There is a joke that I love that fits this situation perfectly.
There is a man watching television and the emergency broadcast system breaks in to announce there is a major storm on its way and there will be widespread flooding of the area. All residents are being told to evacuate immediately. The man says a quick prayer asking God to take care of him. His neighbor knocks on his door and says, "We are packed up and ready to go, do you need a ride?" The man tells his neighbor, "No thanks, God will take care of me." The neighbor leaves.
The storms come and the waters start to rise. The man moves to the second floor of his house and sees out the window another neighbor in a boat. This neighbor comes to the window and says, "Come on, man, we've almost waited too long, let me take you out of here." The man shakes his head and says, "No thanks, God will take care of me." The neighbor shakes his head and rows away.
The storm keeps raging and the man ends up on his roof. A helicopter comes and the ladder is lowered, a loud voice booms out "Grab the rope and climb up! We have a lot of people to save!" and the man shouts back, "You go on and save them then, God will take care of me!"
And the storm keeps raging. And the waters raise and the man drowns. When he stands before God he is really angry. He shouts at him, "I had FAITH, I told every one you would save me and yet here I am DEAD!" And God looks at him and says, "I sent you a television report, a car, a boat and a helicopter what else did you want me to do?"
This story always tickles me. Sometimes when you ask a question you need to listen to the answer.
Going to school for massage therapy was the answer to my question of What next? And I ignored it. And I paid the price.
I went to a small private middle school. So the experiences everyone else had with cliques and "mean girls" and such I didn't have. I had one brush with it during high school but I was comfortable enough in my own skin and a pretty tough cookie by that time so I wasn't impressed with it, and it didn't make the impression on me it might have otherwise. So I was shocked to be living my own middle school experience at 36 years old.
It's hard to describe completely. I was the focus of hatred and dislike that to this day I am not entirely sure why it started. It made my time at work miserable. It started from a few nasty comments here and there to vicious gossip and rumor mongering at work and outside of work. I kept a fairly brave and callous front up at work but I cried a lot more than I would like to admit. I wonder why I stayed. I know I had reasons, commitment to the agency, commitment to the client, belief that it couldn't possibly get worse (and yet, it would) but I think probably the thing that kept me there was pride. I wasn't going to let them win.
I can remember sitting at an agency retreat one year as the client billings were flashed in pie chart form up on the screen. I was the AE in charge of 65% of the agency's revenue at the time. I looked around the room at this group of people that HATED me and I thought, I should quit tomorrow and as I go I should let my clients know why I am leaving. And I felt an anger bloom in me that I had forgotten existed. I had spent the past 20 years getting over being that angry kid and there she was back full force. And let me tell you, no one in that room would have been prepared to deal with the bitch I was in high school if I didn't like you. I wasn't going to take it anymore. Come Monday morning at work things were going to shift. I was the big dog in that place and dammit they had better start taking notice! I didn't care if they liked me or not but they better well fear me and respect me because I was burning the place down!
After we had dinner that night and we were all getting ready to head back to the city our creative director whispered in my ear, "What ever you are planning, you need to take the weekend to think on it." I looked at him and he said, "I've known you a lot longer than they have, that is not a good look in your eye. You are better than that, you need to hold on to that." Creative directors as a whole are a challenge, and ours was especially trying to work with but as I always remind people, he is one of the good guys. It was a quiet ride back down the mountain for me that night while I thought about what he said. Was I better? I sure didn't feel like being better. I felt like tearing them apart. Then our media director reached over and patted my leg and asked if I was okay, she is also one of the good guys. And I realized I needed to take the weekend and think.
As is my normal behavior that weekend I read a book. One of the problems with reading as much as I do is that you forget what book you read something in. There is a story from a book that I read that weekend that profoundly changed the way I viewed my situation. And it has changed the way I deal in the world ever since. And I CANNOT remember who wrote it. Someday I hope to stumble across it again so I can give them full credit. In the story the man's mother is married to a really abusive jerk. I cannot remember if it's his father or his stepfather, but anyway, he is horrible. He cheats on her, he abuses her physically and mentally while they are married. He is an awful human being. Years later he is very sick and no one will take him in. She lets him back into her house and she takes care of him until he dies. Her son asks her, why would you do that? He was horrible! And she says, "I cannot let who he is change who I am."
I must have read that sentence twenty times. I cannot let who he is change who I am. It became my mantra. I cannot let who they are change who I am. I would like say that from there on out it became easy, but that would be a lie. It got much worse. I just changed the way I dealt with it. I stopped wondering what was wrong with me and realized that it was their issue. When things got too hard to deal with at work I picked up my lap top and worked from a friend's office. I worked early, I worked weekends, I worked evenings at home. I basically stayed away from work as much as I could get away with. And when I was there I did my best to not let it get me too down. I tried my best to keep a civil tongue in my head, which most of the time meant I didn't talk at all. During social/work events I tried to play along as much as possible. I kept my mouth shut when I heard or saw things that were no one's business even though I could have used them to wreck a few lives. I held back people's hair while they vomited, I jumped dead batteries in cars, I kept people from talking when they were drunk and wanted to play true confessions. I tried to understand when people I had been friendly with in the past were shitty to me. Basically I did my level best to be who I am.
Months went by and things were miserable at work but I thought I was managing it okay. Then my boss and I went to Vegas. While we were there he made a crack that let me know two things. One he was aware of the worst of the things being said about me, and two he was part of it. The bitch that had gone into hibernation that weekend came roaring back full force. At a food court in Vegas I called my boss back to the table and stone cold told him that I was done. That I was through eating shit. I was finished turning my cheek. I was over being the grown up and either he was going to fix it or he was going to regret it. The look on my face, or the absolute lack of emotion in my voice must have scared him because as soon as we got back I got a lunch invitation from the two ringleaders of the abuse and got an apology. They also wasted no time in throwing another person in the office under the bus and soon she became the target of their abuse.
And this is much longer than I was planning on so I will wrap it up for now. So as our story stands so far, I put the question out to the Universe, what should I do with my life? And at this point in the story I am ignoring the answer I got. Can you see how well it's working for me? :-)
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