Avoidance is the Best Escape

...Escape is the best Survival, Survival is the best Victory.

Monday and yesterday were definitely better days at work.  I am still exhausted and it is going to take an act of willpower to go show up for this last one, but I can do it, and I know now that it will be a good day too.

Today is the full Flower Moon but I think I am going to put off going to the columbarium until tomorrow so I can be better rested and hopefully feeling more spiritual.

Being able to compare the three days last week to the three days this one, I realize that I actually love my job most of the time, despite the sometimes-grueling hours.  Unfortunately, about 15% of the time, I have to deal with this one 'person' who is a psychic vampire (those who don't believe in the concept of a spiritual assault would probably say "narcissistic sociopath") among the hundreds of good people I work with.

I'm realizing that whether it is a "good" day at work depends almost completely on whether he's working in my office that day.

My problem is, I'm an empath and I don't know how to wall off from somebody like this. I've tried, the past few times I've been around him, but he seems to get past the shield pretty quickly. He's had a lot more experience being a psychic predator than I've had trying to defend against one.

The thought crossed my mind that it's a shame my self-defense classes don't teach how to deal with psychic assaults, what the "Pre-Attack Indicators" are for somebody who plans to eat your soul.

Then I realize, they kind of do, at least in the title mantra. I don't need a pre-attack indicator, at least not anymore; I already know what he is. If I knew someone was a mugger, or a rapist, or a serial killer, my Plan 'A' would be to stay far, far away from them. I just need to keep him away from me.

So, I've put in paid-time-off requests for every single day he would have been scheduled to work with me. As far as my spiritual health goes, it is probably the single best use of my vacation time that I've ever thought of.

In the past I've let myself think, "well if I do that, then other people will have to deal with him", but you know what, I just have to protect me, and let them decide how to protect themselves.

I don't have the luxury of being the hero if I'm the most delicious thing on the menu.

Millstone

It's been a while since I wrote in here.  I should make a point of doing it more often, I think it is good for me.

So, I made it past the one-year mark of Jo's passing.  I think I'd be lying if I said it was easy.  I probably made it look easy though, I am good at making it look like I have it all together.  And in fairness to myself, I expect I'm a lot closer to having it back together than I was at this time last year.

I keep thinking about how my church's pastor went on a sabbatical--an actual one, traveling to various places for a spiritual healing journey--during the first quarter of this year, and specifically, the effect it seemed like it had on her.  I hadn't noticed how weary and broken her energy felt, until she came back and seemed like a different person.  Her energy was brighter, her outlook was positive, she was glowing in a way I hadn't seen before.  Honestly, it took a moment or two to recognize her, the difference was so great.  It was a change that I don't believe she could have created in herself, if she had tried to do it without stepping away from her day-to-day "grind."  She had to get herself away from the millstone that was wearing her down, so she could build herself back up.

It makes me wonder if such a thing would be good for me as well.  It's been over a year since Joanne passed now, and with the exception of starting a new interest, very little has changed--everything is basically still right where she left it.  Including me.
It is going to take a lot of energy to really rise from the ashes, and it is energy I'm never going to have as long as the millstone is relentlessly grinding away.

The thing is, she's left me in the place where I could be okay stepping away from daily obligations for a few months, with what I inherited from her.  I let myself worry about what would happen with my health insurance if I spent a few months unemployed, but I expect I could figure the logistics of that out.
More importantly, I would want it to be a 'real' sabbatical, like the one my pastor took.  I would need to figure out what it is I think I would need to be revivified, and then I would need to step away from the normal grind--all of it--and put all the energy I have left into doing that, so it can all come back to me magnified.
What I wouldn't want is to get to the end of the time I had, and look back and see that all I did was waste three months messing around on Facebook and that still nothing had changed, and I used the reserves Joanne left me for no benefit.  It was probably one of the most important things she did to abstain from social media of any sort during her sabbatical.

Right now it's just one of those things that I'm letting my mind play with.  To the extent that there's a process, I'm at the point of trying to figure out what it might be that I would need.  There's no point in doing it unless I know what "it" is.