If You Aren't In Over Your Head, How Do You Know How Tall You Are?

I stumbled across this quote and it felt like the right jumping off point for this weeks blog.

What a week.  Not a very good one for me.  In my business it was less than stellar results.  Had over my goal of appointments each day, and did at least 10 cold calls each day on top of that, and only sold one policy.  Wow....at that rate I won't be able to pay for my gas to get to my appointments.  So I tried, and tried on Saturday morning, my appointments stood me up, or said no, and none of the businesses I approached wanted to talk to me, so by noon I was giving up.  I was in over my head, and instead of pulling up my boot straps and trying harder, I quit.  I let the negative feelings of the week get to me, and I decided I needed a break.  So I took half of Saturday and today off, to find something positive in my life and find a way to detach my emotions from my work.  I spoke to many friends on the matter, and got some great advise and encouragement. Advice as follows:
"This is why a lot of women don't do this, they take the rejection too personally.  Thought if I made you mad you would prove me wrong.  You need to not base your happiness on your rate of sales."
"I couldn't do it, couldn't wait for the income to start, but maybe you can..."
"I think if you don't do this it's because you don't want to, not because you can't.  I believe you can."
"I think you should keep trying, you have invested so much time and effort into this."
"I think you should do it until you can't afford to not do it anymore...in four months you should start to see some good money."

So I'm going to do just that.  Keep trying for all the above reasons. Most of this advice was given in different stages of drunkenness during the kick off Saturday of Oktoberfest here in Wisconsin.  HAPPY OKTOBERFEST.  

Which brings me to the other part of my life that makes me feel like such a failure.  Apparently when I'm in love and can't have the person I want, and the only way I can communicate with said person is on line, I get clingy!  Huh....who would have thought that?  I'm not when I'm in a relationship....in fact I hardly say I miss you or I love you when I have the guy right beside me to SHOW him what I feel.  Amazing how the internet can bring you so much closer to the one you love and yet it feel so far away that you wax romantic much more than your normal self.  Of course this accusation was given to me when I was drunk texting him, but that apparently didn't matter, until minutes later when he realized that he was overreacting and apparently it doesn't count that I'm clingy when drunk.  lol. This could have been a huge fight, but it was not. He could just tell me what he is feeling right away instead of make me fish for it, but this is why women get crazy girl brain.  Men  act stupid.  Why do they do that?  Why do they have to be so strong and tough all the time?  He changed his mind during said text and again this morning.  He must really want me to understand that he's sorry for the clingy remark.  And really, I agree with him, so no damage was done.  It was a funny fight.  That's another interesting thing about this one.  Our disagreements, aren't really fights, more like discussions, or debates that we end up smiling over because they are silly, or agreeing on.  We tend to blame ourselves first for any misunderstanding first...even when our feelings are hurt or we are worried or scared.  Interesting.  Perhaps this is what being well suited by temperament and personality is all about....
I'm staying tuned on this one.  I find him fascinating.

But both situations hit me when I read that quote..."If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?"  I feel in over my head with him and with my job.  This is both not good (fear of failure and change might destroy me, if I let it) and good, (the challenge will force me to rise to it).  So I can either knuckle under and admit that I'm not tall enough to be with him, (NEVER) or that I can't do the job (the only thing stopping me is me).  I'm more committed to him than the job and that's a mistake.  I need to be more committed to myself than anyone else.  So the new leaf for this week is the following:  Commit to the job I have agreed to do.  Get it out of my head that I'm selling anything, I'm helping people, and if they don't want my help now, they will later...probably when it's too late."  and  "Leave him alone.  Quit telling him what he already knows, and live my life.  If he joins me in it, good for him, if he doesn't it's his loss....and stop missing him.  Just be the woman he loves, and his love will come to me."

Hey, I hope all of you out there with crazy girl brain and stupid boy brain were paying attention to that last part.....because it's almost profound.  Just be who you are, and live your life, and see what life brings to you when you have faith in yourself and love yourself first.  Stop whining and wallowing, takes too much time and sets yourself up for failure.  And when he tells you his misses you and loves you, fucking believe it!  and believe that it lasts for more than a few days, months or years....or minutes in my case..lol.  After all, if your feelings lasted why can't you believe his did.  It actually feels better when he says it first anyway....doesn't it?  So try to remember that as well.  And don't be so quick to say 'I love you' or 'I miss you', just have some patience, and breathe, and wait.  Maybe what you are looking for will happen all by itself, without any pushing  toward or worse, pulling away.

I need more coffee....chin up.  

 

deja vu's last night, and not even a full moon...

Last night I had a series of deja vu....I take my deja vu's very seriously, because they usually are dead on in the feelings department, and I usually ignore them, even knowing that.  It's another of my fatal flaws.  So if any of you feel the same way about your deja vu's I'm going to share parts of mine.  Not many details, just the feelings.

The first one was while I was on line chatting, I abruptly left three of my guy friends as I ran out to door.  My tentative plans being reborn in a sudden window of opportunity, and me canceling those other two plans I was working on....This girl is not without opportunity. I was pleasantly surprised as I had assumed a rescheduling was in the works.  This first deja vu was strong and negative in a sense of pending doom...in a sense of don't go....and gave me reservations, but I kept on course and arrived.

The second one I was sitting on a desk, my feet on a chair, looking out a window and I knew what would happen next, and not in the way you can write, in your head of a possible outcome....I'd seen it, like out of body seen it...and it happened.  This one had left me with a feeling of finality, of endings beyond control...but I kept going.

The third is too personal to tell you about, and but the deja vu felt comfortable, on track, somehow, which was confusing in the middle of the other negative ones.  The fourth involved rain, and was the strongest feeling  of them all.  It felt liberating and rewarding, and almost elated, and the one I'm going to talk about.

I walked out onto the porch and the night sky was heavy with anticipated rain, as I stepped away from the door, I could hear it suddenly releasing the drops to the ground, and I cautiously stepped into the gentle curtain of it.  A huge smile crashes suddenly across my face.  I lean my head back to feel the welcome rain run in rivulets down my neck.  My thoughts running over and over the evenings events and racing toward an impossible future.  The saunter in my step because of the joy we share in a world of disappointment and drudgery.  My heart is full of love.  For the first time in over a decade.  And I don't care if it is returned.  I don't care if it ever grows in his heart.  I only care that it grew in MINE.  That my heart is once more free of the chains I bound it with.  That my heart is feeling again, and not afraid to feel.  The happiness we bring to each other cannot be wrong, and is not wrong.  This life is all about love, and being happy, and being true friends to help each other when we are lost and drowning.

As I entered my car, my radio, which I had left on the classic rock station, was playing oldies...it's was late (or early depending on your point of view)  Anyway....my radio is possessed and talks to me in music all the time.  I suggest you find the following songs and play them on Youtube as you read....good early morning songs.  The first song I heard I came in on in the second verse...and I smiled at the movie reference as well....Was Al Green- Lets Stay Together.   Interesting choice, radio.  The next song was Orleans-You're Still The One.  Okay....now that was just strange....and I, of course was still smiling and bopping to the radio.  And last song that I actually stayed in the car, in the garage, to hear in it's entirety was James Taylor-Fire and Rain.....and that one felt like I should pay attention to on a more realistic vein.  As if the other two were just leading up to the real wisdom of Mr. Taylor.

My  life will and has given me very many interesting stories to write about, and while I'm living them I don't pay as much attention as I should, I miss things, and end up hurt and never wanting to try again.  But at least I'm trying.  I'm living life again, and I'm trying.  So what if what I want I will never have.  So what if what I think I need is withheld again from me.  It doesn't matter.  In the end all that matters is what is in my heart and my attitude about that.  In the end all that matters is I'm full of love and hope instead of hate and bitterness.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COiIC3A0ROM&feature=share
(Al Green)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NzGrBwgezY&feature=share
(Orleans)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOIo4lEpsPY&feature=share
(James Taylor)

Enjoy the love that Fate places in front of you.  It is a gift.  Take it.  For your life will be fulfilled with it and empty if you walk away from it.  And besides we all know what a bitch Fate can be when you return her presents.
Cheers.

"Affection is a burden I can bear"-Eleanor, The Lion In Winter

I'm about ready to wrap up a very successful first week at my new job.  I actually have another appointment in about an hour and then maybe I can have a day off.  :)  The things we do to help our customers, eh?  Well and to help ourselves.  I was very worried about this career change, I've never done straight commission before, and on a bad week, I'm probably always going to doubt it.  But this week, my first week, was exactly what I hoped for.  And I impressed my team as well.  Most of them did not sell anything or very little on their first week out.

So with that said, you can imagine that I'm in a pretty good mood and feel quite confident about my new rocky and hilly path.  And you'd be right, for the most part.  I've adjusted to having an empty nest.  Like it, actually.  I'm finding it very liberating to be able to have anyone over at any time and not worry about 'what the plans are' or 'what the kids might want to do' or sharing my friends with my kids.  That's the hard one, sometimes.  Now don't get me wrong.  The entire time I was raising my kids alone, I never brought anyone home to be a part of our life that I didn't already think was good enough to be just that.  But now....with no one to help me edit myself.....the possibilities are endless.  This is both a good thing and a bad thing.

I almost feel as if I'm living my wild 20's or my freshly divorced 30's again.  You see, I've never really lived alone.  Never.  I've always been someones daughter, wife or mother.  I've never just been me in my own apartment without any real responsibilities but myself.  Now I'm not afraid to be alone, I like my own company.  I do wish that my current crush was here to share my life with me in all the wonderful and intimate ways couples do.  But that's really the only pang that hits me when I walk in the door.  And I thought it would be missing my kids.  But my kids aren't gone, they just have a different address.

This part of my journey will be interesting, probably more interesting to you than to me, because you will be able to see it from the outside.  You'll be able to see more clearly when I'm lonely, or being my own worst enemy, which should be my X-Man power, but sadly is not.  You, dear reader, will be able to tell when I'm missing...well....you.....basic human companionship and touch.  This is something that I think all people that live alone suffer from.  Not getting enough hugs.  If you are among my friends that actually get to see and touch me, I'm betting I'll be greeting you with more hugs than in the past....You have been warned.  :)

The Philosophy of Absolutely!

During my recent sales school, I was fortunate enough to make some really great friends and colleagues that I know I will continue to remain in contact with.  Coming up with nicknames for them all has been very difficult.  There was The Writer (where is your first chapter!?), and the Misplaced New Yorker (it's the ahhhhhh at the end that gets me), the one that was so much like my ex-mom-in-law that I've called her Marge II, (she even sounds like her, especially when she was reminding me of my self worth.) and of course, One Who is NOT Jessica, (he's special....bless him), and The Bucket Man (don't ask).

The Bucket Man seemed to bond with everyone in class, including a group that I like to call The Boys.  The Philosophy of Absolutely comes from a couple of The Boys, Jose and The Small Giant were discussing this and of course I immediately found it useful and spread it to the rest of The Boys and my main peeps.  It goes something like this:

When you are in a situation and someone asks you a really stupid question, rather than let yourself go, and cock off with that rapier wit, or look at them like their mother must have dropped them on their heads once too often, just let a beaming smile cross your lips and say in a confident tone of voice, "Absolutely!"  This frees you up to rip them a new one in your mind, instead of out loud, OR (more importantly) see what direction they want to steer the conversation.  This last part can make any situation innocent on your part.

I looked at them with some confusion, as my 'sharp wit' usually wins out, and asked for further explanation, as I'm sure you are doing right now.   He further explained how he is always being approached by women with 'one thing on their mind', and even though he wears a ring, is often asked the very stupid question, "Are you married?"  You can see where this is going, right?  Just think of the opportunities that you may have missed by answering that simple question with a 'yes' or smart-ass response.  When a simple "Absolutely" and a smile, puts it right back on her.  And of course I'm thinking....or him in my case...hum....this could be used for much mischief and evil.  My interest was peeked.  I immediately started using it.  And it changed no only my life, but the way others perceive me.

For example:  At the hotel, I needed to borrow the trolley to get my bags down to my car in one trip. So I asked the desk clerk, "Can I borrow this?" and she said, "As long as you bring it back."  And before my rapier wit could lash out at her with what was running through my head.....I smiled confidently and said, "Absolutely."   And she smiled.  As if to say, 'See someone gets my sick sense of humor.'  Because what I was thinking was, "NO, you dumb bitch, I'm going to put this in the trunk of my car and drive off."  But this attitude will not win me friends.

As the next few days in class went on, I noticed more and more of us were saying , "Absolutely" not only to the teacher but each other, and the smiles were quite contagious.   I can't wait to use it on my favorite dumb question of all time, "Do you know how fast you were going?" ...... "Absolutely"

Cheers.  :)