Advent blog: When everything seems wrong

There are some days when everything seems wrong in the world.

I tend to leap to the worst possible outcome for everything pretty quickly.  I also exaggerate the significance of small inconveniences/problems sometimes.  Awareness comes later, but the visceral reactions can be strong and overwhelming...and even when I "know" I can't let go (see the letting go blog post).

Being a klutz doesn't make life easy.  Some days it's a broken water well for the Keurig (no coffee for DAYS) and sometimes it's a sprained ankle (boot for DAYS and no running in perfect running weather).  It earns me endless jibes from my husband, most of which are deserved but sometimes it feels like I am being picked on.

I am pretty good at what I do professionally.  When someone questions my intelligence, dedication, or competence I LOSE IT.  It's happened a lot this year...and on things that weren't even about my competence.  People are edgy and want to blame someone for everything wrong in their world, and I became the target a few times.  But it cuts me deep, and I don't let go of that...which means I have a hard time trusting those people again.

I had a month where there was a perfect storm...stressful things and ridiculous schedules at work combined with marathon taper and the race.  I wasn't nice to anyone - I was just trying to get shit done.  It seemed like no one was willing to help with anything, and I was angry about that.  Then it came back to me as not having managed it well...LOST IT.

We are now at the end of year five of reduced income courtesy of the recession.  I don't know that we will ever recover financially.  And I do mean ever.  The lost income and asset value is significant.  From the outside few know or would guess, but we struggle.  Our income is well above what many families live with and I know that, but that doesn't make my checking account less sad or my credit card debt smaller.  We haven't cut as much as we probably "should" have, but that would maybe make the struggle feel worse.  It seems "unfair" that two college educated people with full time jobs working hard and with no kids should struggle this much...

I hate performance reviews at work (who doesn't).  They seem to take a one hour snapshot of everything done in a year and somehow always focus on the negative.  None of what anyone can put in there is something I haven't already beat myself up for, but it hurts coming from someone else.  A lot.  I have cried in 13/16 performance reviews.  I don't like to feel attacked and defenseless and somehow that seems to be what happens. [I probably shouldn't write this in a post, especially with my review being Monday, but here it is]

Homeownership is another one of those things that seems wrong frequently.  Woodpeckers and weather are destroying the exterior of our house.  We are getting concrete fiber board siding to replace the wood and vinyl.  Ordered in October...not installed yet...appliances get old and need to be replaced.  Every time something goes wrong with the house it is at least $1,000 to fix it - doing the work ourselves most of the time.  Cars go in this category too.  Blerg.

At the end of the day my problems are first world problems.  I am safe in my community and home, I have a home, I have a spouse and a family who generally support me, I have a job.  I have great friends.