Jobless

Well, I'm professionally unemployed now. I had a second day of work at Arby's. This time I was working the drive thru window. It was going well until the lunch rush (surprise, surprise). Again I was already nervous and doing my best to go fast, but then my manager kept telling me to hurry up, which just made me more flustered and I kept making mistakes, which made him more frustrated with me.

So, the third day I went in, he asked me how I was doing. I said 'pretty good', which is the reply I usually give. He, unfortunately wanted me to elaborate on that. The day before he'd also asked how he could help me not be so nervous, so I told him that he could try not to rush me so much. He basically said that it wasn't gonna happen that way. He had me in tears not fifteen minutes after getting to work. I ended up leaving. When I got home I cried for a while, called my mom (she was pissed at the guy), called another friend, cried some more....you get the picture.

My manager called me later that day to see how things were going and he had me in tears within about five minutes. It's was mutually agreed that Arby's might not be the best place for me right now.

Now I'm looking for a job again. I have an interview at Panera Bread on Wednesday and got a call back from SuperAmerica that I need to return. I'm not really looking forward to either prospect after this whole Arby's fiasco. I was having a lot of anxiety related to that job, but now that I don't have it anymore, I'm having really bad generalized anxiety. I hate feeling this way. Because of it, the desire to go to the bar is stronger than before. Because like it or not, drinking dulls, if not totally removes, the anxiety...at least for a little while. But, I'm trying to trust God and not resort to my own solutions.

Well, that's it for now, folks.

dreamer

Ugh

So I had my first official workday at my new job. I got hired at Arby's. God is really teaching me humility through this. No offense to anyone who works fast food. I used to swear to myself that I'd never work in fast food. Well, I do. After I had my shirt tucked in and my little visor on, I looked at myself in the mirror and realized..."I look like a dork". Again, no offense to anyone who works fast food because I'm beginning to realize how difficult it is.

I got to work at 8:00am and, after the manager got there he realized he'd made a mistake and that I really didn't have to be there until 9. Alright, no big deal, I can handle that. After wiping down table and mopping, I started training on working the front counter. Only like five people came in between 9:15 or so and 11:15 when the lunch rush came in. My point is, I had the front counter machine explained to me, got to watch on a couple customers, and do it with supervision a couple times, but I was dead meat when the lunch rush came in. I was helping put together some drive thru orders and my manager asked if I knew how to do the counter. I said I had the gist of it, but when a customer came in and I had a question, he basically pushed me aside to do it himself because I wasn't fast enough. Then he politely told me I could go home for the day. And to call him tomorrow at 8am. I overheard him saying something about "what was she doing for the last hour she's been here?"

I'm trying not to take it to heart and chock it up to he was stressed with all the customers coming in and everything, but gimme a break. It was my first day and we'd only had about 5 customers before the rush started.

It wouldn't have affected me so much if I wasn't already nervous about it being my first day, learning tons of new stuff, interacting with people (not really my strongest trait right now), etc. Thankfully, I didn't start crying in front of the guy.

A couple hours after I got home I called a friend of mine. It was already understood that I'd call him so it wasn't like a "I'm upset and you need to comfort me" kinda call. He and I chatted about a few things and made sure the other was staying out of trouble. When he asked me what awesome, cool things have happened today, I made a kind of houghing sound and he says, "You don't need to sound so depressed". So, I explained the basics of what happened this morning. Thankfully, he's worked at Arby's so I got kind of a pep talk from him and he advised me that, instead of calling tomorrow, I should go in. He said I should beat the guy to the punch and ask him how I can do better and learn faster. I'm kinda reluctant to do anything than what my manager said do, but I trust this friend and it might score me some brownie points that I really do want to learn this stuff.

Ugh! I'm still a little frustrated and on edge so I'm gonna go read my bible and pray.

dreamer

Um...yeah

Okay, I know I just posted like two minutes ago, but I was re-reading some of my earlier posts and decided to make an update on one. If you haven't read the post entitled "Don't wanna" then this won't make any sense.

So, in that post I was ranting about a guy, that I've practically been in love with for almost three years, who started dating a friend of mine. I mentioned that the girl hadn't told me beforehand that they were gonna start seeing each other so I felt pretty betrayed and unimportant.

A couple days after my conversation with the guy and finding out about all this, he and I talked again. I found out from him that she was hesitant to proceed with a relationship. She did remember the talk she and I had and how I felt about him and she didn't want to hurt me in the process of being with him. Between his and my conversation that day and a couple days before, I'd been praying and praying that God would help me come to a place of forgiveness and love for her. So upon hearing that she didn't want to develop a relationship with him if it'd hurt me helped me move past that original hurt.

A few days after that, she and I talked on the phone and decided to pursue a deeper friendship between the two of us that wasn't based on this guy. I wasn't sure how well it'd work, but I wanted to attempt it. I had come to really like her and didn't want to lose her friendship.

Their "relationship" took some different turns and grew and shrank and morphed...as relationships tend to do. Through all this, though, I was still in pretty bad shape. She and I were still friends and growing closer, but there was still a lot of pain whenever I'd see the two of them together and it was tough for me to even be around her without thinking about him.

I began talking to a couple women, one who goes to my church and was very aware of the dynamics of the situation and one who was completely removed from the situation, went to a different church, and had never met these two. They both gave me the same council and that was to check how much time I was spending with them together, talking to him, and to maybe take a little bit of a break. So I did that. I cut back on how much he and I talked and emailed and put more of a check on how much I let myself think about him when I was with her.

Throughout all this time, not only where they praying for me, I was praying for me, and I'm sure tons of other people were praying. There were a lot of times I wanted to just throw in the towel with the both of them, cut them both out of my life, count it as loss, and move on. But, I knew that wasn't what God wanted me to do. It'd be a complete cop-out. Plus, I didn't want her to use me as an excuse to give into her fear and run from a relationship with this guy.

Where I'm at right now is so totally different from the two and a half months ago when I posted "Don't wanna". Yeah, I still feel a twinge in my heart every now and then; usually when she's talking on the phone with him or I hear plans for them to hang out. I feel kinda left out at those times. But there isn't that constant, aching pain in my heart. I think it had a lot to do with pursuing the friendship with her despite my desire to the contrary and then also praying that God would bless them and just in general praying for them.

I think that's all I'm gonna put for now cuz it's almost 1pm and I'm stilll in my pajamas.

dreamer

It's official

I'm a resident of Uptown!! Yay!! Ever since my mom moved our family to Eagain in October of 2003, I've wanted to move back to Minneapolis and now I'm back.

When I was born and until I was 4 years old, we lived in a triplex on 31st and Elliot. Then, from ages 5-6 we lived in an apartment building (part of a twin highrise) on the edge of downtown Minneapolis. Then, at age 6 or 7 we moved back to a house on 31st and Elliot across the street from our original dwelling. We lived there for 14 years and then had to move to Eagan. The mortgage company was forclosing on my folk's house and we were unable to find any suitable place in the city. My mom had wanted to move away from the crime of the cities for a while and when she found an apartment in Eagan, she was thrilled. I wasn't. Don't get me wrong, the suburbs aren't bad. Plus, where we moved, everything we needed was within about three miles, except our respective churches. My mom goes to Bethlehem Baptist on the edge of downtown (ironically right across the street from our old apartment building) and I go to church at The Rock in Uptown (a mile or so from where I live now).

I made the best of things, but deep down was missing the city. And, not so deep down because I'd often talked about wanting to move back. So, the opportunity arose to move in with my oldest sister, Tina, in West Saint Paul. Granted, it wasn't Minneapolis, but it was a bit closer and I'd be away from my dad (we don't get along when we're living under the same roof).

I moved in with my sister about a month or so ago. It was a little quicker by bus to get to church (quicker by about an hour), but it still wasn't right. Add to that not living with anyone who believes in Christ as Savior, I wasn't all that thrilled. I mean, I was seeing my two nieces a lot more, but even they were starting to get on my nerves.

I began spending every weekend with three women from my church, partly because I really like them and enjoy spending time with them, but I was also going to a recovery group that meets a mile or so away. Inevitably, though, after group I'd come back over, hang out, and end up spending the night again. That was usually because one of the women and I would go to a cafe in Maple Grove to see a mutual friend of ours ('nother story). We'd get back late, I'd spend the night, and normally meet up with my mom at her church on Sunday.

These women had been looking for another roommate for a while, but it wasn't until I moved to my sister's that I realized moving in with them could become a very real possibility. I began looking for a job near their place (which involved more nights spent at their house) and.................................

Here I am!! A lot of prayer and a lot of job hunting later (with a lot more prayer thrown in), I live in Uptown with three of the coolest chicks I've known. It feels rather weird, though. Even though I've taken a step towards adulthood, I still feel like a kid in a lot of ways. Also, the next couple of months will be interesting. June will be spent sort of getting used to living here. In July another girl is moving in, so we'll have 5 girls here for that month. Then in August, one of the original roommates is moving out. So, we'll have just 4 girls again, but we'll be moving to the other side of this house (it's like a duplex but split down the middle so there's an upstairs and downstairs on both sides of the house), there'll be shuffling of rooms, moving the belongings of 4 girls, etc.

But, right now, I'm just enjoying my new life as a single, independent woman....one who doesn't live with her relatives. :)

Yay for God!! Yay for roommates!! Yay for God-loving roommates!!!!!

poem

I wish I could claim credit for writing this, but I can't. I got it off a website that I really like. If you want, and you're nice to me, I'll give you the link. But anyway, this explains where I'm at right now. I've prayed, but I almost don't want to cuz I wanna give in. I haven't given in, though....yet.

So here it is.

She closes her eyes and her mind drifts away,
As she pulls the covers to her chin,
Feeling ashamed and all alone,
She gazes into the darkness of her room
With the curtains pulled tightly shut,
And the room turned black as night
With her head pounding and her wrists aching,
She slowly reaches for the phone,
but hears them whispering, "don't be a burden, let them sleep."
"it's not their problem, the demons you keep."
She wants to cry, but the tears are frozen.
So she sits and tries her hardest, to make sense
Of the chaos buried deep within her mind.
But her eyes get heavy as the pencil slows.
Another feeling buried, another poem unwritten
But maybe they will let her sleep. Maybe the feelings wil go away.
For the morning will come and the dreams will be forgotten,
The night of torment and pain is over.
It might be hot in her long sleeves and jeans,
But the night came to an end when she finally gave in.