(no subject)
I resigned one of my volunteer Scout positions this week.
I was going to resign eventually, anyway, hopefully gracefully and gradually, but instead I finally hit my breaking point and officially stepped down in anger and frustration and whatever that emotion is that is sad-because-of-anger (the one that happens when one feels betrayed and abandoned by people one cares about).
I bet German has a word for that one... :)
Certainly, I was overextended. Doctoring is a 70-or-so-hour-a-week job, and my list of "jobs" for Scouting had gotten ugly. (Service unit manager for Girl Scouts, Girl Scout troop leader, Girl Scout troop cookie mom, Girl Scout troop treasurer, Girl Scout troop fall product chair, Boy Scout troop committee member, Cub Scout pack committee chair, Cub Scout pack advancement chair, Cub Scout pack trainer.)
But I didn't really quit because of my overextension. I was doing all that stuff because I'm a flipping control freak who really believes that on some level that the only person you can trust to do a job correctly is yourself. No martyrdom here, really--just a nasty bit of egotism. Unfortunately, it's rarer than most non-control-freaks believe for this belief to get debunked. People who aren't grabbing life and strangling it for control all the time are usually letting what they consider "minor details" slip past them and through the cracks, and they really aren't doing the jobs that need to be done.
I quit because I was unappreciated. I quit because I wasn't getting any help. This volunteer job was not only no longer paying me enough, it was now poisoning my soul. :(
Right now, however, stepping down hasn't leached the poison part at all. I'm now angry and sad and that emotion I was looking for the word for up there. Sad/angry. Pissed off to the point of tears. That hurt that isn't content with just walking away. The one that needs to stab and gouge and wound before leaving. I'm sixteen all over again, needing someone to know that they hurt me, that they were out of line, etc, rather than just walking away.
And I really do know that I should be too "grown up" for this. I thought I'd left this vindictive self somewhere in age 21. That I was better than this. Because being an adult has taught me that the venting of pain usually does not actually accomplish anything that makes moving forward any easier, despite what I believed when I was young, despite all my cute metaphors about draining the abscess, etc.
I feel like I'm 15 and fantasizing about how people coming by my hospital bed or funeral would feel, knowing that they'd treated me so poorly.
Arrgh. And bleah. This wears off, right? I will come to peace with this. I will no longer want to lecture other adults about what terrible human beings they are.
Or someone will make the mistake of giving me the opening and I'll take the opportunity to scream at them for a change. ;)
Blissful days to you, LJers. Being a grown-up is still hard, isn't it?
I was going to resign eventually, anyway, hopefully gracefully and gradually, but instead I finally hit my breaking point and officially stepped down in anger and frustration and whatever that emotion is that is sad-because-of-anger (the one that happens when one feels betrayed and abandoned by people one cares about).
I bet German has a word for that one... :)
Certainly, I was overextended. Doctoring is a 70-or-so-hour-a-week job, and my list of "jobs" for Scouting had gotten ugly. (Service unit manager for Girl Scouts, Girl Scout troop leader, Girl Scout troop cookie mom, Girl Scout troop treasurer, Girl Scout troop fall product chair, Boy Scout troop committee member, Cub Scout pack committee chair, Cub Scout pack advancement chair, Cub Scout pack trainer.)
But I didn't really quit because of my overextension. I was doing all that stuff because I'm a flipping control freak who really believes that on some level that the only person you can trust to do a job correctly is yourself. No martyrdom here, really--just a nasty bit of egotism. Unfortunately, it's rarer than most non-control-freaks believe for this belief to get debunked. People who aren't grabbing life and strangling it for control all the time are usually letting what they consider "minor details" slip past them and through the cracks, and they really aren't doing the jobs that need to be done.
I quit because I was unappreciated. I quit because I wasn't getting any help. This volunteer job was not only no longer paying me enough, it was now poisoning my soul. :(
Right now, however, stepping down hasn't leached the poison part at all. I'm now angry and sad and that emotion I was looking for the word for up there. Sad/angry. Pissed off to the point of tears. That hurt that isn't content with just walking away. The one that needs to stab and gouge and wound before leaving. I'm sixteen all over again, needing someone to know that they hurt me, that they were out of line, etc, rather than just walking away.
And I really do know that I should be too "grown up" for this. I thought I'd left this vindictive self somewhere in age 21. That I was better than this. Because being an adult has taught me that the venting of pain usually does not actually accomplish anything that makes moving forward any easier, despite what I believed when I was young, despite all my cute metaphors about draining the abscess, etc.
I feel like I'm 15 and fantasizing about how people coming by my hospital bed or funeral would feel, knowing that they'd treated me so poorly.
Arrgh. And bleah. This wears off, right? I will come to peace with this. I will no longer want to lecture other adults about what terrible human beings they are.
Or someone will make the mistake of giving me the opening and I'll take the opportunity to scream at them for a change. ;)
Blissful days to you, LJers. Being a grown-up is still hard, isn't it?