left my position at the social work licensure agency.
It so happened that on that January day I had a day I needed off from work. I went up to Baltimore that day to participate in the props sale for a television show I loved that was filmed in that city. Work would not allow me to have the entire day off, so I was off until 1 pm. This is after working overtime and Saturdays, six days a week for months on end. Sometimes salaried positions suck. Worked like a mule, paid for 40 hours. That place was also always in emergency mode. We were supposed to be hosting a week long board meeting. The morning was all I could snatch.
Luckily I got there super early and was one of the first ten people into the building. I met up with friends afterward who loved the same show. We had lunch and showed off our prizes we'd obtained before I shoved off for work.
At that time I'd been with the agency over five years, and I wasn't in love with the job. There were some strange drawbacks at the agency, a martinet of a boss that would randomly flip out on people, and other issues. Shove a bunch of neurotic social workers together, and there will be crazy happening. I still remember the woman whose dog died and she was so distraught she ended up in the mental ward. Everything was always high drama and rush.
That day I went to Charm City, and returned straight to work. I had over 300 emails all screeching for something immediately, had a pile of phone messages marked important and my boss came screaming into my office that 'The fucking caterer fucking fucked up the fucking food for the fucking meeting' and rush out again in another cloud of fucks. I remember looking at that pile of phone messages, hearing the fuck screaming boss screaming in the distance, and the blinking pile of emails and thought, "What am I still doing here? This is no way to live." I packed up my desk, wrote up a resignation letter that I left plopped on the HR person's desk along with my keys. I walked out, never to return again.
I left and took a job that someone had tried to recruit me for mere days before. It was the right decision to leave the madhouse, but at the same time I had overstayed what was mentally healthy for me.
I'm trying to work on that now. Learning to switch off from a work based self to retirement has been a challenge for me. This transition to retirement in Costa Rica has been hard on one level. I am used to going in, and making things happen. boom, bam, done. Life here does not work like that.
Comments