Ah, Sunday…

It’s the one-day each week I don’t rush to my life. I wake without an alarm, take a shower and park myself in front of CBS Sunday Morning, showering and dressing during the commercials (since I usually go to worship). If you haven’t watched it, it’s a great way to kick off your day or week.

It’s a series of vignettes of snapshots of life. In fact, it reminds me of a video version of Life Magazine.

This week, one of the vignettes featured Mike Rowe, the guy from Dirty Jobs. (Who would have thought he used to sing opera! Wow, I LOVE this show! Who would have guessed?)

I think we need to get together with him to talk about unemployment / underemployment in “disability world”.

He’s become a huge advocate for the “other job skills” that we are losing. Quoting from the Sunday Morning Webpage, “Labor Day 2008, he launched the website MikeRoweWorks.com with the goal of highlighting America’s “skills gap”… the fact that at a time of high unemployment there is a shortage of skilled labor, an issue Rowe addressed before the Senate Commerce Committee.”

Right now, despite the current economic crisis, American manufacturing is struggling to fill 200,000 vacant positions. There are 450,000 openings in trades, transportation and utilities. The skills gap is real, and it’s getting wider. He pointed out that we have eliminated trade training in our high schools so who are we going to call when we need that skill set?

“In a hundred different ways, we have slowly marginalized an entire category of critical professions, reshaping our expectations of a ‘good job’ into something that no longer looks like work,’” Rowe said.

“I’m all for clean, but the idea that dirty jobs tap people on the shoulder and remind them once upon a time dirt was a badge of honor now through popular culture to make an enemy out of it. We’re confused at what a good job looks like today.

“I believe we need a national PR Campaign for skilled labor, a big one,” Rowe said. “Something that addresses the widening skills gap head-on, and reconnects the country with the most important part of our workforce.”

Can we talk?

Okay, so yesterday was not a great day. It started out good enough but interpersonal issues and systems headaches became more than I could handle. Although it was late in coming, I did get that massage I talked about yesterday.
It wasn’t the usual relaxing experience; the massage was really painful. Right under my shoulder blades the knots were so numerous and substantial that it literally took my breath away each time John (using his angel hands) dug in. When he worked on my chest, he spent at least half of our session tugging at the fascia (that’s the tight stuff between the skin and muscle) in an effort to loosen the tension that was pulling my shoulders down to my waist. All I felt was burning and agony.
That’s what it’s like, shifting our “posture” (physical or emotional, or most times, the inner-woven combination). Even though what we know (what’s familiar) is hurting us, we stay in that situation because it’s all we know. But with a little bit of tug-o-war and patience, we can learn a new way of functioning.
As I walked out the door, I took a deep, cleansing breath. In that moment, I realized I had not really breathed for many days. I had been holding my breath all week. No wonder I felt so uneasy all day Friday! How long can a person do that?
Being present in that awareness, I took another hungry breath—this time a deeper, slower, satisfying breath. I went home, read a good book and enjoyed breathing again.
Breathe…

Today’s Friday. When I woke up this morning, I knew it was going to be one of THOSE days. No, it was not the Margarita’s talking. It was four straight days of working until after 9, plus not having a day off for a month or more (and no, taking my son to college where we put furniture together, installed X Box and accused the hotel staff of thievery was NOT a day off). My body ached, my brain was foggy and fatigue had set in. Yep, it is one of THOSE days.

Still, with two deadlines looming and an on line class to prep for, I could not take the day off. I procrastinated by getting a little food at the store, mailing a package to Patrick and then drug myself to the office.

When I came in, I was immediately hit with a client crisis. Usually, I would put on my “Big Girl Panties” and just persist (yes, it’s the polite version of the “B” word) until something broke through. But today, exhausted, I could not persist. I could only cry.

Right after my diagnosis, when I was alone and had no one to coach/mentor me, this state of being happened every day and had happened daily for many years. When this started to remit, and only happened occasionally, panic would set in. I would be terrified that having a day like this meant I was on a downward spiral.

So now, in this moment of exhaustion and frustration, I choose differently.

Today, I will know that this is just one bad day. ONE BAD DAY. It does not portend that tomorrow will feel like this. It’s a sign that I need to take better care of myself and value myself more. And I am listening.

So, after posting this today, I will go home, unpack the two bags of groceries and hit the couch. Then I will tidy up for the housekeeper (arriving tomorrow- yes I am cleaning for the cleaning…:P) and go get a massage. I will be kinder to myself and know that even without working myself into the ground, I am worthy. I am powerful. I am good and have no one (including myself!) to whom I must prove myself.

I am richly blessed to have many colleagues and friends in the community I now call “home” but there are only two ladies that I check in with every day (other than my superhuman, Wonder Woman staffers!) One is a cherished friend I met at an Autism Society of America conference in Pittsburgh some years ago. We supported each other through my two relocations for Patrick, her never-ending divorce and the wickedness of the NC schools. The other is my spiritual “sister”. Although we’ve known of each other long before I came to Franklin, it’s only been in recent months that our relationship took hold. Each of us works hard on a daily basis to navigate the ghosts of our pasts. We are working to know we are worthy, empowered, capable, “good enough”. But the thing I cherish most is how she ends every conversation with a phrase that sets the tone for the rest of my day. I’m trying to remember to do it for her, too but I am still a rookie at this new way of seeing. (She’s working the “refresher course”. Today, she ended yet another effortless discussion with “You’re Powerful!” So you need to know that as well. YOU’RE POWERFUL! And awesome, and enough. Realize your potential. If you struggle to do that, let’s chat.