Tormenta

I woke up today a little somber.  I'm sad.  I'm afraid, I think.  I am certainly being affected by the way other people view me.  Basically, I'm really not feeling me this morning.  Here are some of my thoughts:

First, on Thursday next week, we're having a staff meeting called by my boss.  The purpose is basically so the employees can tell me off.  I'm under the understanding now that some employees (we don't have many) feel that I don't help out enough with serving, and that I am sometimes not at the bar when it is busy, so I'm not here to help in a rush.  And here's the thing... I think I help out more than is good for me, and I think I am here more than is good for me.  I'm here on average about 10 hours a day, EVERY DAY, and a good portion of that time I am behind the bar or waiting tables or washing dishes or cooking or chatting with customers about the surf or local attractions.  So much so that I don't have much energy to do the office work or advertising or bill paying or other managerial duties.  I feel as though I have become really a barback that also is responsible for the cash, paying bills, and making sure we're open every morning and closed every night.  And I'm cool with that, but I honestly can't do more.  

I wrote a good friend recently in London.  I told her that I really wished I could have more time to just be.  More time to do nothing.  She wrote back some incredibly insightful things:

 Do you think that you equated a simpler life with having less money, and now you are being shown that it is your doing that creates the complications not the material things you own?  For example, you are still working (doing) just as hard as you did in Okey, could there becsome self deception as to what you thought having a job that paid less and living in the tropics would equate to?

And...

You talked a lot about just wanting to be.  The zen's i believe would say that you can just be even in the act of doing...it's just a state of mind.  Therefore, what thoughts are preventing this reality for you?  What fears do you hold that surround 'just being'?!

She's good, isn't she?  I think she's right.  I think I did build expectations about the job and about how much I would actually be working.  Of course, I moved down here with Cherie, and had expected her to fill part of the load, which didn't end up working out, but I still feel that even if there were two of us, we would be expected to work full time.  I did expect to have some free time, and I don't.  And I am motivated not by what I think is good for me, but what everyone else thinks of the job I am doing.  I felt like quitting and running back to Oklahoma because I just don't understand how a couple of our employees could possibly think that I don't work enough, and I don't feel I could possibly work more.  I'm still such a child sometimes, but at the same time, what in the hell could they want from me?  

AND I do have a belief that I can not be while doing.  I never realized that.  Perhaps I should just start being right now.  What fears ARE holding be back from that?  Fear that I can't do it? Maybe the reason I am still not "being" is because I am afraid that I will find out that I'm really not all I need to be happy.  That sucks.  

I did have some feelings last night of... Well, either I fit or I don't.  It's not a reflection on me.  Some think I am doing a great job, some think I am doing a poor job.  Either it works out for others or it doesn't, and if it doesn't, that's okay, I'll do something else.  Of course, my ego seeps in and says "Yeah, fuck them.  I can go make a shitload more money doing something a lot easier surrounded by the people I love."  And I have to tell my ego to shut up, and remind myself that it is just fear of being rejected that is speaking up there.  A fear I've had since I was a little kid, and in many ways never grew out of.  Probably a lot like a lot of you, I have a tendency to reject before I am rejected.  And that sucks.  

In any event, I find myself down.  I find myself with thoughts of injustice, feelings of inadequacy, feelings of rejection, sadness, anger, guilt, desperation, exhaustion, and yet... calm.  Peaceful, but with a feeling I might fall into the tormenta at any second.  In the eye of the storm, with these emotions and thoughts swirling around me at a thousand kilometers and hour.  But where I am is calm.  I can stick my hand out into the storm and feel it all, and it scares me that if I slip just a bit, I'll be swept away.  Or maybe I already am swept away and I am just not willing to admit it.  

In any event, it's an eventful morning inside of me.  With a long day ahead of me.