Rocks

I started having nightmares after I lost my job in April. I dreamed about returning to work and having ugly confrontations with various people. I dreamed about being at work but not wearing pants. I dreamed about running into former colleagues and screaming at them. It's safe to say I was a little angry about the situation.

One of my character flaws is that I hold grudges. For a long, long time. The boy in high school who broke my heart? I still think ugly thoughts about him. (Keep in mind that I've been with my husband for 21 years now...married almost 17 years.) The girl who made me miserable in fifth grade? Let's just say that when I heard that she had been checked into a mental institution in college, my first reaction was of delight.

I know it's not nice, and probably not very healthy, but that's part of who I am.

So, the nightmares. I was waking up, sweating, heart pounding, in the middle of almost every night. Sometimes I fell back asleep, but usually not. I spent many anxious pre-dawn hours in the living room, watching "Big Brother After Dark" or reading mysteries or playing spider solitaire.

And then, one Sunday, my friend Laura was the worship associate in church, which meant she led all the liturgy when we had a guest speaker for the sermon. I don't remember exactly what she said in her prayer, but something changed. Immediately, and, so far, permanently.

Like I said, I don't remember her words, but an image came into my mind as she spoke. An image of a stone in the water, being smoothed by the current. I imagined the jagged edges gradually wearing away, leaving a shiny surface. There is a bowl of river rocks in my bathroom, and I thought of those stones, so different from the various rocks I've dug from my garden soil this summer.

And I though of myself as one of those rough rocks, and how I could let the current smooth out my rough edges if I just let it.

A feeling of peace washed over me. Immediately. Deeply. Something had changed. I felt something unfamiliar: forgiveness. I was refreshed, calmed, different.

The nightmares stopped, mostly. I can't say that I've completely forgiven the wrongs I've experienced in my life, but I definitely am not dwelling on them like before. I'm sleeping better. And I look at those two collections of rocks - those rough rocks in the back yard, and the smooth river rocks in my bathroom - and know that that beautiful, shiny, smooth surface came from years of currents wearing away the jagged edges.

September day 1

With the option of participating in National Blog Posting Month any month, I've chosen September. The theme is "Beautiful," which should help me keep a positive attitude. It's a little hard to be cheerful when I just spent the better part of an hour writing an article for Examiner.com, only to click a button and delete the whole thing, thereby forcing myself to rewrite the whole darn thing. Hopefully the unintended rewrite was a good thing.

So, what's beautiful? Last night, it was football practice. My son, who has no prior football experience, is one of the bigger boys on the team, and was assigned to be a defense tackle. Despite that nagging maternal fear, what I saw yesterday evening was truly beautiful. My son was double-teamed, and he kept the other guys back. He didn't cede even a yard. Seeing this slender, gentle, quiet boy being physically tough was stunning to me. His goofy grin as he loped across the street from the park to the house was mirrored by my own. He enthused, "That was the best practice ever!" as we hustled him off to the shower and encouraged him to eat his dinner before bedtime.

Watching him grow into this new person is breathtaking.

Promoted!

More later, but I just got a big promotion at work! And I wasn't expecting it! At all! Totally took me by surprise, in fact! Holy cow! Exclamation point!

The experiment, continued

Or, more truthfully, discontinued.

Due to circumstances well beyond my control, we gave up on the non-driving experiment. Maybe I'm a wimp, but I couldn't figure out how to help my boss move out of his apartment without cranking up the minivan. And I couldn't figure out how to purchase food and liquor for his going-away party without driving.

So yes, we drove during not-driving-week. About 4 miles in all. Which still isn't bad, but it means the experiment failed this time.

But I don't think this failure proves terribly much. How often, in a person's lifetime, does one's manager develop serious visa problems and have to leave the country with 20 days' notice? I'm thinking it's a once in a lifetime thing. (And I'm not going to say much about it except that I hate it and I've cried more about this situation than I've cried over any work situation in the last nine years. He's fantastic and I adore his wife and I'm going to miss them horribly and I have some anxiety about what's going to happen next at work.)


New topic.

The kids are back from their week in northwest Arkansas, and I must say, they're a lot of fun. I can't honestly say that I miss them all that much when they're gone (mainly because we keep ourselves busy and don't have much opportunity to miss them), but I love it when they're home. The girl and I spent much of yesterday afternoon and evening cuddling on the couch, after she emerged from email land and got sucked into the movie I was halfway watching (I was halfway sleeping). We were both tired, and I think she was needing some Mom time.

A few years ago, I wouldn't have let her watch "First Knight," because it deals with the Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot story, which is a bit, well, adult with the whole forbidden love thing. But I also clearly remember being about her age and wishing with all my heart that my parents would let me see "Excalibur" when it came out in the theater. (They considered my request seriously, even went to see the movie, and then denied my appeals. I saw it years later and "Meh", but I saw their point.) But "First Knight" is PG-13, and the love story part was quite tame, and the battle gore didn't bother her in the Narnia movies, so I decided it wasn't inappropriate.

What was funny was how she fell into watching the movie. She had come into the living room to tell me that the phone was for me, but then she sat down just because she wasn't doing anything else. At first she just glanced at the screen, but then I caught her getting interested. And then she was so interested that she asked me to pause the movie when she went to the kitchen for a snack. We talked about what was going on (she's never seen "Camelot" but has seen "The Sword and the Stone" so she was a little familiar with the story) and we both predicted when things were about to go sour.

And then it was over, but we found the second half of "Talladega Nights," which the kids and I think is hilarious but Craig thinks is incredibly stupid. By this time, Alex had joined us and watched it with us (although he was heartily disappointed that the dinner table scene, particularly the "spider monkey" line, had already taken place).

Watching my children watch movies gives me a great view inside their minds. I can tell a lot by what makes them laugh in comedies or what gets their attention in adventure movies. Alex doesn't enjoy battle scenes (and, as a result, didn't much love "Prince Caspian") but loves goofy comedy (and has become a fan of Nick at Night sitcom reruns). The girl is starting to "get" adult humor, and watching her laugh at off-color jokes makes the jokes much funnier to me. The laugh is different. It's like she knows that she "shouldn't" be laughing, but she can't help it.

They're home for a week, then it's off to Michigan for three weeks. I know Craig and I will enjoy the change of pace that occurs when we're child-free, but I also know we'll be happy to have them return. The laughter most of all.

Day Zero

My new employees and I just spent two weeks training in preparation for my new store's opening. It was a good process, with lots of team-building opportunities built into the process. Since all but one of my new staff members are under 20, and all are female, it was not a difficult process to see these people draw together.

Tuesday is day one. While I'm sure it will be a very, very busy day, we're probably lucky that it's a holiday week, because that will keep us from being as busy as we would have been if we'd opened in, say, mid-November.

Each manager in my department is included in a weekend and holiday rotation: our department works every day. Since my store opens Tuesday, I had volunteered to work Memorial Day. Realistically, I'd probably go in anyway, if only to open up the store so the new employees could have a little more practice time (which all of them want), and to do some prep work so Tuesday morning would go more smoothly. Of course, I'll probably regret that decision come 4:00 Monday morning, when the alarm sounds and I have to get to work before 5:00.

It's been a hard two months. I've worked more twelve-plus hour days in the past month than I had, combined, in my life. Arriving at work around 6:30 to get the old store ready to open, working in the store until training started, attending training, checking on the old store, back to training, catching up on the "desk" part of my job (which has been sorely neglected), then checking on the old store before I go home (and usually sticking around to clean it better than it was left by the person who's been helping out), getting home between 5:30-7:00. It's tiring.

My saving grace has been Craig. Not only has he worked (as a temp) in my old store for two weeks (and done as much cleaning as he could, given that he still had to pick up the kids from school at the same time the store closed), he's also planned and cooked every meal served in our house for at least the past two weeks, kept the laundry in check, and been very patient with my obsessive behavior and conversation. He's letting me eat, sleep, and breathe coffee and staffing and retail and shift planning, and even tolerated my going out for drinks with colleagues more than once this week (if I can't see them in the office, I at least get some face time on hotel rooftops and discos).

Here's the thing. It's going very well. Eyes are on me right now, professionally. I took on a failing venture and turned it around. And now I have the opportunity to not just "not fail" but to succeed, quite visibly. This store will be the social center of the hospital. Its success will be credited to me. Its failure will be on my shoulders. I don't have any doubt that the next few months will make or break my career, or at least this portion of it. And given the past few months' successes (33% increase in sales from March to April, and May looks to be at least as good, if not better), I feel like I'm up to the challenge. I've created some good partnerships in other departments (this is me waving to the directors of security and design and construction), and I think that's going to be crucial to my continued success.

I can't help but think back a few years, when my professional life, if you could even call it that, was absolutely the least of my priorities. I worked because I had to, for money and insurance, and I watched the clock all day. All I wanted was to collect my paycheck and go home.

Even though this month has been hard, it's been great. I'm having a fantastic time. I wake up excited about the upcoming day. I go to bed bone-tired. But it's stimulating and challenging and feels like exactly what I was born to do.

Grace

I like to tell people that I have the best job at the hospital. Where other folks spend their working days placing IVs in children, giving parents bad news, rushing grant applications, spending endless hours in labs doing important research, or making difficult decisions about the future of our institution, I get to hang out in the most fun part of the hospital, making coffee for everyone who needs a cup.

Part of the fun is getting to know a cross-section of our hospital...mostly staff, but also visitors and families. I've gotten to know exactly how seven-year-old "Keith" likes his hot chocolate, how a prominent scientist likes his latte, and which coffee blends are favored by post doc researchers.

And then there are the moments that really knock my socks off. There's a parent who comes by our store nearly every day. "Janey" orders the same coffee every time: four cappuccinos, along with four pastries. (Usually she gives me free reign to select the pastries.) This order costs a bit more than $20. Four or five days a week. Yes, that's about $100 per week. Did I mention who the coffee and snacks are for? No? They're for the nurses who are taking care of her daughter.

This woman, about my age, never shows the strain of being in the hospital with a sick child. She is very, very beautiful and her smile lights up the room. She's cheerful and funny, and obviously generous.

And if she were none of those things, given the difficulty of her current situation....1000 miles away from home, with her husband and other daughter just as far away...I wouldn't blame her a bit. If she were cranky or distracted or tearful, I wouldn't be at all surprised.

But she's meeting this challenge with grace and graciousness and gratitude, and I look forward to her daily visit. That visit reminds me that I work in an amazing place, full of amazing people, and that we have so many opportunties, every day, to do good, to make new friends, to make a difference in someone's life.

I'm trying to rise to the challenge. If Janey can be that great with so many obstacles, I can be that great too. My life is pretty easy: my kids are healthy and smart, my husband is great, I have a good job. My list of complaints and worries is short. But the opportunities I have to do better - to be kinder, more generous, more helpful, more inspiring - are ample.

Amazing what a person can learn while making coffee.

So I'm told

April's National Blog Posting Month prompt is "Letters". A quick paste of the email notification I received...

Just a quick note to tell you that the daily blogging
theme for April is going to be LETTERS.

For writers, this can mean letters to the editor, love letters,
fan letters, ransom notes -- I'm not encouraging illegal activity,
but the list is endless.

For typography lovers, it's a month full of fonts!

For photographers, it's license to go out and shoot things
both manmade and natural that resemble
a member of our beloved alphabet.

And as always, if you'd like to be on the
April blogroll of participants, go to nablopomo.com,
click on the Blogrolls tab, and follow the instructions.

It's not April yet, but I'm thinking of the letters I can write. Thank-you notes, apologies, hmmmm.

So, if you were going to write a letter every day, which one would you write first? Would you thank your parents? Would you tell off that mean kid who made you miserable in the fifth grade? Would you write a love letter to your child?

Share in the comments...I'm interested, and I also need ideas!

Thank you

I suppose that you already know that my fair city got hit pretty hard by strong storms last night. Warehouses were destroyed, homes were destroyed, even a mall sustained major damage. My family spent hours glued to the radar pictures on the television, seeing ourselves in the direct path of a tornado for a few minutes (fortunately for us, it veered east, and we were out of its path). Friends of mine saw tornadoes. Friends of mine lost neighbors.

In my house, we had a panicking dog and a panicking boy. My sweet son has a rather irrational fear of weather, particularly hurricanes and tornadoes. Fortunately, we've been able to talk him down from his hurricane fear (it helps that we live very, very far from saltwater), but any serious threat of tornadoes is a guarantee that he'll be at best, fearful, at worst, a complete wreck.

Last night he veered closer to the "complete wreck" side of the scale. There were tears. There was a ten-minute-long episode of such fear that I could barely be near him. He planted himself in the laundry room (the safest room in the house for such events) and assumed the "duck and cover" position. Keep in mind that there was no tornado heading even remotely toward our house at that point. I finally convinced him to watch Hannah Montana in my bedroom, demonstrating that the trek from my bed to my closet (the other, more comfortable "safe room" in the house) took only seconds.

Because a second line of storms was forecast to come through the area around 10 p.m., we dragged the futon mattress downstairs so the kids could sleep in our room. I think it gave him peace of mind, and he slept well (except when the second front came through, with astonishing force).

But the title of this post is "Thank you" and there's a reason.

Some people may think I'm a bit odd, in that my usual online routine includes checking weather.com. I almost always know what the day's weather is predicted to be. And this storm system? Was no surprise. As early as Sunday afternoon, I knew that Tuesday was going to be an interesting day. There was a "Special Weather Statement" posted, warning that conditions would be ripe for such storms. By Monday, the forecast had been narrowed down to the point that the predicted storms were projected to arrive between 1 and 9 p.m.

The first raindrop hit my neighborhood at 4 p.m. Just as predicted. The worst was over before 11 p.m.

Even though I whined (and wined) about missing American Idol and House, our local weather forecasters kept us informed, alerting folks when the funnel clouds began forming, figuring out the path these storms would follow, and telling people to take cover.

They were exactly on target. And for that, I'd like to buy all the weather forecasters a Coke. They all deserve a nice day off.