After taking two days away from work, I notice it is difficult to go back. This year I have felt my enthusiasm waning for work, which is funny because so far it has been comparatively better. With C on mat leave there is less conflict, and some of my most difficult and time consuming students have either moved away or gotten healthier. (I hope this lasts.) And yet, for whatever reason, I'm wanting to stay home and avoid everything. Today I am meant to return after two days of lieu time, and I'm wishing I didn't have to.
Today will be wholly dedicated to administrative garbage (course selection for next year) which keeps kids who need counselling out of the office. This enormous waste of resources leaves me frustrated every year at this time. I wonder why the hell this is a counsellor's job rather than a clerk's job. It isn't that I particularly mind the work - it's easy and mindless - but it prevents me from doing what I consider to be my actual job, counselling kids with mental health concerns.
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P's doctor called me yesterday afternoon and told me the surgery has gone well. There are important results to come from a prognostic point of view, so that part remains uncertain. But from the perspective of the surgical department, they are done and have done their job well. This is good news. P is in ICU until tomorrow, and then should be discharged if everything goes according to plan.
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Yesterday (with my second day off) I went to visit my chiropractor about my sore knee. It has been improving lately, but I have no way to know if that's because of the things he is doing or if it's just because time has passed and I have adjusted the things I do at the gym to put less stress on it. There are parts of these appointments I enjoy, mostly the stretching/pulling/twisting/adjusting parts. Although it is almost always uncomfortable, there is something very satisfying about having the chiropractor pull my leg in weird directions and coo to himself about how wonderful that is. The part I don't like is the exercises he gives me, which are often so complex that I am halfway convinced when I try to do them at home I will end up injuring myself further.
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Wednesday, January 29, 2020
Monday, January 27, 2020
what did you think about most?
P's surgery has been postponed until tomorrow. It's incredible how knowing his diagnosis has changed the way I see him, the way I interpret his every movement. Unfortunately I had already booked today and tomorrow off work to stay home and look after him, assuming there would be recovery time at this point. Because K is the King of the Robots it is challenging to make changes once days are booked, and I opted to take these days off anyway rather than change them. If P needs me later in the week I will call in sick. (It's funny how sticking to the rules too closely ends up costing instead of saving - the inverse of the intention.)
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Friday, January 24, 2020
plot points
P is scheduled for surgery tomorrow, our attempt at skirting the rules of nature; of course there is never any guarantee no matter how much money one is willing to lay down in order to keep their family intact. But I can't think of a different way to respond as long as a professional is telling me that it is a reasonable option to try, because I love him.
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Baldrey has scooped the story again the way he always does where it comes to contract negotiations. I appreciate that he shares information with the media that the union does not share with its members, and it is clear that our leadership is fractured. This has always been the way in this province, deep rifts in trust. It seems worse than it did to me on the Winter Prairies, but it is also entirely possible that I just wasn't paying attention back then. I was younger and more invested in things (like beer) that served to distract me from politics.
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On Tuesday I had the most fascinating conversation with L, who is fourteen. She was complaining to me about her counsellor, M, - the same counsellor I frequently dream of choking to death. She said that M doesn't listen, or only listens to the things she wants to hear. L's example was:
M: How are you doing?
L: Everything it's pretty fucked up. Fighting at home. Failing school. Using molly. But otherwise good, haha.
M: Oh okay, that's great. So you've got some good things going on for you; that's wonderful. Okay, go back to class. Have a great day!
I struggle to watch these kids longing for connection with an adult who will listen, and simultaneously struggle with the fact that every time I do M's job for her, it enables her to be a bigger and bigger parasite. But this girl, I want her to have help, and so I started to cast her a line. I told her there was a process she could follow that would help her get assigned to a different counsellor if she wanted to be. Her response surprised me enormously (because what teenager doesn't want to take the easiest route to getting what they want?). She said she would rather have a conversation with M and tell her that she is frustrated with the way M doesn't listen to her.
This won't go well, I predict. M won't hear it. But of course that isn't the point. The point is that this anxious and vulnerable fourteen-year old girl has more balls than I do in addressing her concerns. She wants to face the problem, and call M out on her bullshit. In the past five years, I have very rarely been so brave to do that myself. Every once in awhile I have made an (unsuccessful) attempt at getting M to see how her lack of action impacts the rest of the counselling department, but most of the time I just fume to myself and fantasize about choking her to death. I am fascinated by the fact that L wants to try to tackle this issue and cannot wait to hear how it goes.
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*
Baldrey has scooped the story again the way he always does where it comes to contract negotiations. I appreciate that he shares information with the media that the union does not share with its members, and it is clear that our leadership is fractured. This has always been the way in this province, deep rifts in trust. It seems worse than it did to me on the Winter Prairies, but it is also entirely possible that I just wasn't paying attention back then. I was younger and more invested in things (like beer) that served to distract me from politics.
*
On Tuesday I had the most fascinating conversation with L, who is fourteen. She was complaining to me about her counsellor, M, - the same counsellor I frequently dream of choking to death. She said that M doesn't listen, or only listens to the things she wants to hear. L's example was:
M: How are you doing?
L: Everything it's pretty fucked up. Fighting at home. Failing school. Using molly. But otherwise good, haha.
M: Oh okay, that's great. So you've got some good things going on for you; that's wonderful. Okay, go back to class. Have a great day!
I struggle to watch these kids longing for connection with an adult who will listen, and simultaneously struggle with the fact that every time I do M's job for her, it enables her to be a bigger and bigger parasite. But this girl, I want her to have help, and so I started to cast her a line. I told her there was a process she could follow that would help her get assigned to a different counsellor if she wanted to be. Her response surprised me enormously (because what teenager doesn't want to take the easiest route to getting what they want?). She said she would rather have a conversation with M and tell her that she is frustrated with the way M doesn't listen to her.
This won't go well, I predict. M won't hear it. But of course that isn't the point. The point is that this anxious and vulnerable fourteen-year old girl has more balls than I do in addressing her concerns. She wants to face the problem, and call M out on her bullshit. In the past five years, I have very rarely been so brave to do that myself. Every once in awhile I have made an (unsuccessful) attempt at getting M to see how her lack of action impacts the rest of the counselling department, but most of the time I just fume to myself and fantasize about choking her to death. I am fascinated by the fact that L wants to try to tackle this issue and cannot wait to hear how it goes.
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Sunday, January 05, 2020
buying in bulk
On the evening of the 1st I made a decision not to go out with A; I did not tell him why. I did not even know exactly why but I know why now. I have decided to end this thing. A has been circling too close and I will not allow it. It poses too much of a risk to my marriage and now that I am seeing that clearly, I cannot be sure why I didn't see it that way before. He is away right now, and I am gearing up to tell him before he comes back. He is going to be hurt, and that is my fault. But I need to protect what really matters. I cannot lose sight of that.
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Tomorrow I go back to work, and it is difficult to express how much I do not want that to happen. Waiting for P's diagnosis makes me reflect on mortality unpleasantly, his and my own, and everyone else's too. It all makes me want to quit working and focus on living as hard as I can. I don't have a way to fund that, presently. This is all just my brain ticking away. It might explode.
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