the gift

So there I was, being glum and feeling sorry for myself.

The Fall is coming on. I'm losing my library job. (Although, I know, I'm the one who's resigning. But - still.) I'm gaining weight (and believe me, I hate admitting that this matters to me, but it does). I'm burnt out from a long summer of work. For these reasons and perhaps others I'll never really know, the critical voices in my head are strong right now, always there, always harping.

Not good enough, never will be. Not smart enough, not cool enough, not thin enough. Never will be, doomed to be this. Ugh.

On and on and on they go. Constantly with me, and this past month stronger than ever.

And I'm tired, really just POOPED right out, and so I listen, and I believe them. It just seems to HAPPEN - before I know it I'm listening and believing that shite. Letting it pile up on my shoulders, and carrying it around.

(Don't worry - I'm doing the right things. I'm going to see my counsellor again. I'm taking walks and swimming and doing what I can to get good sleep. I'm talking back to those voices and telling them to EFF RIGHT OFF. I'm aware of my risks of slipping into sadness again, and I'm doing the right things.)

I think part of it is, I have to understand and recognize and LIVE WITH the fact that: this is what it means to be human. Not everything is roses and light and magic and happiness. The "right things" only do so much. We fight off our own inner critical voice, all the time. We all do. Every single person I deal with every day has their own set of complications, their own patterns of speaking and thinking, an individual history of loves and losses and sadnesses and disappointments. Patterns of negative thinking they slip into. Moments of brightness, moments of amazement. It's not just me - it's all of us. It's part of being alive.

So - like I say - there I was, feeling a bit down, sorry for myself.

My two supervisors at the marina came up to me and said they wanted to tell me something. "OK," I said. sensing something was up.

"Well, we've been dying to tell you this, but we had to get it all together."

Apparently - an American sailboat that stayed at the marina this summer - or, I should say, the people who were on board - wrote to tell us that they liked my service SO MUCH that they wanted to give me something. My supervisors had been emailing back and forth all week with them to figure out what was appropriate - and with my office manager's input, they decided to help me get an eco-friendly yoga mat. (I'd researched them this summer, but never got one - a combination of the cost and just being too busy.) So they're sending up a Visa gift card so I can choose which one I want - or get whatever it is I would like, to the value of $150. One hundred and fifty dollars?!?! What the?!?

The kicker of it is: I do remember them, but I don't remember doing anything out of the ordinary for them. I remember being nice to them, as I am to all the customers, and welcoming them to Baddeck. But I honestly don't know what motivated them to do this. It's kind of overwhelming and amazing.

I guess it means - I'm good at what I do. But it's hard to reconcile this - which is such an amazing recognition, seemingly out of the blue - with my sense of myself, of my service at work. I mean, I feel I do a pretty good job. But this - this is like - 100%. A plus! YOU ROCK!

Maybe the universe decided I needed a kick in the pants. Maybe what you put out there DOES come back around to you. Maybe, maybe.