Work and Work, Well Those Cars Never Seem to Stop Comin'

And what makes some of this upheaval and confusion and waffling so very difficult to deal with, I'm finding, is that other challenges and trials of life keep right on going on about their business and distracting me from the real work of really dealing with it.



And reminding me that I am dealing with it from a position of weakness. The person who has held my hand through thick and thin and stood beside me or behind me or threw himself in front of me is not there to do that. Or even to listen to me whine about it. Because that just wouldn't be right.



Some distractions are good distractions. When I was walking the bed of hot coals we call divorce, I was consistently grateful for the distraction of meaningful work. (To be clear, I am not including the time I was served divorce papers while seated next to the Chairman at a meeting and about to make a significant point about something of considerable import...My ex-husband and his attorney have special reserved seats in Hell for that.)



Work is the type of distraction that makes me feel like things will all work out for the best. For many of us, work is a comfort zone, a place that reaffirms our competence and abilities when we are otherwise feeling as informed and in control as if we've been asked to scrub in to perform brain surgery during a transatlantic flight to Madrid. (Unless of course you ARE a brain surgeon, but you get the point.)



It is the other distractions that send me into a tailspin. The extra things. The things I have no brain space for and not a single unfrayed nerve ending to deal with. The clogged toilet. The kid with the throw up virus. My car having the mirror side swiped off of it at the curb. My mother asking me to run out in all my spare time to get some random thing she can't find in her department store in the south and deliver it to someone else for her. (This is where I swear I am going to buy her a computer and make her learn to use Google when she visits for the holidays)



My brother, Joe, who does not fall into the category of person described above who takes comfort in reassurance and sense of purpose meaningful work provides, has asked me (for what is probably the 100th time in our lives) to re-do his resume.



I need this like I need a tree to fall on my house.



Now, I am not a moron. I completely understand that as the Human Resources person in the family, I am like the queen who holds all the mysterious keys to the secret doors to the kingdom. But really, in his forties, isn't Joe in the best position to describe what he does best (is there such a thing?) or even what super duper impressive things he's been doing since he began his last job and I did his last update? And as such, shouldn't he have included in the e-mail to which his resume was attached, which was written in ALL CAPS mind you, some little blurb that at least included where he is working and his current job title and what a person in that position is supposed to do while on the clock???



And this my friends is the type of distraction I am talking about. So small. So inconsequential. Yet so annoying and fraught with the potential for disaster. And sadly, with just enough heft (you know my mother is behind this...) that it tips the scales to the Dark Side and I am on the verge of a psychotic break. It is the thing that snaps my camel's back in two. The extra plate I've not learned to juggle.

I am one step ahead of a moving train and about to get creamed.