Author: riggledo

Updated: CPT

~ riggledo ~ 3 Comments

“For future reference, always assume I’ll be late,” he told me. “There should always be a 3o minute buffer.

Laura is graduating from college and her mother is having an “open house” for her tonight. I got the invitation from her mother, which seemed a little odd to me since I only met her once for about 10 minutes, but it’s a party for Laura and the invitation was to me, Micah and Judy. I accepted right away, even though I don’t know that I’ll stay very long. I’m making a lot of assumptions about what this thing is going to be like but I would think there will be a lot of Laura’s friends, Laura’s age, from her college, at this event. I won’t belong. That’s OK. Tomorrow is a laundry day and I don’t need to be out late tonight.

Judy called me out in the hall before class on Wednesday, ostensibly to have me sign a card she had gotten for Laura to go with a gift certificate, or something that we’re going in on together as a gift for Laura. The card was remarkably tacky and I kind of wish I hadn’t signed it but what’s done is done. While I was signing the card, Judy told me that she plans to ride BART tonight because she doesn’t want to have to drive in the traffic from where she works to where the party is. Admittedly, it’s a long way and since Judy doesn’t usually get off work until 6:00 it would be late before she gets there. “So I was thinking I could call you when I get there and you can come get me. I wouldn’t want Laura or her mom to have to leave the party.”

No, you’d just like to assume that I’ll be at your beck and call and won’t mind having to leave the party.

I got a text from her this morning telling me that it looked like she’d be getting off work around 4:00 instead of 6:00 “which should help my commute time.” A few minutes later I got a text from Micah asking “Would I be able to trouble you for a ride tonight?”

I struggle with these things. I really don’t want to play taxi service or chauffeur. I don’t really mind driving Micah to the party if he’s ready when I am because he’s near by and I’m going there anyway, but…

I sent a reply to them both, “OK. Here’s the deal. I’m planning on leaving work right at 5:00 and heading to Laura’s mother’s house. I’m also not planning on staying particularly long as I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.

“Micah IF you can be at my office AT 5:00 you can ride with me. Otherwise you’ll have to figure out another way.

“Judy, I think you should drive. you’re gonna want to stay later than I will and so will Micah, probably. You’ll both need a way home that won’t be me.”

Judy replied to tell me, “Laura said she’d come get me, but I didn’t want her to have to leave the party. So, I’ll just call you when I am getting close to see if you are willing to pick me up. If not, again, no worries.” So now if I don’t come pick her I’m the dick who “made” Laura leave her own graduation party to come pick up the person who couldn’t be bothered to take care of her own needs.

Micah’s response was that I should assume that he will be late and that there should be a 30 minute buffer. “I assume you did that,” he added. “I always assume I can get anywhere in 5 minutes.”

“No, I told you the real time that’s why ‘IF’ and ‘AT’ were in caps. In that case, be here at 4:00,” I told him.

I do not get this mentality. I absolutely respect people who can speak up for themselves and their own needs (clearly I’m not especially good at it.) But it is so not OK to inconvenience other people with those needs.

I told Micah, he needed to be here by 5:00 and that he should let me know when he gets here because by then I could genuinely forget about him. I also told him if he wasn’t here by 5:00 I would leave without him and he’d have to find his own way. Even still I fully expect a call from him a few minutes before 5:00 telling me he’s running late. I’ll decide then if I’m going to wait for him (probably.) I also told him he’d have to find his own way home and he’s fine with it.

If Judy wants me to give her a ride, she should be at my office at 5:00 as well, except that means she’d have to leave work at 3:00 and she might as well just drive herself. At some point it all just becomes ridiculous! Judy’s solution to finding her own way home is to have Laura, or Laura’s mother, take her back to the BART station.

Am I being unreasonable? I’m not perfect. I know I’ve made requests of Michelle that were inconvenient but I have tried to limit that to rides to the airport and taking me to the hospital and staying with me when I had surgery. And only because I have no one else around here to ask for such things. Beyond that, I really try to take care of my own needs. Is it unreasonable to expect everyone else to do the same?

Updated: The moment I hit send on this post I headed out to get some lunch because I had less than an hour before my next meeting and I hadn’t eaten yet.  I told K, “I’m going to go get some lunch before I run out of time.”

She said, “Ooo.  Where’re you going?  Will you get me some fries?”

Timing is everything.

I Suppose I Should Write Something Pretty Quickly

~ riggledo ~ 3 Comments

… or you guys are going to give up on me and just assume I’ve lost my mind.

That may not be all that far from the truth.

I just don’t really know what to say anymore.

~~~~~

One day last week after class, Mr. Williams and I were talking about some of the students.  Many of these “kids” are not doing as well as they should be, and for the first time, I’m beginning to see a little bit of wisdom in the way Mr. Williams approached things with my class.  I don’t think he needed to be quite so much of an asshole as he was, but he has been super easy on this class and now they’re paying the price.  They didn’t have all the pressure on them that we had, because he wasn’t so demanding and because he only did two chapters a week instead of three and now they are scrambling, on their own time, to get through the rest of the reading before their final which is this Wednesday.

We spent the last three class sessions doing skills tests.  Since I am a certified EMT I can do the testing and I have done all of the Trauma Assessment tests thus far.  Not everyone has tested, but most of them have and of the ones that tested, most of them failed.  Even the class brainiacs who I expected to do well, failed the test.  In some cases, it was on a technicality.  Judy failed because she didn’t initiate high-flow oxygen for her patient (well, pretend to anyway.)  She said that she didn’t feel that her patient needed oxygen since he was not showing signs of respiratory distress, and technically she’s right, but, it’s right on the testing sheet that “failed to initiate high-flow oxygen for the patient” is an automatic fail and we’ve been stressing this with the students all semester.  She gets a second chance to take the test and she’ll do just fine, but she should have passed the first time.

We lost half the class at the midterm because they didn’t pass the test, I’m not sure that all of the rest of them will pass the final and all their skills tests.  Last Wednesday, they were all afraid to come to me for their Trauma Assessment test because everyone who took it on Monday failed.  That wasn’t my doing, it was theirs, but of course I have the reputation of being the guy who fails everybody.  I was very glad that most of the people who did take in on Wednesday passed so now they know it wasn’t me.

Tonight, I am conducting a review for the final and they take the final on Wednesday.  Next week we will finish skills testing and then this class will be over.  It feels like it went so fast; much faster than my class.

I’m kind of glad it’s ending.  I’m tired of having to run from work to school two nights a week.  I’ve given up a lot of my personal time to meet with students and help them practice skills.  Most of the one’s I have helped, have passed the skills and so it makes me unhappy that the rest of them didn’t take advantage of the opportunities that were presented.  But I’ll be glad to have my time back.  On the other hand, it makes me kind of sad because I don’t know when I’ll get the opportunity to make use of my knowledge and skills and I don’t want it to fade away.

I’m working on my resume, something I’m not skilled at and I’m waiting for some feedback from some people on it.  Once that’s done, I’ll start applying to jobs and see what comes of it.  I still don’t know how I’m going to support myself working in this field, but maybe if I just try it’ll work out.

I want to try to make a “teaching” resume as well, and I’d like to see if I can’t work part-time as a safety trainer; maybe with the company my employer uses, maybe with the Red Cross, maybe with another entity I don’t yet know about, I don’t know.  I just know that I need to make a change.

Ungrateful

~ riggledo ~ 2 Comments

I’ve been thinking for days about what comes next.  That last post was kind of a show stopper.  Where does one go from there?

I didn’t look at WordPress again for a bit after writing that post.  I couldn’t really see any point.  I couldn’t bear to see how many, if any, people actually read those words; and I knew that some would.

I had intended to close comments on that post, but I apparently forgot, so when I did log back in and saw the responses I got I was surprised.  And then I needed time to mull it over.  I don’t really know how to respond, how to react.

You see, while the words of encouragement are appreciated, I can’t help not believing them.  There are only four people who have ever breathed the same air as I have and know this blog even exists.  Two of them can’t be bothered to read it.  One of them claims she doesn’t read it anymore since having a falling out a while back, and the fourth person has the attention span of a gnat.  If she does click the link she won’t see it through to its end.

I put a lot of myself into this blog and so I believe that those of you who do read, feel that you have some insight into me and that on some level you care…

Two people told me that I was wrong when I said I was “unloved”.  Given the context of the post and the tone of the comments, a person is left with an unspoken conclusion; the mind fills in the blanks:

 “I can only tell you that you are wrong about at least one thing and that is the fact that you are unloved. You’re wrong about that. You are loved.“

The implied sentiment is that I am loved by the commenter and by the following commenter who stated in reply:

“I second this…“

When I said that I was unloved, I was really talking about my childhood, not that things feel much different now.

It is not my intention to sound ungrateful, though I am sure I do, but simply that I can not understand how people I’ve never met face to face can love me.  Care about me?  Sure.  Feel sorry sympathy for me?  Fine.  “Love” your fellow human being?  OK.  But love me?  I just don’t see it.

And if that isn’t what was intended, then what is?  Because otherwise it just sounds empty and meaningless.  I know that wasn’t the intent, and I’m sorry…

I think this is not going where it was supposed to.  I’m not even sure I know where it was supposed to.  This doesn’t make any sense…

…But someone once told me, “never delete”.

So there you go.

Broken

~ riggledo ~ 3 Comments

I’m broken.

That’s the only explanation.  There’s something inside of me that doesn’t work.  Substandard parts.  Shoddy workmanship.  Poor maintenance and upkeep.  Sand in the gears.  I don’t know.  I just know I don’t work…

[Stares blankly at the screen not knowing where to go next]

I already started this post once.  It didn’t work either.  I scrapped it.

There is nothing good about my existence.  Nothing to make me want to get out of bed in the morning.  The few things that used to give me joy, they don’t.  Not anymore.

~

I’ve had conversations with Deb, lately, about the idea of me coming in to see her more often.  Right now I go every other week and I honestly can’t afford to go more often than that, but she wants me to.

She talks about me needing to “be with” my feelings but I feel like I’ve done that.

I know who I am.  I know what I’ve been through and how it’s affected me.  I thought about making a list and then I happened across this post from last July.  My parents, my brother, my sister, the people I went to school with; it’s all there.

I know what’s been done to me.  I think about it all the time.  What’s the point in rehashing it any more?

When I started therapy I was clueless.  I didn’t understand what these experiences did to me.  I didn’t get how they shaped my personality, my existence.  I didn’t get how the experiences of my childhood affected the adult I am today.  Seven years of therapy later, I know those things now.  I know just enough to be dangerous.  I know how the abuse and the lack I endured as a child molded me into the crap adult I am now.  I know enough to recognize behaviors and attitudes in others and have an idea where those things are coming from.  Seven years of therapy later, I still don’t know how to affect a change.  I still don’t know how to deal with assholes.  I still don’t know how to not be miserable myself.  I can act a part, to an extent, but I don’t know how to be different

~

When I was a kid, I used to go to bed at night and pray for a “miracle”.  I would beg God to make me someone else.  I would beg and plead to wake up the next morning in a different bed, in a different family, with a different face and a different body and a different name and a different life.  I wanted to retain some sense of who I had been so I would know that this miracle had been performed and I would know how much better off I was.  I wanted to be happy and feel loved and wanted.  I wanted to feel love; to be able to love myself.

Every morning I woke up in the same bed, in the same body, in the same family with the same shitty life.  I got up, got dressed, got in the way, got yelled at, got pushed around, bullied and abused…  And then I went to school.  It only got worse from there.

When I was a teenager, I prayed everyday that somehow, someway, God would work a “miracle” and I would become something more, something better than what I was.  I wanted there to be a reason why I had to, why I was enduring all the pain and torment that I experienced.  I had no choice but to believe that it was all serving a purpose and when I was an adult and on my own, out in the real world, I would somehow transcend and no longer would I be this awkward, unloved, unloving, miserably unhappy person.  I would be something more.  Something better.  I would be happy, just to be.

I am an adult, on my own, out in the real world.  These days, when I lay my head down at night, I utter one simple prayer.  I don’t pray that I’ll wake up and be someone else.  I don’t pray that I’ll wake up and be someTHING else.

I pray that I won’t wake up.

I can’t continue this fight.  The struggle is more than I can bear.

I don’t want to be someone else.

I don’t want to be something else.

I just don’t want to be.

“Connecting” #48 (via My Parents Are Crazier Than Yours)

~ riggledo ~ Leave a comment

I really enjoy this blog anyway, but I found THIS to be an especially lovely post and felt it was worth sharing!

Check it out.

“Connecting” #48 In a rare break from birthday tradition, in lieu of the excessive apple martinis, cheap bodega flower bouquets and celebratory fan fare, I decided to see how much I could give to people on my birthday.  And I would start with those closest to me. Usually, it is really fucked up trying to talk to my parents, so I thought I’d come up with a list of questions to provide a structure and safe boundaries for this risky endeavor of connection. I walked … Read More

via My Parents Are Crazier Than Yours