Back

Well. It’s been awhile. Both on the 360, and here on 2old2play. I have checked in fairly frequently here, but not participated, and went over a month without playing anything on the 360. I’ve been easing back into the 360 playing Catan, my favorite board game, and hope to be back in Gears soon.

This is just going to be kind of a random dump, as I really don’t have anywhere else to purge it.

Life has been busy and kind of rough, both personally and with my employment situation. I’ll leave the personal stuff for some other conversation.

As for the employment, I’ve been working two full-time jobs, though I am done with one of them as of May 27th. It’s pretty stupid how I let myself get into the two job thing. It’s been roughly a month and half with NO days off until last Friday when my son had strep throat. And I am off today as it is my turn to be sick. Far too long.

My first job is M-F, 8ish-5ish, basically customer service for a state government program. I wasn’t unhappy with the job at all, but I was approached by a relative for the second job. He basically begged me to come work for him as they are so short handed.

And I have a really hard time saying no and laying boundaries…which is also part of my personal issues…but again, that’s another story.

I was lured to the second by my brother-in-law. It’s called a NOC shift, working 36 hours over the course of Fri, Sat, and Sun nights. That would leave 8am Monday – 8pm Friday completely free if it was my only job…very tempting. Pay is less, but for that much time off? It had its draw. And I was told the shift made it easy, hardly anything to do. Talk on my cell phone; bring a laptop, whatever I wanted to do. Heck, I was told I could even nap.

The second job is working as a caretaker for three mentally challenged young men in their apartment. Three SEVERLEY mentally challenged young men of the ages 17-20. Two of them are non-verbal, and they all wear diapers. And they are a drain, both physically and mentally. You would think on the overnight shift they would sleep a lot. Well…they usually sleep about six hours. Which means the other six hours they are awake, and I am dealing with them alone. One of the boys is supposed to be a constant one on one; he is always supposed to have an employee assigned just for him. But they assume that on overnights the person working would never have more than one or two kids to deal with at a time. Wrong.  

I originally indented to start the second job, work both jobs for just a couple of weeks to earn a little extra cash, and then quit the first job. But it was painfully obvious after the first weekend, that I am just not cut out to do the second job. It takes a special kind of person to do this kind of work, which I am not, I guess.

I’ve learned something about myself as I started the second job. I thought I was an unending well of patience and compassion.

Not so.

That saddens me.

It’s not these boys’ fault that they are the way they are. They need care and compassion and patience. And there is a huge reward in seeing them smile, or hearing the non-verbal boys actually laugh. But I just can’t take any more hair pulling, pinches, constant damage control, drool, and diapers. And you can’t reason with them, and they only understand the most basic of rules. Their brains just aren’t developed. And the verbal boy has severe fetal alcohol syndrome and repeats everything over and over and over and over and over and over and…well, you get it. Actually, you couldn’t get it unless you experienced it, but I’ll move on.

So…I’m giving up on them. I hate that. My last day is only a few weeks away, and I am counting the minutes. I dread going there. I hate taking care of them. I don’t dislike the boys, I just can’t handle them. I gave a full months notice, but come my last day I will not continue if they haven’t found someone. I just can’t. It’s too draining, and I have other things in my life I need to worry about.

I have handled a lot of things in my past….yet I can’t handle this. It feels like a failure, and like I am letting them down.  

And that guilt compounds the personal issues I am dealing with. And I feel as if I am dealing with everything all alone. I have basically one friend, and they haven’t been around much, they’ve had their own things to deal with. I tend to keep a wall between me and….well, everyone except the one person who can’t be around.

Again, I’m not feeling sorry for myself. No one is responsible for where I am at but me.

Anyway, that’s where I’ve been, on the off chance anyone might have wondered.  

I’m tired of pulling back from the things I enjoy, so I am making a concentrated effort to re-engage with those I have interacted with.

Thank you so much to those of you who have kept me on your friends list. It might seem like a little thing to you, but it means something to me. And a few of you sent me Gears invites the very minute I logged on. I’ve been declining recently, but I really do appreciate it, and will start accepting again. I know I tend to be pretty quiet while we play, and my playing ranges from total suck to mediocre (with the occasional night where I seem to be ‘on’) but you all have always managed to make me feel welcome and at home.