stressors

this is turning into a day of all kinds of minor stressors. first, i open my personal email account and there sit a couple of emails from michael. these emails are in addition to three i received from him yesterday. all of them pertain to a personal matter that he is dealing with related to a combination of home and work life stuff. being in the profession i am i have some subject matter expertise on the topic, which i have shared with michael when we were together. now i look at these notes and i think, "why are you involving me in this now? isn't the statute of limitations up for my involvement in your personal issues now that we aren't together?"

i know part of my reaction has to do with the fact that it seems like every time i go on facebook there's a new item in my news feed about michael and his new bf -- the new bf that came into the picture two months after we broke up for those who are either new or may not remember. i know it's likely petty, but part of me is like, "you've got someone to support you and i'm alone. take this shit to him and stop bothering me!" will i say that to him? not likely. i'll just keep suffering through the lovey dovey notes and pictures on facebook as i get the "whoa is me" emails from him.

speaking of being alone, the next minor stressor came to me this morning as i reflected on all i need to do to get ready for my impending move. i've been doing bits of work over the last month or so of going through items and pitching the things that i truly no longer need. but the move now happens in about three weeks and i have a boat load of things still left to do. as i ticked off my list driving into work this morning, i thought about how much easier it would be if i had someone special in my life to help with all the literal and figurative heavy lifting invovled in this move.

lastly, and back to electronic communications, i was going through emails at work this morning and came upon one from a staff member expressing concern about a recent message that went out throughout the organization. not to go into too much detail, but the focus of the email was to announce a cost savings initiative that is being introduced. now we have the barest of details about how this process is actually going to unfold, but that didn't stop the originators of the email from a function that i won't disclose (cough) finance (cough) from sharing that we should expect significant reductions in staff count. so naturally my staff member was writing with questions about what that means and she is now, at current count, the fourth person from one of my teams who has expressed worry in the last week.

i have my message pretty well down to explain what we are doing in our function. it's work we started last year and have no intention of veering off course because of this new initiative. even with this reassurance, i can tell that the folks are still concerned, which i completely understand. i am also completely pissed about the reckless manner in which this information was released particularly since so much of the process is unknown.

and did i mention how even this situation serves as a reminder of how i am alone? i think of this issue and so many others that are going on in relation to my work and think about how nice it would be to have someone to come home to at the end of the day -- someone who would listen and hold me and tell me it's all going to be ok.

funny how this started out as a reflection on minor stressors, yet they all seem to point to the one major stressor i've been dealing with over these past several months -- the lack of daily, in the flesh, intimate companionship. and all of the stressors shared here that appears to be the most problematic to deal with and the one least clear of if or how it will be resolved. sigh. such is life.