31 DEC 2011

Another New Year.

Sunset at Pt. Vicente lighthouse, RPV, CA.  Looking at the Pacific.
Thousands of miles of open ocean in front of you in this picture.  Pure, raw Nature.
I want to think about these things this year - the ocean, geology, plants, not DoD forms or databases.

Didn't feel Christmas this year and New Years stopped being a "holiday" after I got out of college, so tonight is a regular night and I have to work tomorrow.

I figured something out yesterday. Well, not figured out, more like remembered something really crucial about myself - that if I am not sleeping and working outside in nature, I am NOT happy.

I have an acceptable tolerance of many things, I think, but part of that high tolerance is because I have a venting mechanism and a healing mechanism.  The venting one is sleep.  The healing one is Nature.   If I don't get either of these, I break down in a nasty, cruel, snappy way.  I get paranoid, depressed, confused, illogical.

Please note.  I know with every letter in every word I write, that I am lucky.  Lucky to have a job, lucky to be healthy and to have a healthy son.  I know that.  It isn't lost on me.  But I have the mental resources to help other people, and I really, really don't feel I have time or energy with my current situation.  That is a small tragedy.  Knowing you can help this planet, but feel bound by other obligations.  I want to leave this planet a better place for my son and his children.  And the stressors I face are really not that big, at all!  BUT, they are constant and erode my will to keep going.  This must be how people slip into depression without realizing it.  I can feel that happening and I can't afford looking at the dark side of the Force in the face.  I have little souls that rely on my strength.  They rely on ME.  I can't afford to lose the things that keep our life-raft afloat. That is why I feel like I am at a breaking point.


The last few years I have had a little more stress than normal.  But it hasn't been something I couldn't handle. Unfortunately, I have had less of my venter and healer.  In systems theory, any system needs to vent or it explodes.  That's mental systems, emotional systems, physical systems.....blah blah blah.  You get the picture, right?

The last few weeks have been stressful, with a promise of more work this coming year.  With little down time I am not able to stop and evaluate anything, check my progress, or heal my soul.  Sucks.

Here is the breakdown of my stressors this year:

• Reserves - ORI team.  More work, which means money, but more time away from home.
• Reserves - Flying training.  About a month of training.  Again, it's what I want to do, but away from my family and still considered "work".  Who watches my son and home?
• LAAFB - UCI. We are being inspected at work, and that brings not stress for me directly, but my bosses stress and it rolls downhill.  
• LAAFB - No promotions in my future.  I am a flat GS-7 with no promotional room.  I am teaching my boss and GS-9 coworkers how to do several aspects of their jobs AND supposed to do most of the shooting.  This starts to feel "unfair" after a while when I am living paycheck to paycheck and they don't.  I was recently handed another very time-consuming task that should be given to a higher level because I am "trustworthy".  Are you going to pay me more?  No?  You'll just take my precious time away from me as a reward?  Nice.  Just ducky.
• LAAFB - I may be attending a 2 month class in early summer.  It would be an honor to attend, but this will mean someone will have to be me and watch my son for 2 months.  That is a very, very big thing to ask of someone. Very stressful.
• Relationships - My friendships are feeling complicated, and they shouldn't be.
• Relationships - No time or men to date.  I meet many guys I really, really like.  Met one the other day.  He was awesome, but married.  Ugh.  They are either married, gay, not interested in me or worse, they DO like me and I have a jealous woman steal him away just to either a)claim territory or is b)jealous of me.  (And I'm not making this up.  I wish that I were.  I have 3rd parties who tell me this is happening.)
• Family - I come from a broken home.  They are good people, but they feel like co-workers.  I love them because they are family, but we are not close.  My friends know me better.  This is something I'm used to, but when many of my other friends have these "perfect" close knit families, I am reminded that I will never have that with mine, and that "coming home" is stressful, not fulfilling.
• Family - 2 of my immediate family have emotional/mental issues and the last has a medical issue. I can't help any of them without jumping out of the lifeboat that keeps me afloat.  All I can do is throw love their way.  I have to watch them struggle and feel helpless.
• Parenting - This is guilt.  I am never home for my son.  I think this hurts the most.  Sometimes it makes me cry. My son isn't a baby, but I leave the house every day BEFORE he wakes up.  My baby!  He is going through a very crucial time in his life, and I am missing it due to stupid work.  I have no time to hear his voice and he's so close yet so far away.  I have lost the closeness with him, magnifying the next thing:
• Loneliness - It's unbearable sometimes.  I see other people meeting their true loves.  I see some friends called away from being close by parental obligations (and I can't blame them, because I know that feeling).  I see some of my friends finding deeper, stronger friendships with other people, pulling away, and I am all alone again.  No one to share anything with.  That's how it feels.
• Single-Parent - I have to do it all.  No break.  No one else to carry the burden.  It's all me.  ALWAYS.  No one to have dinner ready when I've had a hard day.  No one to do the millions of errands I need to do, so I have to take a sick day, or do them on my day off, when all I want to do is relax.  No one to talk to about personal issues when I get home.  No one to share the financial burdens.  
• No Time - I need time to recharge, and with 2 jobs it is not easy.  I used vacation time last year to accommodate my military TDY, not vacation.  On my "vacation" I was in uniform, working.  
• Not Enough Sleep - I have an analytical and creative mind so it is in constant motion.  This means I need that 8 hours of unconsciousness and REM sleep to restart the computer and dump the enormous temp file I create everyday, that has nonessential data such as "what perfume coworker A was wearing" to "probability that I will need socks that are black tomorrow".  

So there's the whining part of my post.  Basically it reads, "I need sleep, love, and time at home."

The essential me,  at the Grand Canyon.  I was a volunteer park ranger in 1991.   That job is who I am.

Here is what I have to use to combat the issues at hand:

• Fact that Wally is an awesome human being.   I can't describe how amazing he is.  It would take volumes.
• Kitties.  Having two little furry faces waiting in a window excited that I am home is, no joke, an amazing feeling when you have no one.
• Intelligence.  I can, when I have the friggin' time, analyze my issues and form a solution.  
• Health.  I have not been sick in over 1.5 years.  I think that is amazing.
• Friends.  I may be stressed about the complicated nature of some of my friendships, but they have been and are CRUCIAL to my mental health. God love 'em, they tolerate my moods.
• I AM WORKING. Ironically, I am sooooo lucky to have the jobs that are causing me lack of sleep and time.  I have a job when so many don't.  
• Family.  They are well-fed and not being tortured.  They have homes and are safe.
• Creativity.  I can think outside the box and don't have any restrictions on a creative solution.
• Nature.  Biggie.  This is my substitute for religion.  Yesterday I was sooooo upset and depressed about being lonely.  One small breeze and the smell of a sage plant I walked passed gave me that smallest, most important boost.  The release of endorphins from that was noticeable, and I knew then I had to find a way to work outside again. There are some nights that looking at the stars on a night walk erases everything bad in a split second.  Nature is like my drug.
• An end in sight.  Wally only has 2 more years of high school, and then I have the freedom to move to a cheaper place and switch reserve units and reacquire more time, if all else fails. 
• Strength.  The last 13 years, after my marriage dissolved, has been hard on me and Wally.  Through all of that I kept going without drugs or alcohol or fury. I lived through that, I can live through this.

Now.  Here are the strategies and solutions:

• Petition for change in hours from 0700-1630 to 0900-1800.  (This is my first task of the new year.)
• Review need to be in my current reserve unit. (The demands now are too high.)
• Look for outside park service or GIS jobs.
• Plan for 2 years from now, actively.  
• Take sick days and don't feel guilty.  Do like Samara and Valerie and go to a spa. 
• Forget about falling in love.  It's not going to happen, by all statistics, so why worry about it?
• Start planning on promoting nature photography and art as a side business so that when I move up the coast, I can work from home.
• Blogging.  A kind of pensieve so that the thoughts in my head don't make my brain explode.  It's like a mental external hard drive.  Helpful for when I won't get the sleep I need.  I just need to make the time for it.

Rocks off the shore at my other thinking spot near the lighthouse.

So that's the end of the old year and the plan for the new year.  Do it Sarah, okay?

Tomorrow is Jan , 2012.  I have to work tomorrow morning.  I have to get up at 0530 or earlier.  Wally  will be asleep when I leave.   I have to get up even earlier the next morning, also a federal holiday.  I will be working for the new 2 weeks after that without a day off.  Maybe. Maybe I'll take a sick day or 2 or 3 near the weekend.