Burlap Soul

How do you find work/life balance
when your new job is a first
it rewards you for taking a chance
yet you know that it could get worse

Rooms full of VPs resistant to change
until you pull out your hard work
then suddenly they are amazed
and demand that you provide more

Feeling like I am not enough is hard
my biggest weakness of all time
power lunches, rides in fancy cars
I still feel like I am a day shy of five

I've been introduced as five different things
patient care, statistician, data girl, project head
In the interview I was told none of these
only that I would be supported and well-fed

Somehow I am not salary, tied to a timeclock
other people tie my ideas to their own
We have meetings where they tell me I "Rocked"
I have still not been paid and need gas to get home

I know this is the chance of a lifetime
a great job with opportunity right out of school
I just wish someone would tell me what I'm doing right
and pay me for the eye-crossing work that I do

I was told patient care assistant, not Outlook and Excel
Phrases like "advocate" and "voice of the patient"
Not sorting and angry phone calls saying "go to hell"
The data supports everything but this huge waste

I can tell you what we're doing wrong
I can read a million feedback complaints
I can crunch the data all damn day long
But I can't make you see more than my fresh face

I wish you could see the other side of me
The way I hold my animals like they are kids
How sometimes I can be so damn funny
All the ways that I can do that, that or this

But you will see me as only one thing
The girl who is sometimes overtly blunt
The newbie who is so good at being sweet
Crutch-girl who cannot flinch and run

So I will not panic, fold, run and quit
Because I need this entirely too damn much
But I assure you that I will fret just a bit
Because there is so much riding on my magic touch

You tell everyone "Staz has a background in statistics"
When you don't even know how hard it was for me to pass
I pray that you never pull up my transcripts
Because I will laugh and you will feel like a jackass

I have this need for you to see me in daily life
to know that I am not the scattered person you see
stepping over her words and always asking "why"
but that I am a scarred veteran of life and stormy seas

Your life is very different from mine, I'm sure
Suburbs, law firms, private schools, golf games
But I have seen more than you've ever endured
Abused, forgotten, neurotic, psychotic, wild, and tamed

I wear many masks in my life, this one we share
Eight to five is not the one I imagined would fit
But it is one that I will bust ass to be able to wear
For I have dreams, goals, debts, the need for this risk

There is a wedding in my future that is everything to me
Not just a need for employment and decent pay
A man that has seen all my sides and somehow set me free
A determination to cement our "now" and give up that "someday"

And in that determination, you will be blown away
For I am a leo, a survivor of the boldest and proudest kind
You can push me and shove me and grind my edges away
But you will never subdue my focus, my heart, my pride

I will take your long hours, late nights and bloodshot eyes
Give me your endless numbers, let me turn them into corporate gold
Call me an assistant if you want and be consistantly surprised
For I am amazing at presentation and love is my ultimate goal

Nothing you can fathom, more than you ever realized
All those chinks in my armor, but it is still very much there
My focus is currently unmatched, our joined hearts my prize
Because I choose instead to live, to laugh, to love, and to care

Truth is what it is, measured in emotion, words, facts or numbers
Love is entirely different, measured instead by the devotion of its lovers

Okay, so anyone that leaves a yahoo address whenever they comment, you'll have to start typing it as youATyahooDOTcom or something similar. I have new spammers that leave nothing but a yahoo address and the only way to keep them out for now is to block every yahoo address. I'm fully aware that this sucks and I apologize. Hopefully I will be updating my blog to either the newest MovableType version or maybe even Expression Engine at some point, just to cut down on the spam. But until then, please just bare with me, ok? I hate spammers just as much as you do, I swear.

And yes, I will be updating soon too. Just waiting for the weekend. ;-)

As much as I tried, I just couldn't continue with the yellow. It's my least favorite color, always has been and probably always will be. However, I do love daisies and having found this one at my aunt's last week, I realized it was time for a new direction. You like? ;-)

-- I've been crutch-free for one week now. Though I still do a sort of walk-buckle-stop-walk, it's so nice to not have chapped armpits.

-- Don't ask me about the wedding. I'm so fucking sick of having to compromise every possible idea that we have that I am now resigned to just not dealing with it at all for fear that I will physically maim someone if I have to think about all the shit that keeps going wrong - yet again. No really, everything's fine. Just don't ask me about it. Hopefully the news will be better soon.

-- My kingdom for a week of sleeping with no stress. Just being able to sit at home and hang with the cats and J. would be enough really. Please?

-- I received my physical therapy bills for one month today. I'll be in debt for quite a while, thank you very much. Every time they ice my knee it costs me sixteen dollars. Wtf?

-- Been at the job a month now, still haven't gotten paid. Hello, Suck.

-- So, so tired. All the time. Asthma is getting worse, thanks to Cincinnati's Sybill-esque climate. I've used my inhaler more in the past three weeks than I have in the past three months. Knee is still healing, work is kicking my ass. Let's add another reason to be tired on that list, shall we? Again with the request for a solid week of sleep. Pleeeeeease?

-- Mom is finally up and moving around in her stormtrooper costume post-surgery brace and healing ever-so-slowly, but now her biggest issue is ungodly amounts of boredom. I fear that at some point I'm going to walk into her house and see that she has shaved the dog for fun.

-- This makes me giddy with laughter and awe. But then this makes J. laugh so hard he cries. I think only if you have a beagle can you truly understand.

This morning I woke up all shaky and sweaty and just generally didn't feel right. Mostly I think my body is just burned out and needed a break, so I did the cowardly think and let J. call me off work. I've been there just over thirty days and I'm already taking a day off. I'm not playing hooky because I do actually feel "weird" and I am seeing my doctor later today so I can get a note for that, but at the same time I cannot escape the Cloud of Incredible Guilt that hangs over me.

It's so weird for me to work somewhere where I feel guilty for taking a day off. And it's extra weird because my reason for feeling guilty isn't that they'll be understaffed, but because I may not actually get all my work done for this week. Personal responsibility? Weird indeed.

I suppose I haven't really explained my job and what I do very well. Truthfully, there just hasn't been time. Plus, I don't want to advertise the company name, my job title, etc just because well.. we use Google at work and I'm not stupid. But I will try to explain this as well as I can while still being anonymous. Basically, I am a patient counselor for people who have had a very specific type of surgery. We have lots of centers all over the country, but our corporate headquarters are here in Cincinnati, so I am lucky enough to have the title of "Staz from Corporate" which packs entirely too much punch and holds way too much power. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't kind of like it... just a little bit. But I'm also learning that being "Staz from Corporate" means having to answer to your own stupid actions and mistakes much faster because well, the CEO is down the hall and the VPs have your private extension on speed dial.

In addition to being a patient counselor (which means dealing with the people that get lost in the shuffle and then are so angry they have hired lawyers - oh the fun!), I am also the new "data girl." The biggest part of my job currently is reading every single piece of customer feedback and creating a categorization system for those comments. Eventually we will be turning those words into numbers and that is when my work will really begin. I will be turning out a quarterly analysis of customer satisfaction and then pointing out our problem areas and things we can do better.

Sounds snazzy, doesn't it? If only they knew how many times I had to take stats just to pass. And sadly, I haven't lied about that. I just told them in my interview that I could do and have done lots of statistics. That's it. Now there are terms being thrown around like "Staz has a background in statistics" and I just want to cringe. Such a statement puts huge pressure on me to not only perform, but to perform damned well. However, I'm devoted to this. If we want a house and a wedding and a future together and a life of travel, then I'm going to learn it, dammit. I'll just have to hope that I can not only learn it, but then act as though I know just what in hell it is that I have learned. ;-)

This weekend was quite nice. We spent it in Eastern Kentucky having a Father's Day cookout while we hung out by the wonderfully clear pool. A pool's a lot of work, but on a 90 degree day, it's well worth it. Sunday consisted of taking my dad's pontoon out on the lake for the first time. Guess what? It floats! That was a sigh of relief. Especially when you've got a knee injury and been instructed not to swim. Yeah, not having to swim back to shore was nice indeed. Plus, Gypsy got to test out her sea legs. We may not have a water dog, but with a little practice, we might just have a smidgeon of a boat dog.

Today it was back to work though. Yes, I continue to work. Know why? Because we're planning a wedding. No, really. We. are. planning. a. wedding. I can't believe it myself. Actually, I've been trying to write this entry for a good hour, but I have an astounding amount of big band music (30s/40s theme again) absolutely cranking from my computer speakers right now and I can't get anything done for all the chair-dancing that I'm doing to Glenn Miller's "In The Mood" at top volume. I can't wait to have this Back in Time wedding. Rock the hell on.

There is some sad news regarding the wedding though. We've postponed it until June of 2007. Trust me, we know. I can't tell you the crushing depression we've been sitting under for the past week as we had to admit this was happening yet again. My knee injury was just not going to allow us to dance at our wedding and for us, that was just unacceptable. Plus, I couldn't even try on a wedding dress until after I was out of my crutches and that was only a couple of weeks ago. Time just kept traveling on and we just didn't see how everything was going to fit. So we thought about it, mourned and moved it. However, tomorrow we lay down deposits. It is happening. No joke. No smoke and mirrors. No empty promises. No giving up. No stopping until we are married dammit. And yes, this time, that is a freakin' promise.

You may wonder just why in the hell we are trying so hard. Why we don't just elope and have it done with. Allow me to explain. We have been together through thick and thin, happiness and grief, certainty and doubt, sickness and health, poverty and uh.. less poverty. We've struggled through multiple job layoffs, the agony of college, multiple moves to be near each other. To be able to finally have the biggest bash of our lives and relish in the occasion of our wedding? Bliss, my friends. Bliss. And you'd better believe that we are doing this right. We are having the time of our lives and we are not apologizing. We are dancing to the most joyful music we can find. We are giving our families something to remember our union by. We are relishing in our joy, our survival, our new life without abandon. This is us. This is what we want. This is what we have continually strived for through every rough patch, smooth patch, cold night and warm day.

I cannot wait until next June. I just cannot wait.

How about you? You know that you're all invited.

In the space of one week, we have:

-- a new official date
-- a ceremony site
-- a reception site
-- an awesome officiant

I can't believe that this is really happening. It's like trying for a baby for two years and then suddenly something works. (My apologies to all of my friends that have actually had difficulty getting pregnant. I'm just looking for analogies and I suck at tact.) Anyway, you catch my drift.

Today we're driving by our ceremony site again to see how the roses will look in June. Because on this weekend next year, we will have already been married for one day. :-D

Also, on a I'm-the-only-one-who-thinks-this-is-funny-note, we're waiting a year to have this beautiful outdoor ceremony and I'm taking wagers that it's going to rain. Who's up for a bet? (hahahaaaaa... yes I'm totally kidding. There's a beautiful chapel we can use for backup if it does rain, but this garden is unbelievably pretty. So um, how about starting those good vibes now? ;-) *

Happy Saturday everyone. ;-)

In order to have all the things I want in life, I must work.
Because of working, I no longer have a life.

Discuss.