"People"

Last week I gave a link for a paper describing "super feelers" and was struck by the part about rescuing others and denying my own needs.  A cascade of self-harming decisions flowed through my mind, and I thought about how ungrateful a lot of the recipients were when I fell on the sword for them.  Obviously, not one of my better life strategies.

This has been a very current concern for me this week because my office is downsizing space and I had to move my office into a large, busy room (with 30 yrs of hoarding).  Adding to my concerns, this room was the domain of a very nice woman who has been getting her hours cut.  I really, really didn't want to add to her unhappiness and I have been sleepless with worries about how to make the space work for everybody.  I sternly kept telling myself not to sacrifice myself in office design, but so dreaded the disappointment  or tears when my coworker found herself shoved in a dark corner.

The construction leader yelled at me to vacate the other office immediately or he'd put all my stuff in storage, despite the fact that there wasn't room to turn around in the other room.  It was jammed as we tried to take things out of it to make space for me.  That super feeler paper clearly says I don't respond well to raised voices.  Then I wrenched my shoulder.  Yeah, this week sucked.

But, I managed to situate both myself and my coworker by the windows, and she's thrilled with the new arrangement.  I'm not happy to lose my privacy, but I feel like it's the best I can do.  Our desks face each other, and she chattered happily while drills and saws echoed through the wall in my previous sanctuary.

...Carefully arrange bird skull, feathers, and nest on my shelf...

For my facebook friends who saw that one of the priests gave me blanket absolution for swearing, well, can you see why?  Someone told the construction leader to lay off.  His workers gave me a hand with some things behind his back.  A coworker helped figure out how to make the space work.  Someone gave me a shot of bourbon.  I don't approve of drinking at work, but I felt gratitude and the warmth of kindness spread through my bloodstream.  Another coworker loaned me a book by David Sedaris which actually made me laugh out loud while cuddling my puppy in our cocoon at home.

It's a moment in time, but it shows people in their true form.  There was no need for yelling and adding to the stress of things.  One person behaved badly, but all the other people either stayed out of the way or helped.  Sometimes it's hard to remember percentages, but small acts of kindness go a long way. When multiple people do them they add up to a larger quantity of kindness.

We can choose whether our experiences are positive or negative based on which people we focus on.  When we choose our side, it effects everyone else.  We either gripe and complain, or we smile and pat an arm in sympathy.  We all have the power to effect someone else's life.  Choose to make their lives better.

Just to show you a better sense of scale

Still on corner 3 of my floor project.  This is not a snake in the grass, because clearly, there's no grass.  This is a garter snake, and they won't bite unless you abuse them and stick your finger in their mouths.  (Which I know from personal experience.)  I think I must've done a good job on this corner so far because a mosquito got in the house last night and it was disturbed by the snake and tried to hide under a leaf :)

"Tension"

I’m a problem solver.  I see situations and figure out ways to make things work better.  I cheer people up and look for solutions.  I suppose it’s all based on my very selfish need to have my world to run happily and smoothly.  It’s difficult for me when people won’t cheer up.  “Tension” is an over-nice word for my feelings when the world is chaotic.

It’s been one of those weeks when I can’t fix the problems.  I can’t resurrect the dead and I can’t make survivors happy.  I can’t keep certain people out of jail or self-destructing.  I can’t even find my brother’s cat.

When I told my brother that the word of the week was “tension”, he gave a derisive laugh and said I could blog about his life, “in fact, tell the whole sordid story!”  Well, I won’t.  I have self-imposed limits for this blog of keeping it to one typed page or less, and I’m pretty sure my brother’s love life takes more than a page.

Let’s just put it this way, his scheduled May 18 wedding day has come and gone, and he’s still single – and in the process of dashing those hopes and dreams, he lost his cat.  He’s missing the cat much more than the fiancé, and he isn’t missing his potential mother-in-law at all.  I have to admit I’m not missing either woman and am quietly thankful he very narrowly dodged a bullet.

In the meantime, we’ve spent the weekend moving his stuff to my place, and I am convinced that man stuff is much heavier than woman stuff.  His weight bench attacked me when I tried to pick it up, which just goes to show that exercise is bad.  I’m not quite sure why lumber also attacked me.  It was by the weight bench, so maybe it was in collusion with the exercise stuff.

Mom and I agreed Brian owns too many books, and way too many artists’ coffee table books.  Them things are extra heavy, no matter how much inspiration might be found inside.  He also has piles of old textbooks, books on philosophy, comic books, notebooks, sketchbooks… Paper is heavy.  I swear he’s responsible for the death of an entire forest for his current store of knowledge and creative writing and drawing.  He also is very fond of rocks and metal.

So, I can’t mend the world or broken hearts, and I can’t find the cat, but I figure I can put my brother on the market in search of a better life partner.  He’s 42, obviously fit because of all that blasted exercise equipment, just as obviously literate and artistic, and interested in various forms of philosophy.  He loves pets, and would probably be willing to love your dog or cat provided it isn’t one of those little yippy things that jumps on him all the time.  He likes dogs you can take for a 10-mile hike in the park.  He has some money too because I found a jar of coins.

As for the other unsolvable problems in my world this week, prayers are appreciated for Phil and his family, Chris, the heartbroken, sick, and catless, and oh yeah, that I get through an internal audit this week at work.

I’m going to spend the rest of my 3-weekend in the garden or find my kitchen counter under all the superfluous stuff from my brother’s kitchen…

These are doodles with my new Faber-Castell PITT artist pen.  It’s a marker that’s kind of like a brush, with waterproof ink, and comes in different colors.  I love it.  Much happiness can be found in new art supplies!