Quatrième jour

Besoin d'écriture

Cela fait trois jours que je gère le choc, surtout en dormant, car les émotions fortes me vident. C'est un épuisement sain cette fois; un clean-up. J'avais besoin que ça bouge et je n'ai pas été déçue sur ce point.

Toujours dans le calme, je constate les enjeux. Si on oublie la comédie qui s'est jouée (les agences de pub sont remplies de matériel de sit-com), voici ce qui reste: un travail à Montréal, intégrée dans une nouvelle équipe, que j'ai accepté. De l'autre côté de l'Atlantique, une offre que j'ai refusée sans jamais dire jamais. La comparaison est intéressante, car à Amsterdam, le travail est international, glamour et autrement plus cool et ouvert aux individualités de chaque personne. À Montréal, c'est définitivement plus carré, lourd, avec moins de possibilités. Disons que les parcours sont tracés dans des sillons profonds -- pas mon genre.

Je ne suis pas prête à vivre là-bas maintenant. C'est mon basic instinct. Qu'y puis-je? Je me vois d'avantage à la campagne Outaouaise à tricoter, écrire ou enseigner. Who am I?

Je ne bouge pas vite, mais je suis mon chemin. Je retournerais à Amsterdam sous un autre rôle sans doute, mais encore, ça n'est pas ma mission première. Ma mission première, c'est stay calm and pursue your basic instincts.

Je dois dire que mes problèmes perso, disons de santé, me handicapent car ils doivent être traités avant tout. Récupère, reste calme, remet ton énergie à 0. Mon choix n'est pas sans lien avec ça. Laisse ton long fleuve tranquille suivre son cours.

J'ai gagner en solidité par contre, les autres ne traversent plus mes intimes fondations. J'ai du construire une protection plus fine derrière le mur, disons en soie.

Amourx.

Stand and remain calm

Surprisingly, I got what I wanted. This has been one of the oddest 48 hours in office protocol history. I am suffering dire side effects: headaches, weakness, that low pressure feeling. A normal reaction to the circumstances.

I'm not going to comment that much except for what is of interest to me. Suffice to say that I am not thrown out and seem to have a secured a pretty solid career plan in front of me. Nor have my functions or position been diminished. I'd say that my working conditions will improve, if all goes as planned, but not the salary. For now.

I'm not impressed by the manhandling. Pretty happy of my stance and calm. Thinking of one thing, but before i start, I need to remind me and you to never let anyone define who you are.

What I was thinking is that I am a considered strong in technology and I guess that I am. I don't try hard but it helps to know your stuff a bit when you're building web sites. I am a geek in a creative agency. I adhere to being a geek, that's quite right (what with the knitting and reading that I do).

But today I did a quick storyboard for someone to help sell one of my projects to Cannes. It was pretty good.

I'd love to be recognized for that, but in an agency swarming with artists, they really won't be looking.

That's where you have to work hard at not letting others define you. I look at my old girl in a bottle blog... there is stuff there. Writer's stuff.

Don't ever let someone else define you. Just stand and remain calm.

Amourx.

Kouraj

I slept through the night! Good sign. In my dreams I was sometimes at the bottom of a lake out of breath, freeing something that was caught, but then I emerged periodically in a little spot for air, and returned back to my task. Good sign. I was also on route in a car on an snow and ice filled rocky mountain road where we inevitably capsized. But there was enough food and things to do to take care of everyone. I'm not without resources.

Talked to my beau who is enraged, I tried to calm him down. He has the most devious ways of getting back at people and was not short on advice, but I couldn't take it. I don't operate that way. I need to stay calm and do what feels right. Day one, take it in, reflect.

That's not how my firm operates. My own calmness can be called idiocy or courage. I call it courage, ultimate courage where you stand to lose everything, but you still stand.

Today is day two and I have an appointment at the notary in the morning. In the afternoon, I'm hoping to have my evaluation for my past year of work. It's been scheduled for a long time. I hope that they will do the right thing and give it to me straight. I wonder if I will be questioned some more, and if I will be listened too. This is what I am hanging onto for day 2, both idiocy and courage.

I am calm and have my wits together. All good.

Amourx.

Let come and go

It was the first option. The wanted to talk about terminating my work for them. Then they didn't, because they asked me what I wanted, and I said I wanted to keep working there in Montreal. They said there may not be work, they'd get back to me. Does it matter that there is work? Of course not.

The office protocol talk really blows my brains. I don't know what was the best answer, it wasn't what they wanted or expected. I saw that my answers pissed her off sometimes. You wonder what are you supposed to say, but... there is no right answer. Not immediately. I completely understood that I was let go until she turned it around into protocoly next steps talk. I wholly understood that I am not wanted. The Montreal company doesn't want me, not just my direct report.

That's too bad. There really is no solid grounds for this if we have to go that way; there's been a whole lot of silence from my Montreal direct report. Silence can kill but it can't be used in an argument. We may have spent 2 hours talking in the last year. There has been no warning, no previous complaints, talk, nothing. Issues were blurted out for the first time right there on the spot, but, she was getting ahead of herself, this was a work termination/what do I want talk. The issues talk would come next I suppose. They tend to prefer impact over good order.

Silence has told me a lot in the past year, but that's all there ever was. In fact, it's only because I freed myself from Amsterdam projects that there is this talk.

You try to draw a line between the truth and what matters.

I wonder what someone with good office protocol skills would do? I wonder if tactically I should say yes, lets terminate this. Am I losing good termination conditions if I make it more difficult for them? I seriously wondered for a moment, what was the best thing to do if I was smart.

It's still too fresh but needless to say I very much prefer to call my own shots. Today I know that I do like my work and the people that surround my work (and they like me too), and that I don't have to mind very much at the rational that will be given to me. It should not hurt so much, and creates a good momentum. Good. I have a lot of thoughts to let come and go.

Amourx.

New

Well, things are getting new and I like it. For one thing, I'm typing on a brand new macbook pro on the backlit keyboard. PURE bliss, words cannot say but this tool is bounds away from where I was tool wise, and I dare say it will take me elsewhere, or at least to today.

It's 5 am. I'm adapting to Montreal time, yesterday I was up at 4, tomorrow it will be 6. The weather is lovely.

Today I have a 15 minute meeting with the general director about my development. It can go three ways: I'm out, I'm 'developing', or nothing changes. The latter would be the most disappointing.

The mood is good. I'm hoping for good changes at work. I had a blast in Amsterdam, what great people we have there! Happy to be back at home, ready to start cleaning it (ha!), got my knit picks needle set, coffee is on the brew.

What else can I say.

Amourx.

Honor my 36

I am enjoying the morning quality very much. The light here is definitly bright and soft. I'm lucky to be here and in it.

I just finished my practice scarf. I call it that because I invented it for several good reasons, and I must say that it is beautiful and I would consider it edible, or definitly sleep-with material. It keeps visible signs of learning, thoughts, rythme, tension change and hasard. A keeper.

The week was hard on the body as I got used to this time zone, but otherwise it's going smoothly and lovely. I did not, ever, go out and drink tons and bike drunk and sleep in til way late. This is a first. I think it's good for me, makes me honor my 36.

Way better job opportunity here then at home and a door open to move in permanently. It's a lot more interesting when it's sunny, I admit. A bit strange, but good, that all the collegues hang out and are intimate friends too. It's easy to blend in right away. My feral nature though sometimes screams for Alone time! I'm giving it to her now.

There is nothing more -

Amourx.

Sun

I'm happy - in Amsterdam,feels like a second home, with... no real new stress. It's probably the first time that I come here without questions, and without a self enflicted pressure to sort out my life and 'survive or be doomed' mental attitude fuck-up. Feels nice, and it's sunny too.

Amourx.

Cruise

Mornings are better than nights.

This morning, it is as dark as any november day. It will probably pour.

Sooo to calm my anxieties, I'm opting to cruise work and worry about personal items instead.

I finished my beautiful, first, sweater and am surprised that it fits and damn well it does too! Ha!

It's merino and kid mohair orgasmic cocoon wool, in Bilberry colour. It is scrumptious and elegant and comfy and soft and lustrous has a huge halo of mohair that sheds like crazy. It's a big sweater too, with big stitches. Love it.

Some defects in it, but nothing I would care about except maybe the dye lot change demarcation. The color changed slightly when I started from a new batch of yarn, part of one side looks a bit faded :(. I hope this evens out in washing but probably not. I will still wear it proudly.

This is digression... I meant to say that to calm me, I'm screwing work completely in my head. That voice? Dead to me.

Keeping up with my energy level, my own happiness and needs. The little sting of loneliness. Listening, making the most of it - that's my route.

Amourx.

Why am i scared?

Why?

Go Better

I am starting to understand my new found passion for knitting, it is a very good outlet for anxiety.

In the past 2 years or so I have grown into a strong woman, I think, with the fending off of the depression, taking ownership of my first very own home, making my mark in my profession of the moment, and keeping it together generally.

At some point I became to be less anxious, but it comes and goes as you know. I think it's less external than before, but if I pay attention, it's still there.

Know I am at a crux where I need to change something significant in my life, like a career or a relationship or both and well, there is anxiety. There is also nagging inner voices designed to trample me all over. Guilty this and shameful that sort of voices. Those useless words that do so much work in me. And myself becoming a tapestry in hostile territory.

With that going on I'd say we are dealing with a bit of fear, therefore anxiety. Nothing out of the ordinary - it doesn't hurt, i barely am aware of it. I have a good buffer.

What's interesting in the feral kateri today is that I am calmed by knitting. It's a self contained, hypnotizing world of interlocking loops that I repeat over and over and over... There is enough rapture for knitting on the internets to keep anyone fed for more than a couple of lifetimes each. But for me it is still an easy and limited art (not in a bad way; but you wouldn't suffer from knitter's block, you know), quite pleasant to do.

I can gauge at how anxious I am by the intensity at which I read, listen, learn, shop and knit wool. I'm pretty anxious.

It does dawn at me that this is a grandmotherly activity and I don't have a single friend that knits. I have wondered if I am aging precociously, because my insides aren't behaving like they used too. Not that the two are necessarily correlated. There is also this hint of Asperger syndrom-like quality that I have, that goes well with the shutting down and repeating over and over and over and over... Something to go to where I don't have to think.

How go I, then? I guess not greatly, but I insist that as long as I am here poised with not a hint of a tear in my eye, I'm good.

But I would like to go better, soon ;) so I am making it happen.

Amourx.