Feeling My Age

Last night I realized I was feeling old and tired, with a glass-half-empty attitude that is uncharacteristic of me. What had rendered me more interested in going to sleep than in reading my favorite Blogs?

I think this week’s downward spiral began at the end of last week when I was acting for my boss and I received a very terse e-mail message from someone stating “This is the WRONG way to handle this...” and she went on to berate me for sharing data with a small group who had been discussing a paper she was writing. I was really PISSED at being treated like a 5-year-old. The upshot is that the responsibility for the paper has since been transferred to me, but she has never apologized to me for this rude and uncalled for behavior.

Even DC Blogs seems to be conspiring against me. Early this week when I realized that my posts were no longer being picked up by the Live Feed, I contacted the administrator who patiently worked with me (from his out of town location) to try various things to no avail. I changed a setting and republished, but the problem remains. I’m sure this one is fixable, but meanwhile I don’t exist any longer as far as the Live Feed is concerned!

The weight of my High Holy Day responsibilities is becoming obvious. My mind is constantly firing off messages: Did you contact...? Did you take care of...? What time is ... arriving? down to the minutiae of How many glasses of water have to be provided on the “bima” at the Church where we hold services? I must really be micro-managing when I haven’t assigned someone else to worry about water, for goodness sake.

But perhaps the straw that broke the camel’s back was a potentially serious processing error from 2 months ago committed and discovered by one of my staff yesterday. As a data processing manager you always dread that sheepish admission by one of your staff, “I think I may have done something wrong.” I half jokingly said to my long-time colleague and friend, “Maybe they’ll just make me the fall guy for this and boot my ass right out the door.” It was actually starting to sound somewhat appealing. After my staff have worked all weekend on overtime, we should know by Monday the severity of the error, but meanwhile it’s a burden of unknown weight.

So what am I doing to dig out of this hole in which I seem to find myself? Right now, I’m up in the middle of the night from a fitful sleep trying to unburden my mind of these thoughts. Sometimes writing them down is cathartic. I’m getting a massage tomorrow morning. Unfortunately what I need is the Mother Superior massage that is no longer my option. But any form of massage should help. Hopefully I’m seeing a friend tomorrow to just sit and relax for a while. I’m going to the mikvah with Temple Micah friends on Sunday in preparation for the High Holy Days. This should be the perfect opportunity to wash away all this anxiety with the living waters of this sacred pool.

My mind is suddenly blank once again, so maybe sleep will come to heal the space that has just released all these words. I long for the return of my glass-half-full attitude. Life looks so much better with those eyes.