There's No Crying in Baseball

 I don't remember how the saying goes, but Operation Stop Crying was underway this weekend. If the objective was not to cry, then I accomplished it. I didn't cry Saturday, Sunday, or Monday.

I accomplished this namely by distracting myself. Everything reminds me of my aunt - tv shows, commercials, my belongings, just about any memory, and new things like my manager. 

I distracted myself a couple ways - looking up at the sky to hold the tears back; eating Twizzlers; eating in general; going to Walmart. Every time I started to cry, I would chant - no more crying, then get up and do one of the aforementioned. It was a rough weekend. The other thing that worked was calling up people ( I really didn't want to talk to). 

I called one of my other aunts; a personal colleague from professional school; and an old friend from college. 

I should be glad that these three individuals willingly took my call and distracted me, but in the aftermath I was left with new hurt feelings. I need to tighten the guard rails on these conversations moving forward - well they were already tightened, i.e. I wasn't calling them. Ugh. 

One thing one of them mentioned was that you can create new relationships with friends or other family when your loved one dies. It seemed easy enough, but when I woke up this morning, I realized I already tried that and it didn't work. So that made me kind of mad. She also suggested therapy. I've tried that for another issue and it didn't work. When I need help with something, I don't want to try a bunch of different things. I want a solution that will work the first time. So yes, folks, that's why I iced out people I used to know and haven't gone to grief counseling. There's no guarantee any of that stuff will work, and I'm not trying to be in a worse position than I was. 

My Other Aunt - she constantly talks over me. I tried not to let it stop me, but it got to the point where she said, "can you stop talking so I can talk." I'm thinking, ditto!!! Most of the time there's overlap because she cuts me off when I'm talking, and a lot of the time I decided to finish my thought anyway. The only time she stops talking is if she's distracted doing something else, and so she's not paying attention to me. If I do call her, I really need to just use her as a distraction and not try to seek advice or offer any meaningful contribution that I think needs to be heard. 

Same with Professional School Friend. I just need to let her talk. She does this thing where she'll dangle a bait in front of you of things she knows and wants you to ask about. Which I do, sometimes unwittingly. And I hate falling for it.  But again when it's my turn to talk or seek advice, it's almost like ugh... can you be done talking already. Again for her, I really need to just use her as a distraction and not try to seek advice or offer any meaningful contribution that I think needs to be heard. 

My other Friend from College - she's mostly just very opinionated. I think I mostly just don't like when people talk down to me. She doesn't do that, I don't think, but I think for me it's difficult to find something to add to the conversation because she feels very strongly about things I really don't care about or know much about. So I think she is willing to listen to me, but for some reason in these instances I feel as though I don't have much to say. I felt bad because I 100% lied to her. I've been doing that now. She asked if I had gone to therapy, and I definitely didn't want to admit to that, just yet, but again, I'm not good at lying on the spot (like the rest of America seems to be). I wish I would've said, the thing I don't like about clinicians is they are quick to diagnose you (without knowing the whole story), and that's what I'm afraid of.  But what I said was something along the lines of, I've had guidance counseling. And she was like, so you haven't had therapy. And I didn't correct her.

I think I mostly just want to start over with new friends which is why I inappropriately latched onto my boss. She was nice to me and did things like my aunt. She paid attention to me and seemed to look out for me.  (At Call Center #1, I met with my manager maybe 6 or 7 times a year for 15-30 min each; at Call Center #2, my manager gave me 300 modules and said let me know when you're done; and I met with her maybe a total of 15 minutes in 8 months.) She sent me cookies in the mail; my aunt used to send me food in the mail to make sure I was eating. She called to check up on me before I started. She spends hours with me on Fridays to make sure I'm getting the support I need to do my job. She talks about her family. I got mad a couple times, when she scheduled something after our Friday calls. I realized it felt like a rejection, and my disappointment came out in different ways. I was anxious when she went on vacation because I was afraid her husband would say she couldn't come back to work because she needed to be home more (this is what happened to one of my bosses at Call Center 1).  And that would be one more Safety Net pulled out from under me. So I brought a lot of "baggage," as they say, into forming a professional/personal relationship with this woman that of course she knows nothing about. I honestly was starting to believe, supernaturally, that she was meant to be in my life; that my aunt had sent her to me. When I found out we had the same birthday, I was convinced! Crazy, right? But I was so thirsty for some sign that I was going to be okay, that I latched on to any simple kindness. Desperate, right? Le sigh. 

When I look back, I don't think I really received any special attention. She sent the intern treats in the mail; she tells all her co-workers she misses them since they haven't been in the office together; she still talks to people she met or worked with years ago. She has close relationships with many of the people in the office. I think she's just a genuinely upbeat, nurturing, friendly person. So, I wasn't that special to her. I'm just one of many and should respond to that accordingly. 

But I, of course, only dwell in dichotomous places. Either we're friends and I'm special to her or we're just boss and direct report and keep our conversations strictly professional and related to the business.  I obviously can't share most of these things with her, but to mark the difference in my mind, I changed my email signature to something more standard than it was. (The previous one had a hopeful tagline.) I added my picture to my profile. I hadn't added my picture because I was hopeful that people would see what I could do before judging me on the way I looked. I can't function properly in a world where I hope for better than the expected outcome. It's too confusing. And I had originally started with a no-texting rule, specifically for this reason (getting too close to people only to be rejected later). I was at about 80% adherence with this rule, mostly only responding to texts. But now, I'm not responding if it's not related to work. 

As for messages on Teams, I don't think I can avoid them with everyone working remotely. But I hope to avoid using emojis, or expressing any kind of feeling. This I want to extend to the rest of the team as well. I'm better secured emotionally, when I interact with others from a distant place. 

Well that's my Monday (I mean Tuesday) morning rant of the day.