Manipulative – Part One

This post has been transferred to my private blog.

Utterly Heartbroken

*sigh* Today was actually a very good day. I went back to work after a nice week and a half off. I was happy, see, I may not like my job too much but I really do love to work. I like to do things and be useful and I like being the one people turn to when they need something. I’m a dishwasher of sorts at a resort. I’ve been there for three years and though the position is miniscule I am a big help. Even chef comes to me when they’re looking for something or need someone to run errands. I can fix any of the machines and often train the newbies or work with them their first days.

I’ve been there for three years now. I started when I was 16, it was a great way to get out of the foster home and make some money at the same time. It’s not a job I should be doing to say the least. I’m a very tiny person with several bone problems primarily in my right hip and along my spine. I get very self conscious when people see me stand or walk and just happen to notice. Because of these problems I can’t life a whole lot and I really shouldn’t be lifting entirely as much as I am able. It often makes me feel bad that the other workers have to pick up my slack and I try to push myself harder but it only seems to make things worse.

Last summer, well, maybe midsummer I started working in another position in the same department. The idea was less lifting and getting out of the dish room now and then. I was helping to manage the buffet. I cut (and served) prime rib and refilled pans. I took it very seriously and prided myself and being polite to people, even the drunks who came up and hit on me *shudders at a not so fond memory involving the words ‘brisket’, ‘dream’, and myself*. I loved it. For the past year I was starting to feel less needed in my old position, useless, especially since there was much I couldn’t do.

Well, being a seasonal resort, when summer ended and just before snowfall we stopped having the buffet. Just for a little while. I was ensured that it would be back shortly after snowfall and that I would be working again. In the mean time I did dishwashing like I was in between buffets. It was normal. About 6 weeks ago though my name was no longer on the other schedule. My Hunny (who works at the same place but a way different department) mentioned it first, he often double checks for me when I have to work. I went through and I saw it but I just passed it off as us not having buffet for awhile, the other workers of the same position also did mornings and mornings still had buffet so I assumed that’s why they still appeared. You know, saving printer ink.

I went in tonight and I had to pass through the main restaurant for my uniform and then go to other one to work. There was a buffet. No one told me and I still wasn’t on the schedule, trust me, I actually wore my glasses to check. Still, I didn’t think anything of it. I was needed at the other restaurant, surely, I would be back as of next weeks schedule.

The night went on and I actually had fun working with someone I wasn’t entirely fond of. It was a good night full of hard work and I even helped to make egg rolls. :P We got everything done and didn’t even have to soak anything over night, I was quite pleased with myself and double proud of my newbie who’d shaped up this last month of so and worked hard despite having a bit of a fever. I made sure to tell her as much.

At the end of the night I sat in the waiting area and read out by the fire like usual until my Hunny was done with his shift and we started to head home. This is when my heart broke and don’t worry it’s not how it sounds at first.

My Hunny pulled off to the side, we weren’t yet out of the resort, in fact I don’t think we’d left my restaurant yet. He pulled over and told me he had a talk with my boss… My Hunny had been worried from the start and finally after seeing for himself that we had a buffet he asked my boss what was up and if I was going to be on next weeks staff.

Apparently the decision had been made a long time ago and sadly no one had the heart to tell me but they decided not to let me do it again this season. "It was a lifting issue". Apparently I just can’t carry enough even though there’s less lifting in this new job. I actually cried. I’m sure this sounds stupid but I’ve been crying for a couple of hours now. I loved working out there and I took pride in it. They should have told me. I should have been angry that they didn’t but I wasn’t. I was, and still might be a little, angry at myself.

My Hunny tried to comfort me. He told me it wasn’t my fault but honestly I think I would feel better if it was my fault. Then I would have a better reason to feel bad, then I could have some control over it, then it really would be just what I want it to be. I want it to be my fault so I can blame someone. How horrid is that?!

A lot of people knew about the decision, a lot of them had the chance. Good goddess knows I’d been hinting and kind of asking. I’m not the brave type, heh.

This really probly will seem stupid. I shouldn’t get so upset but I am. I love working and I loved that job because it was something I could do and now they’re telling me I can’t because I’m unable to. To be honest I felt perfectly capable at the time.

I feel horrible. On top of it all I have other workers in the same department, whom I’ve never actually worked with before, say right behind me in hearing range that I’m a bad worker and I don’t work hard. I’m happier to just be called lazy. I know I’m that but I do work hard for others. I don’t complain about my job at work, a little at home and a lot about the newbies but still! Maybe it’s for the best. I’m so depressed right now. I’ve been depressed for the passed few days anyway’s, it’s seasonal and part of ‘my issues’ but adding this to it… I’m not sure what to say except that I feel utterly heartbroken and sad. I’ve never been at such a loss for fancy words and heart felt metaphors.

My Hunny was actually contemplating not telling me till after Christmas, bless his heart for telling me then instead of later. On the way home he stopped at a as station and bought me six things of ice cream, each in my favorite Ben & Jerries flavors and two stuffed animals. He’s such a dear for cheering me up. I smile for him but I still feel horrible. If only it had been for another reason. If only it had been something I’d done wrong but not. It had to be because I can’t lift as much as anyone else. I myself only weigh like 98 pounds if I’m lucky and remember to eat five times a day, sex if I’m sick.

I feel like cursing and kicking myself and then falling to the floor and bawling again. I really wish it was my fault.

Torturous Writing

From the title of this post I bet the first thing that comes to mind is one of those times we all experience as writers. We love our craft but now and then we find ourselves having to write something we don’t want to. A voiceless article with a deadline, a manual, a school essay on a topic we don’t really enjoy. The craft then becomes a process and instead of natural it becomes forced, rigid, and almost painful to make ourselves stick to it.

But what if I told you by "Torturous" I meant something I wanted to write…?

Last night I started working on something. A typed journal entry of a sort. At first it was a blog entry, a little something about some memories of mine that I felt an uncanny urge to share though now I’m not so certain I can post it. Not because I don’t want to but because… well, it’s hard to explain. I’m not typically afraid of what people have to say on what I write from my real life but I am afraid of pity. After my experience last night I fear it would break something that is brittle at the moment.

Memories left to collects dust and thin from age and moth holes were aired out last night. I opened them up and exposed them to the elements within, rubbing them raw with my thoughts and feelings and the intertwining of more powerful memories that I hadn’t meant to release. These are the brittle things I speak of.

"I’m in such a wonderful mood but tonight I feel like writing about the bad things. It’s alright though- better to examine the dark places within when you have a little light to take along the ride this way you’re left no more grey than before." That was the first line of my writing before I started to go down that path. It was strange. I could hardly believe that I felt like writing about this stuff- not as a means of coming to terms or releasing it- I pretty much did all that on one long painful process before I changed my spiritual name, no, I just felt like sharing.

I started to write a little bit about why I was writing this stuff, just like above, I constantly feel the need to explain myself. Then I wrote a little background about myself and the people around me during the time of these memories and then lastly I started to write it. The explanations are a bit of a warm up for me, a way to toss myself ever so carefully back into a time and place that I rarely visit.

The writing was normal at first. I crafted out particular things like I would when introducing a scene in one of my stories but then something happening. The steady trickle that is usually my writer’s voice began to drip and stutter with something new. The water of my words had started to drip from another pipe and little by little the steam opened up. I couldn’t write from a distance anymore, suddenly I was there- my thoughts of the time becoming my thoughts of the present. I was no longer the name I go by now but once again the person I was back then. The water of my words began to gush from the faucet faster now as if they couldn’t come out fast enough. I was skipping around, going back and forth, my writing sporadic.

I was still a writer. My words, my bleeding heart, it is the only way I know to safely express myself.

I wrote for maybe three hours non stop, without looking back, without editing. I was typing faster than I knew I could but still not as fast as the water and the memories. I went like this until I was halfway through what I had originally set out to write when I surpassed a rather painful point- well not painful, but rather something that is connected to another something that still holds a might bit of power over me today. I was so tired and drained.

There were points while writing that I could feel a lump in my throat and my eyes felt hot and watery. I was alone in the room though so I forced myself not to cry. Those around me knew not what I was writing and it would be a little odd to start crying for no reason. I would speak of it just before I finished but I didn’t want their encouraging words, pity, or heartfelt wisdom to taint me beforehand. I couldn’t think about this as an adult while writing it for I wasn’t an adult wen it happened. At other points during this I felt stupid, utterly stupid and naive though I know I was neither. I was merely sheltered and cultivated to believe in untruths- not quite lies but something different and more sinister all together.

I’m not sure where I was going with this post. I suppose I just wanted to write about this experience since I’m still uncertain of posting the actual writing -after- I’ve turned it into something legible. If anyone is interested I’m looking for someone to read this writing of mine off this blog and to ask them if it is perhaps too ‘dark’ to post. That’s one of the other reasons I’m unsure of posting this writing. Often when I tell people things from my past they can’t believe it happened or they get upset that it has happened or worse they are shocked and appalled that anything like it can happen at all. Because a lot of what I write- be it spiritual, personal, or philosophical is normal to me I see it just as that whether it was bad or good or in some nice safe niche between the two. I don’t actually know if this is too dark a thing to put here.

If anything: I do want to add it to a collection of mine. Someday I want to write a book about things, mostly memories. I don’t think a lot of people wouldn’t read it and I hope a lot of people don’t need to but I would like that the writing and experiences could help someone else. Who knows. Anyway- this was a nearly pointless post. My pardon.