Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Do I like my job?

Can someone please tell me the real answer to that question? I think I might secretly hate my job, and by "secretly" I mean "subconsciously." Every time someone asks me how my new job is going, I say, "Oh, I love it," but I sound like I'm forcing down liver and trying to tell some young, unwitting child that it tastes good. Then I laugh and say, "I don't sound like I love it, do I? It's just draining." And I am sincere--I really do think I love it, but everything about my affect says otherwise. Today I woke up in a good mood (which was miraculous after my failure to apply any of my healthy coping skills during these several weeks of depression) but my good mood was ruined as soon as I listened to the voicemail asking me to work tonight. It's not like I had anything else to do. I cleaned the bathroom this morning, went to the temple, did laundry, bought groceries, and the only thing I planned to do this evening was clean the kitchen, so I'm not sure why I was so upset about working unless, of course, deep down in my soul, I hate my job. I don't know, I don't know.

Monday, December 22, 2008

"Welcome and wanted"

Is that a common phrase? I seem to be hearing it a lot in the past week. A few days ago, I was talking to some friends about how I've been feeling a little extra depressed lately because it is the holidays, which is a hard time of year to feel like your life has a gaping wound in it. When I left, one of my friends sent me a text that said, among other things, "You are always welcome and wanted here." The next day I was in the temple doing some initiatories, and the work was feeling especially significant to me because I was proxy for 8 women who were born in Boston in 1871. (I was born in Boston!) I felt, distinctly, that someone (or perhaps many) on the other side of the veil were saying, "You are always welcome and wanted here." Then, today, I heard it again. My best friend Lizzy was trying to convince me to make a last minute trip to Arizona to spend the holidays with her family since I have elected not to go to North Carolina with my parents. I just hate traveling at the holidays. Other people can travel, they can visit their families, and I will pick up their shifts and get overtime pay. It's not so bad. But Lizzy assured me that if I change my mind for New Years, I am always "welcome and wanted." So I just wonder: what's up with people using that phrase this week? Or do people use it all the time and I simply never notice because it has never held significance to me?--like in high school when I thought I had never heard a word until it appeared on my vocabulary list and then it seemed to pop up a dozen times in my favorite book. Funny how we make things invisible or important.