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so guess who's the new weekend manager of my group home? can we say chronic overachiever? what the hell was i thinking? i keep complaining that i grew up too fast, that i push too hard, that i need to slow down, that right now i should be living at home working a minimum wage summer job waiting till i can go away to school again... why is it that i will never be normal, that i will never have exactly what i want? that no matter how happy i am i can never forget how much easier that life would be?
I'm 18 years old. i work as few hours as i can get away with, last week i worked 49 hours, and i consider that an accomplishment. my house is down 5 full time staff members (there are supposed to be 6 managers and 10 full time staff... we have 6 managers and 5 full time staff) scheduling isn't just hard, it's impossible, and guess whose job it is... weekend manager is in charge of all the scheduling and payroll for the house. payroll is easy, i can deal with payroll... how many ways can you say WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH STAFF before someone listens? i have 240 open hours to fill every week, and i don't even know where to start, i keep thinking, "I'm 18 years old" like that makes a difference, like being older would magically instill in me the ability to figure out how to birth staff members (preferably ones with no internal clock willing to work overnights.) How did i even get here? I'm 18 years old i have my own apartment, my own car, my own life, my own job, i have years of college behind me and one more to go... and i'm a bitch about it. Either i complain, because i don't want it, i want it to go away and i want to go back to being an 18 year old, i've never been an 18 year old, i went from 11 to 20 in one big leap... or i critisize anyone who doesn't "meet up to my standards" and my standards are crazy, my standards are me, and why can't i get it through my thick head that i can't judge anyone by myself because that's not fair.... but i feel gypped, i feel like i did it and i'm paying the price and why can't anyone else do it? I see people who are where they should be as lazy, when really that's what i want, i want to be lazy... i want the luxury of being lazy... i say that i could do anything i wanted to, i say that anyone could do anything they wanted to, i say that determination is the key to everything, i say that i've always gotten everything i've ever wanted and that it hasn't always been easy, but how can you sit there and complain to me that you can't do something when you're not out 20 hours a day every day working towards it? because that is what i do, i see something and i shoot after it, i want everything i see, i want to keep moving, when i wanted to move out of my house i got up every day of the week and went to the library and looked at ads, i made hours and hours of phone calls every day, i drove three hours for a job interview, i got my dad to take a day off of work to look at apartments with me... i didn't rest until i had what i wanted. and i don't understand why everyone can't do that, i want to say that i can't get it through my thick head but at the same time i want to say that it's not fair that that's what i do and someone else in the same position can beg off and say "I can't" and act like that's ok, or say, "i'm doing the best i can" when i know that i would be doing better, is it conceited to say that i know my best is better than someone elses sometimes? i think that maybe it is, but it's true... and i can't accept that, i can't say, "ok, you're doing the best you can, fine..." if their best is less than i would do. i don't believe it. i don't think what i do is so remarkable, i think anyeone could do anything they wanted if they were determined enough, i can't understand why more people aren't, but they must not be because how many 18 year olds do you know in my position? i don't know any, they haven't gotten this far, and i don't understand why, i don't understand what's holding them back. and i get bitter because i feel like i moved too fast, i feel like they had more time to be than i ever will, i feel gypped. and i shouldn't. i should suck it up and be grateful, because i have what i have, i can do what i want, and i know, on some level, i wouldn't be happy with any less. i need to work, i need to be completely independant. and some people don't have that need and they can rely on others, and i can't... i have to do it all by myself, and i resent that too. i have my own car, my own apartment, a really good job, i have a whole lot of people depending on me. and yes, i could throw it all away if i wanted to, and i keep that thought there, just in case... but i know that deep down, i'm happier this way, deep down i need people to depend on me, i need to be the person who can do anything. i need to be the best, and i need to be the person who can do everything. i've never seen the movie fight club, but i understand the premise. a lot of men have a lot of anger and they get together behind closed doors to fight it out. i understand that. sometimes i don't know where i end and she begins. sometimes i know i depend on her too much, i count on her to be too many things, too much of the time, i count on her to be everything. and sometimes i know that's not true either, sometimes i know i could be happy without her, sometimes i wonder why we're still trying and sometimes i know there's nothing in the world that could make me give up now. sometimes i need a break. sometimes i feel like it's either work or her, her or work, and they both expect too much. i am never alone. and i know that that's my decision, i know that i could be if i wanted to be, i know that when i am alone i usually spend most of the time wishing she was here. sometimes i don't know what i want. sometimes there's nothing left to do but cry. "you've always been a good girl, smart girl, pretty girl, lucky girl, happy as the day is long...this town has so much at stake in you, do you have any idea what they put you through?" ~the nields everyone expects me to go to falcon ridge later this month and no one understands that that is precisely why i don't want to go. besides that it would involve at least 150 dollars and two days vacation time that i don't have, on a weekend that the evening manager is also going out of town, this weekend i worked 25 hours between saturday and sunday and it was still next to impossible to cover the weekend... two other people also did doubles, and we had three people from other houses over to help us out... if i'm out of town that's 25 more hours that i have to cover, and i don't know how. and it's a really long drive, and four days in a tent in a field and a lot of loud music and all i want is four days in bed with my book and absolutely no sound but the fan. but i'm planning on going anyway because every time i mention it juju pouts and cello gets this "i don't like it but i'll live with it because i have no choice anyway because if i argue you'll just yell at me and you always yell at me and i really want to go" look and she's right. and sometimes i hate it that everyone depends on me, sometimes i just want to push them all over and do what i want to do, sometimes what i want to do is go to work, sometimes what i wnat to do is go home and visit my parents, (gasp!) by myself. sometimes i get tired of waiting, sometimes i just want to leave. sometimes i get sick of being everybody's ride, everybody's chaperone, everybody's mom. i'm the same age as all of my friends. but because i've worked harder, because i've got my own car my own apartment a good job... i somehow owe them, because i have it i'm somehow obligated to share. I'm tired of sharing, i want time to myself, i want time to be selfish, sometimes i just want to sleep, sometimes i just want to do what I want to do. my job is taking over my entire life, and most of the time i don't care. most of the time i think that what i'm doing is the most important job anyone could have and that it means so much, and i know that i make a difference, i know that i have fun whenever i go to work, i know that i am damn good at what i do. and what's wrong with that? what's wrong with having a job that becomes your life? there are 10 residents in my home and everyone of them needs me, not because they need a ride to work or a ride to the concert or a place to crash or a floor to have sex on. they need me because something, somewhere along the line went wrong, and they're not capable of taking care of themselves. they need me because if nobody helped them they'd die, or lie curled up in the corner of an institution to be hosed off once a day. it happened. and yes, if i wasn't there somebody else could do it, but who? we're short staffed as it is, and yes they'd hire someone else but that someone else would eventually leave too, everyone eventually leaves them. and i can't imagine how i'd feel in that situation, but i think that if it were me i'd get awfully tired of a different person helping me each day. i'd want someone who knew me. i'd want someone to stick around for a while. and i can't think of anything i'd rather be doing. we joke about it, heritage has a recruitment video they show all new applicants... and whenever we have to do anything really disgusting we shout about how this is NOT in the video, and it's not, the video shows people playing basketball and goign to the park... and yes that happens but there's a whole lot of stuff they just don't show you on that video. but you laugh, you do it, you move on, you do it because someone has to and why not you? you laugh because sometimes it's just funny. you laugh because there's nothing else you can do. and you come back the next day because afterwards, you looked up and patty was smiling at you and that makes it worthwhile. and it is a life, it is like you're living there, this weekend on saturday i was there to help everyone out of bed, i was there for breakfast, lunch, dinner, bathtime, and to help everyone back into bed. i don't think i can explain it to anyone who hasn't done it, and i know i can't explain it to anyone who's tried it and doesn't just get it. it's a very powerful thing to be that intertwined in someone else's life. you're there for everything, the good the bad and the ugly, the big stuff and the little stuff. when someone's sick you sit by their hospital bed all night long and yell at the nurse when she does something wrong. when someone needs to go to the ER at 10:30pm, you go even though you're supposed to get off at 12 and you know you won't get home until 4am. and when someone laughs you laugh along, when someone looks unhappy you go over there and get them to smile. i'm good at my job, and i love it. and that is the most powerful thing in the world. and sometimes i prefer that to large groups of my friends all expecting me to do whatever it is they want me to do. i think that sometimes that makes me an evil person with no life, or maybe that's just what it's destined to make me. maybe it makes me lucky, how many people can honestly say they miss work when they're not there? i know that i'm rambling, i know that none of this matters, i know that i'm delirious from not enough sleep and too much cold medicine, i know that sometimes i get tired of always sharing my bed, i know that sometimes it is the best thing in the world to be able to roll over and cuddle in the middle of the night when i've just had a bad dream. i know that i'm ungrateful, i know that i tend to just see what she doesn't do and not what she does, i know that i expect too much, i know that the fact that i work twice as much doesn't obligate her to clean up after me. i know that i get angry too easily. i know that it's not all her fault. i get very angry anyway. sigh. the fact that i know i expect too much, doesn't seem to stop me from expecting too much. i'm tired and sick and repeating myself, i'm going to go take a nap now, sigh. ~me |