I’ve been catching up a bit today with other people’s blogs having been too miserable to read any lately.  I was especially inspired by Dave over at Teach my children well.  He writes of a moment of clarity, an epiphany almost, following a scrape in his car when he lost his patience with his children and generally had a melt down.  He realised that he had to make some changes in his life, that he was overwhelmed by his work and young children and had made some bad decisions culminating in the car crash.

It was his ability to pick himself up, take himself in hand, get a realistic perspective on his work and home life and make adjustments to improve himself that struck such a chord with me.  I recognise myself in his descriptions and my biggest fear is that if I don’t take his lead and turn myself around, I will look back with regret and despair that I didn’t take action when I still could.

I recognise that I’ve been dragged down by depression and despair for far too long but equally I know that if I had the same courage as Dave and pull myself up, I would feel a lot better.  I’ve allowed too many things to get the better of me for too long.  Perhaps I’ve let myself become the victim, have looked always on the negative, let the ligitamate difficulties be an endless excuse for lack of determination instead of daring to look over the edge at other, better possibilities; looked at the glass half empty rather than half full.

I’ve been probing my strength over the last few days.  On the one hand, I am pathetically pleased to have secured two tiny jobs but on the other I feel annoyed that I can be so pleased about so little.  I went to see the man that needed a cleaner yesterday.  I summoned all my strength, had a bath, put on make up, found some reasonably decent clothes (ie, without holes in) and suddenly had a moment of panic.  What if this man was after something other than a cleaner.  He had rung in response to my ‘Lady seeking local work’ card I’d put up around town.  I suddenly felt that the wording I had used sounded like those ‘girl seeking man, man seeking girl, man seeking man’ type of ads.  I was about to go to a complete strangers house on the basis of a short phone call.  I ran a few scenarios through my mind.  He could suddenly pounce and not let me out of the house.  He could be a psyco with a knife.  Or, he could be an older man needing some cleaning done.  That’s the trouble with having an over active imagination.

I left the address and phone number with The Other with instructions to call the police if I didn’t return and drove off.  He was absolutely charming.  He worried that I might feel cleaning was beneath me, he assured me that he felt we were equals, he had no illusions of grandeur, master and servant attitude, that perhaps it was the start of a good relationship between us, then he took that back fearing I might take the comment the wrong way.  He offered me more money than I asked for too.  All in all, for a first walk into uncharted territory, it could not have gone better.  I don’t have the same expectation of my other tiny job, shopping for an elderly lady.  I may be wrong but she sounded as though she could be quite a challenge and has offered a pittance for my service.  I will only have to spend a very short time with her though, and as I need to take on whatever I can, I have agreed to collect her shopping list at the weekend.  So I have mixed feelings about it all, swinging from delight that someone actually wants me, to feeling that I really ought to have better standards for myself.  I shall see it through though, if for no other reason than that man deserves my best efforts.

It didn’t help that not only, after all this time, did I walk past my old colleague that stabbed me in the back  but that my friend who also worked with me there for a while rang to ask if I’d seen that he was advertising for an Operations Manager in our local paper.  If you’ve read my post about it, you may remember that I was out of a job in the blink of an eye when the company was supposedly bankrupt and was closing down immediately.  I’ve resisted in the meantime looking to see if it is still going.  I have stopped myself looking to see if the website is still up.  I couldn’t face the huge betrayal of that vile man.  The company provides a winter service and when we had such a mild winter last year, I felt sure that he had gone out of business even if he had misled me and carried on behind my back.  To see him yesterday, our eyes meeting so fleetingly that in a minute we had walked by each other and then to see for myself later, the advertisement, brought all the bad feeling well up in me again. 

Since I left the company, I have wished many horrid things to happen to him.  I’ve wondered why I didn’t sue him and wondered if I should now.  I’ve analysed my feelings and realised that what that I most resent is how much the whole episode dented my self confidence.  The effects are still feel raw and the hurt still hurts.  I know I didn’t deserve to be treated like that and that is some consolation.  I also take comfort in the sure knowledge, that the company won’t succeed, I know this because of global warming.  I know he is ultimately in the wrong business.  I also beleive in Karma to some extent.  What goes around comes around.  I must be patient.

I wanted to thank Dave and Lynette and all the people who have bothered to try and cheer me up lately and left kind and helpful comments for me here.  And to say, that I am going to try and turn things around as Dave has done.

One day at a time.