Hard Things

[ysabetwordsmith]

Life is full of things which are hard or tedious or otherwise unpleasant that need doing anyhow. They help make the world go 'round, they improve skills, and they boost your sense of self-respect. But doing them still kinda sucks. It's all the more difficult to do those things when nobody appreciates it. Happily, blogging allows us to share our accomplishments and pat each other on the back.

What are some of the hard things you've done recently? What are some hard things you haven't gotten to yet, but need to do? Is there anything your online friends could do to make your hard things a little easier?

Comments

[technoshaman]

STILL in interviews. Ugh. Other things not going according to plan. I would really like to be able to get to some semblance of *normal* for a while... any mojo in that direction appreciated.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> STILL in interviews. Ugh. Other things not going according to plan. <<

Blargh. :/ My sympathies.

>> I would really like to be able to get to some semblance of *normal* for a while... any mojo in that direction appreciated.<<

Positive thoughts on their way!

[redsixwing]

Wishing you stability and success in your interviews!

[sweet_sparrow]

*good thoughts*

[mdlbear]

Ugh! Best of luck.

[inky_magpie]

*Waves pompoms* Best of luck

[gingicat]

Wishing you excellent results from said interviews.

[alatefeline]

Job applications. Ughhhhhhhhhh.

(I'll expand this if I have some brain available tomorrow.)

Thank you Ysabet for hosting these. <3

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Job applications. Ughhhhhhhhhh. <<

:/ Not fun. But good luck!

>> Thank you Ysabet for hosting these. <3 <<

You're welcome.

I think everyone needs a space to vent. If there is no space, it tends to come out sideways, and that's not good. By making a space just for people to share hard things and moral support, that reduces the tendency for it to slop everywhere.

[sweet_sparrow]

*good thoughts*

[technoshaman]

Oh, ugh, STRONG empathy...

[inky_magpie]

*waves pompoms* Good luck and hope your brain recharges quickly and easily

[gingicat]

Sending you hope.

[kengr]

Got another couple of loads of laundry done, and am about halfway thru dishes.

Got several more loads to do (nothing *necessary* at least) but they'll probably wait a few days. Still gotta vacuum one of these days and mop floor. also need to clean tub, haul out recycling (if the bins have room) and do various self-care stuff that gets put off.

*sigh*

Be much easier if I didn't wind up sleeping so much. :-
(

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Progress, at least.

[gingicat]

Accomplished:
- getting a new battery for my Misfit smartwatch and putting it in
- knowing I have an accurate count for walking at least two miles a day this week (Saturday-Tuesday)
- asking my psychiatrist for a PRN anxiety med that won't make me sleepy so I can occasionally take it at work (she gave me a beta-blocker)

To Do (with husband):
- continue working with a mental health advocate attorney for the younger kid
- tell younger kid that she's not going to be able to come home for a while yet because of further out-of-house mental health treatment
- review IEP and neuropsych reports for older kid with educational advocate, hopefully getting an out-of-district therapeutic day school placement
- help older kid process into better at-home habits now that he doesn't have to hide from the younger child all the time

To Do (me):
- mail at least three promised packages
- spend an hour each day sorting and filing (possibly scanning) paperwork
- continue walking at least two miles per day
- ease off the sugary comfort food

O.O

[fuzzyred]

That sounds like you have accomplished quite a lot and still have a lot to deal with.

I give you inifite kudos for the progress already made and the best wishes for all the things still left to do.

*hugs offered if so desired*

[readera]

I'm on day 3 of sober/non smoking week. Self imposed, to see if it will help with focus at work.

[fuzzyred]

That takes a lot of willpower. I wish you the best of luck with it and I hope it helps. 😊❤👍

[wispfox]

Contacting position ending, which is overall better for my mental health, but the two places I was interviewing with went with someone else quite late in the process. So I have to go back to job hunting.

Alas!

[ysabetwordsmith]

Interviewing sucks. I wish you luck.

[dorchadas]

Redoing my taxes. Submitted them early, got a massive refund, then realized I left off some income and have to mail in paper and a check. Then my printer ran out of ink. Ugh. They're calculated and printed out and sitting on my dining room table now, and now I'm working up to signing them, writing the check, addressing, and mailing them. Sometimes the small things are the hardest.

Then I have to redo my state taxes...

[mama_kestrel]

General adulting. Mom's cancer is back. We are at the tests-results-make treatment decisions stage. (Has it metastasized, or just regrown at the original location?) The one thing clear so far is that it's growing faster than it did before. Is surgery an option, or is it time for a chemo-radiation combo, or should we just make mom as comfortable as we can for as long as she wants to stick around? She's 85. Her stated wishes are "quality over quantity, and no pain." But she doesn't understand the complicated decision trees, so I get to make those decisions. We get the PET scan results Friday. Good thoughts for making wise decisions would be greatly appreciated.

And one of the cats died yesterday. Pancreatitis and sepsis. His mommy (my son's fiancee) had decided it was time to help her across, but kitty died in her lap in the exam room while waiting for the vet to come in to do the deed. Kismet was being petted and loved on by both her humans at the time. Her brother is a guest of the vet hospital for liver function issues. My job? Putting everyone back together, and explaining things to fiancee's father so that he didn't yell at his daughter for failing to take good care of the cat. I'm an effective buffer - I'm his age, I take no crap from him, and he's on his best behavior with me. But the man's an abusive ass, and even on his best behavior dealing with him is an element in the set of things which is No Fun. At least I knew it all first hand; I'm the one who drove everyone to the vet, and paid for it all. No way the kids could have afforded it; thank $Deity I can.

Now we keep an eye on the other cats to make sure they don't get sick. Two at once is worrisome.

And can someone explain to me how my computer suddenly started inserting words backwards? As in I type w-i-s-e, and it appears on the page as e-s-i-w. That's somewhere beyond weird!

[gingicat]

I’m so sorry.

Stil here

[dialecticdreamer]

Today, that IS an accomplishment.

Re: Stil here

[ysabetwordsmith]

Here's your medal. \o/

When you feel like you're not getting anything done, remember that you have survived things which have killed other people. That really is something to be proud of.

[we_are_spc]

Trying to keep on top of the depression. While the meds help, it's still a time of it.
Waiting on the license stuff to go through....and not having a job in the mean time becuse no one wants someone that'll only work a month and a half or so.
Trying to person. Seriously, being my own authrority is this scary thing, that shouldbn't be scary but still is, and it's frustrating because I want to be, but there's still a lot of me in my own way. >.<

-Fallon~

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Trying to person. Seriously, being my own authrority is this scary thing, that shouldbn't be scary but still is, and it's frustrating because I want to be, but there's still a lot of me in my own way. <<

Of course it's scary. It scares most people, especially when they first start doing it. Typically people get used to it after a year or few, though. You can get on top of this.

[erulisse]

a hard-but-good thing: I am at the point in my social work program where I get to find myself a field placement. Which has meant rewriting my resume, drafting a cover letter explaining why I think people might want to work with me, and then /actually sending these to people/.

It's been kind of terrifying.

But I finally started actually sending inquiries yesterday and I got my first call-back already! I won't be able to actually respond until tomorrow but fingers crossed I talk to them and it's actually a good fit for all concerned.

Go you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

That is hard. I hope you find a good position though.

Funeral for a friend's mom

[librarygeek]

As a rabbinic pastor ordination student, I led my first memorial service, first interfaith service, and for someone I have called Mama (Last name) for over 25 years today.

The hardest part, and all empathy permitted and requested, is dealing with the irrational survivor guilt of knowing that Mama died during the same cardiac surgery I was expected to have most of my life. My diagnosis and then surgery requirements changed in 2006 with better testing, but she's dead anyway. I had my surgery 2 years ago. I'm alive, and Mama's left behind a twin, daughter, and tween grandchild.

My mother's family threw EVERYTHING left of the candy factory into a medical foundation to try and keep others alive, as well as I, since we lost 3 out of 5 of my mother's generation way too young from cancer and heart conditions. I may have opened the hospital wing where my friend's mom's surgery was, forty years ago with my cousin's name on the wing and I was still in PIGTAILS. :'-( I'm crying now, I managed dry eyes mostly earlier.

Re: Funeral for a friend's mom

[ysabetwordsmith]

*hankie* My condolences.

Clockworklady from the other side of the pond

[(Anonymous)]

Funnily enough, I'll be looking for work soon like nearly everyone else here. My contract has three months left. I'm so drained that it might not be an entirely bad thing.
I intend to save, but I have a shopping addiction. Bad enough that I'm not joking, but the bills are paid without fear and there's no debt. I just need to save. I still want to keep what I've bought recently and I audited my handbags to see if there's any I never used/isn't me and can sell. They are going on Ebay this weekend. Thankfully, I never went the Prada route, but that would be a guaranteed sale. I'm not cheeky enough to put my eBay account name here, promise. My brother sent me a very good budgeting program and I feel better about saving over the next three months.
It's not about the amount of money. I got genuinely decent bargains and paid full prices that were fair, it's the sheer amount of stuff and the association of shopping with freedom/power/being just as deserving as anyone else. It's one of the few things that perks me up and I can do it even if I can't leave the house or have no time to myself. I sold, gave and donated a lot of things last year and it slowed me down. I also had fun consulting my mum with 'should this be returned? Both of these are nice, which one is better?' rather than hiding my purchases.

Re: Clockworklady from the other side of the pond

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>Funnily enough, I'll be looking for work soon like nearly everyone else here. My contract has three months left. I'm so drained that it might not be an entirely bad thing.<<

Good luck with that. I hope your new job fits better so it doesn't exhaust you.

>>I intend to save, but I have a shopping addiction. <<

Yeah, that can be a challenge. Some people do better with carrots (saving a target amount gives them a certain amount of guilt-free spending money) while others do better with sticks (overspending has consequences), or a combination.

I managed to pry loose books I'd never read again by setting aside an envelope of funds to re-buy anything I actually needed after all or acquire new things.

It really all comes down to leverage. There's a heavy thing that doesn't want to budge, and you need some kind of mental lever to move it.

>> I still want to keep what I've bought recently and I audited my handbags to see if there's any I never used/isn't me and can sell. <<

If you tend to stock up accessories like handbags or shoes, consider:

* Most of that stuff isn't actually meant to be kept and used long-term. If you get a season or a year of fun out of it, great, let it move on and get a different one.

* Compare them to your clothes and other accessories. No matter how cute the fuchsia one is, it's not much use if you only have 2 outfits that it matches, as opposed to a lemon one that goes with 12.

* Some people like capsule wardrobes. These can be very useful when planning accessories because usually you'll be choosing a limited number of accent colors. If your accents are coral and turquoise, then it totally makes sense to have a handbag in each of those colors -- but not so much colors that would clash with those. I have notes for several different capsule wardrobes here.

>>I got genuinely decent bargains and paid full prices that were fair, it's the sheer amount of stuff and the association of shopping with freedom/power/being just as deserving as anyone else. It's one of the few things that perks me up and I can do it even if I can't leave the house or have no time to myself.<<

Totally understandable. Keep an eye out to see if there are other things that make you feel that way. Sometimes going down a big list of coping skills can give you new ideas.

One thing that I found very useful, after a lengthy period of shoestring budget had worn down my ability to respond to things that could be bought, was virtual shopping for my characters. It helped me pay attention to things and match them to personality. Some other folks seem to derive similar pleasure from assembling wardrobes or single outfits in pictures online, and then I can look at those for inspiration -- I've copied a lot for this or that character. If you like the idea of buying cool things for yourself, but you don't want to wind up with whole closets full of clutter, something like that might help you filter for the things you love the most.

[wyld_dandelyon]

Having work done on the inside of the house, a big project in the kitchen and several small ones in other rooms. Mostly ceiling work, stuff I can't do because I don't have a head for heights.

The smallest project became another big one when mold was discovered above the drop ceiling in the little room off the dining room. The workmen promised to seal off that room for removing the mold and didn't. Now I'll have to clean all the stuff that was stashed in the dining room to get it out of the kitchen, as well as all the things that normally live in the dining room, and just walking into that room is setting off the allergies. And the door to the bathroom was also open, so eveything in there got well-dusted too and will have to be cleaned, including all the towels that weren't already in the wash.

And the washing machine is not working (though a new one is on order).

It's a discouraging reminder of how much work goes into living with allergies, and how much of my life is taken up in avoiding, coping with, or living through feeling lousy. Also, the fact that they didn't take my strong warnings that they had to seal off the room is a reminder that most people don't have to worry so much about stuff like mold and bleach (I'm allergic to both).

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

My sympathies.

You could try complaining to local health board or other supervisory organization. Sometimes there are rules about how workers have to handle substances.

I know how it goes. One year I got dragged to Christmas when the host's house was being renovated. The moment I stepped inside, I couldn't breathe comfortably. I was miserable the entire time until I managed to badger someone into taking me home early. My relatives have known me for my entire life and can't be arsed to take care of me, and nobody seems to consider "I never want to see these people again" as a reasonable response to being neglected or hurt. >_<

Mostly, people just don't give a flying fuck if they hurt someone. They'll do what's convenient for them 99% of the time, and to hell with anyone else.