Considerate

Please don’t keep me waiting. I’m not saying my time is more important than yours, or that I’m some kind of VIP or something. I planned and organized my whole day around this appointment, Child care has been arranged, my own work appointments have been rearranged to fit. I’ve left plenty of time before and after the allotted slot to allow for delays in your schedule, as well as getting to where I need to be. I’m just saying that it costs me to wait for you.


When I arrive and fill out all of the many pages of paperwork (which, by the way, I could have done in advance if you had them online), perhaps someone can let me know you are running late. I’d know then that I’d have enough time to run home and give my boy, who did not want to let me go this morning, a quick hug while I retrieve the one paper I forgot that I will need this afternoon. I’d know then that I could be sitting in your waiting room for an hour, and then possibly in the exam room for another. I could make a choice as opposed to feeling like an inconvenience sitting in the crowded waiting room.

It costs me to wait. In dollars, in daycare, in time, and in relationships. Don’t think I don’t know how a day can get crazy. I work in health care - I travel to patient appointments, and I am usually on time. I schedule carefully and realistically. I want to feel unhurried with each client. I want them to feel like I am hearing them.

So, yes, I know you are busy, and the office fax guy is here, and the drug rep stopped by. I also know that insurance creates a situation where you feel you must over schedule in order to make any money. I get all that. All I ask is that when you look out on the crowded waiting room, you think about all of those peoples lives, and consider what it took to get them there today.  Consider what they are missing to be there for you.  Consider your reasons for entering the profession in the first place, which were hopefully in the interest of helping others, and return to serving those reasons. 

Replaceable

I had a boss once who said "everyone is replaceable".  Yes, makes you all warm and fuzzy inside doesn't it?  He is the same person who asked me to "think outside the box but work inside the box".  Hmm.  So perhaps he was not the greatest boss, but he did have a good point.  One that I was too young and idealistic and self centered to understand.  Everyone is replaceable.  If you can separate your emotions and needs from it, it is true.  The world will not fall apart if I am not doing "that one thing".  Sometimes I forget that, and the Universe has it's way of putting me in my place. 

Friday night I woke in the middle of the night and was sicker than I have been in....maybe in forever, or at least since I went to the hospital for food poisoning back in the early 90's.  After several trips to the loo, I get back to a fitful and feverish sleep thinking "I'll be fine tomorrow".  I woke up and tried to hoist myself out of bed - no luck.  I had to call upon Honey for help, and not just my usual request for help with the morning routine and the kids.  I asked for him to take over while I worked my way to the couch.  Then to get me the phone, my calendar, my files.... so I could call all of my clients and cancel my appointments for the day. 

Once he saw the state I was in, Honey just took over.  He is usually the "on" parent on Saturdays while I work.  He changes sheets, does laundry, takes the kids out to play, pretty much takes care of everything.  But yesterday he went above - he took them grocery shopping, dealt with all the meals and snacks, kept everyone calm and occupied so I could sleep all day, and generally was TAH - The Amazing Honey.  The one time he had to leave to run a quick errand, the kids played doctor, telling me that I had fallen off my bike and hurt my nose and laying bandage upon bandage on my face.  I didn't even need to act in the play - they worked around my inert body.     

Every time I thought I was good to get up, I was quickly reminded by my own body that I was jumping the gun.  I started to think about how when we don't give ourselves a break, sometimes we are forced to do so.  Once I was able to keep my eyes open for more than a few minutes, I laid around and read a book for pleasure.  I looked at a great new magazine that had arrived in the mail.  I watched the kids and Honey play outside.  By the evening, I was able to help a little getting the kids to bed, and I relished reading books with them since I hadn't really gotten to play too much all day.

I certainly don't want to be replaced, but it is a good feeling to know that the world would turn without me. 

Simple Things

I make lists.  I have notebooks with various lists all over the house.  When I feel overwhelmed, I begin a new list.  I love checking stuff off, and love the feeling of accomplishment that gives me.  So why am I feeling lately so overwhelmed when I look at my list?  So much is getting crossed off, but the list keeps on growing and growing so it seems endless.  I've stumbled upon a blog (that I am now addicted to), and while much of it is stellar information and ideas, one basic simple thing has popped out at me that helps answer why my to-do lists are killing me.  Each day, define your three most important tasks.  That's it.  Out of your list, make three things the MIT's and do them.  Seems like a no-brainer right?  But here's the thing.  In her examples, she has things like "spend quality time with family - picnic?" and "tell Sue funny joke" and all kinds of other relationship related things.  Woah.  You mean I can (and should) put those things on my list?  And that they can (and should) be on the MIT's?  Hallelujah!  It's only been two days of trying this and I am already feeling a difference.  It really is the simple things that make all of the difference. 

Digging out

My whole life it seems I've been working so hard.  Moving so fast.  And sometimes getting it all done.  How on earth have I survived so long at this speed?  I think my time for chaotic squeaking by is up, and as difficult as it is to let the madness go, it has to stop.  Clearly, I have been creating things to keep myself occupied - even creating "work" so I can avoid other things on the to-do list. 

I was at the home of a client the other day, and I walked by the moms desk.  It was a small, neat, simple wooden desk, with a notebook on top of a clear space.  She had a love note from her husband pinned to the wall, and a small flower in a vase.  It was a picture out of a magazine,  but this woman lives like this.  Now, I have had public spaces that look like house beautiful, but my desk has always been organized chaos.  Seeing this lovely scene with one planning book made me furiously jealous.  I want that life.  The one where I can be methodical and neat and orderly.  Where I can walk to my desk and not get sick to my stomach looking at the piles of crap that I "have" to go through. 

That was a few weeks ago, and that combined with a few other "aha'" moments, I'm finally doing it.  One step at a time.  I have a small notebook that I now carry everywhere I go, and I jot my "to-do's" in there as I think of them.  I've even delegated a few to Honey.  My menu and grocery list are in there, as well as project ideas for the house and kids.  I've been shredding papers, reorganizing files, and creating a yard sale/freecycle pile.  I've done a bit of yoga and some meditation.  I've even begun thinking about what life would be like with just one focus.  That's a whole complicated thought process, and my hang ups about being productive, busy, important, and "using my degrees" are messing with my head.   But I'm thinking about it, which a big deal. 

I'd like to live a more purposeful life.  Right now it feels a bit like a waiting game, but I can feel the sands shifting.  Here's to a calmer more peaceful me.       

Fresh Start

I've written resolutions almost every New Year as long as I can remember.  They are often things that I want to change about myself or my lifestyle, and they are often set aside by mid February or so.  Setting a goal to change an inherent part of me, while admirable, seems like a backhanded way of saying "work harder, be better, try to be perfect", which of course is not possible. 

When I worked at gyms for years in college and afterwards, the staff always used to brace themselves for the onslaught in January, knowing that by March they'd all be gone.  We had contests and specials, trying to keep people there and focused on the big picture, but we always lost a bunch after a good solid run.  They just petered out.  So many resolutions, health related or not, are like that.  We approach them with focus and gusto and then wear ourselves out on the idea and give up. 

I'm all for a clean slate and starting fresh in the New Year, but it 's the way that we (or maybe just I) tend to write goals that is sticking in my craw.  I feel like my goals have always reflected my need to climb and scramble to be somehow worthy all these years.  That I and my life are never *enough* and there is always something more to be coveted.  This year, life is different, and the resolutions reflect that.  There is nothing I want or need.  There is nothing I wish to be that is different from right now.  I am grateful and present, and that I will remain that way is my one wish. 

Happy and Healthy New Year to all of us.

Self Centered

When I walked in to the the apartment, I was surprised by the grocery bag with box stuffing, canned cranberry sauce, and a roasting pan for a turkey sitting beside the door.  I thought to myself "huh - I didn't know they did turkey on Thanksgiving" and for a split second I thought that the mom had just come in from shopping and laid her things down by the door.  Then I realized that here was a care package delivered by some charitable organization to families in need during the holidays.  I also realized that all the things still in the bag were probably going right back out the door to someone else who would use them.  Not everyone cooks a turkey, likes turkey, or needs a turkey.  It was the first time I had considered all of those holiday dinner care packages in this way, and realized how much we don't know, or don't ask, about who we are helping to feed. 

I'm noticing this year that while people have their hearts in the right place, we are a very very self centered country when it comes to "our" holidays.  This morning at the grocery store, the cashier behind me asked the little boy if he was ready for Santa.  "Have you been good?"  Of course he's been good - he's barely 2!  What could he possibly do that would deem him "bad enough" for Santa to ignore him?  Then she went on about Santa not coming if he was a bad boy and such.  Good lord.  Maybe he doesn't celebrate Christmas.  Maybe his family has never talked about Santa. And maybe his family feel that all children are "good" regardless of the imminent visit from St. Nick.  I'm glad we weren't the ones in that line, since I'm not really sure how that conversation would have gone. 

Assumptions.  It's just that we assume that everyone is just like us.  And the reality is that they are not.  We live in an amazing multicultural world, and my area in particular has a huge variety of people from every country imaginable.  Each family has wonderful, varied traditions, dishes, customs, ideas, and holidays.  What if... instead of assuming, we all asked.  What if, we said "what is your family's favorite holiday?"  What if we asked what they do to celebrate?   What if we asked what they most need or want to help their celebration?  What if we cared to know?

Zombie

There are moments as a parent when you are in a weird kind of twilight zone.  You are acting and speaking, and at the same time, listening to yourself with disbelief at the things that are currently coming out of your mouth and at the actions happening, but seemingly unable to stop the train.  Recently, I was having a whole inner dialogue with myself (mostly consisting of "really? you really just said that?  seriously?") as I was getting more and more amped up about something the kids were doing.  As I extricated myself not so gracefully from the situation, I thought of this post with a much more eloquent inner dialogue than mine that reminded me that my job is to teach rather than to expect.  We are all doing our best and there is no need to be perfect.  We can always start again.