Tag Archives: personal

My Sorta Kinda Maybe (in)Accessible Life: The COVID/not COVID Edition

08 Friday Apr 2022

Posted by in My Sorta Kinda Maybe (In)accessible Life

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

When I first conceptualized this experiment, the one thing I didn’t expect was life grinding to a screeching hault! I received word over the weekend that I had come into contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19. And, what do you know! I had symptoms! So… I got to go approximately nowhere, and see approximately no one.

But after a week of fatigue and brain mud… I still had a few hiccups along the way.

A Quick Adjustment to Calculations

In my initial post, I provided a monetary value for certain inaccessible systems/experiences of ableism/etc. The one thing I failed to consider was: What would I do in a situation where I had no choice but to ask someone to do something for me that I cannot do for myself… at all? Especially if it’s a thing I should – in any other instance – be able to do for myself. So, I have implemented a flat rate for those instances of $50. This is because I not only have a history of trying to work through something I should be able to do, but I need to take someone else away from their life because of it. $50 – no matter the complexity or duration of an activity – could “compensate” for my loss of dignity, as well as taking into account someone else’s time.

Social Life

Seriously, what social life? I’ve been stuck at home for nearly a week! I did attend a restaurant last Friday to celebrate my partner’s and my third anniversary. The menus were accessible online, and the staff was great (read: not patronizing or weird). No unpaid emotional stuff here!

Around the House

For someone who has lived for two years during a global pandemic, I’m surprised I haven’t had to take a COVID test before now. A friend dropped off two tests for me on Sunday. I found the instructions for the test confusing and clunky, though I could read the information online or on my phone. However, I was not able to read the test results myself.

Over the past six days, I have taken six COVID tests. For the record, they have all come back negative. Over the past six days, I have spent 80 minutes using a service called Aira (an online service that connects blind people with employees whose eyes work better than ours and who provide visual information that we cannot see). The fact that Aira has a free promotion for COVID-related tasks and information is hardly the point. I can’t access my test results independently and privately (the same is true for pregnancy tests, for the record).

80 minutes at $15/hour: $20

Work

I love being able to work from home, especially feeling like this! This makes me blessed and privileged, and I don’t take that lightly.

Did you know that PDF documents – particularly ones that are scanned – are often not accessible to screen reader users like myself? This is because they are usually scanned as images by default. In order to read any PDF that gets sent to me, that involves a – paid – upgraded license of Adobe. Wait… Someone needs to pay so that I can read standard document formats? Yup! If I wanted that same functionality at home, I would have to pay $20 per month. I’m adding this to my ledger because it’s absurd.

I regularly use government web sites (GWS) in order to do my job. GWS #1 is mostly accessible, except when certain criteria are met. I ran into such a situation with GWS #1, where I could not physically click a link myself and had to get someone else to do it for me ($50). Once that was done, I was ready to run, but still I couldn’t do this thing myself and had to “subcontract” someone else.

GWS #2 presented a whole other problem. A few months ago I had an extremely long conversation (a total of 2 hours – $30) with the developers of GWS #2. It came to light that because I use a screen reader, GWS #2 doesn’t play nice (with any screen reader); the presence alone of a screen reader means that I have no ability to use GWS #2 at all. Even after a minimum of two new releases, GWS #2 is still inaccessible. I was placed in a position this week where someone else had to use GWS #2 for me ($50). I am blessed to work with understanding people… but what if I didn’t? Thankfully, most of the rest of my work-based activities are intuitive and accesible.

2 outsourced tasks from GWS ($100) + 2 hours of troubleshooting with no results ($23) = $130

The Bottom Line

I made it through this week, and I am none the worse for wear. On the (in)accessibility/emotional labour front, I respectfully submit an invoice in the amount of $150.

2021: The Year I’d LIke to forget

31 Friday Dec 2021

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

,

Most of my friends have been doing retrospectives on their 2021s. I’m no exception. This entry will be very short, but I’d rather reflect on the past year while it is still happening, rather than bring the theoretical baggage into the new.

And yes, I know this is only symbolic and tomorrow isn’t going to change anything just because a year on the calendar changed and whatever… but I’ve done retrospectives for the past several years and it didn’t seem right to not do another.

In 2021, I haven’t been the person I wanted to be. I haven’t been an overly reliable friend, checking in on those I love. I went inward a lot, both in my personal life, and on this blog. My running went to crap, due to a bunch of circumstances (some of which I could’ve changed, many of which I couldn’t have). I’d like the changing of the year to reflect a new commitment to myself and to others that I’m sorry, and I will do better.

I grieved a lot this year. I grieved for the loss of Annie, my first cat, who left us in April. I grieved the loss of a dear friend, even though she’s been gone for over a year. In quiet ways, I grieved the loss of some of the accomplishments I worked so hard for in 2018 and 2019. Maybe a piece of me grieves who I used to be and am not sure how to get her back?

But some interesting and fun things happened in 2021. I started a new job with people I like, and I’m growing and learning both personally and professionally. I’m getting back at the beading table, making pretty beaded things, and that makes me happy. I’m slowly but surely getting my running mojo back. I took up a challenge to write 31 blog posts in 31 days… AND I DID IT! I’m sure there’s more, but I think for now, it’s time to look ahead. I can take this past year, learn from its foibles and fumblings, and come back stronger in 2022.

However 2021 has treated you, I’m glad you’re here and have joined me on this journey. May 2022 bring you peace, joy, love, hope, growth, and sustinance.

In Memorium

27 Monday Dec 2021

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, ,

To my dearly departed friend:

I guess it’s time to say my final farewell. Or maybe I should say my only real farewell, since there was never an opportunity to say farewell in the first place.

I knew it was time when Google notified me that you were now on Duo. You were tech savvy, but weren’t super connected with all the technological platforms out there. There is no way in a million years your phone would have Duo if you could help it. Someone else clearly has your phone number now, and for some reason that felt like the last connection I had to you. The fact that we haven’t texted or called in a year and a half doesn’t seem to make a difference; we always did pick up right where we left off. The fact that I removed your contact from social media, or my bank to send etransfers, even that didn’t feel final. But this one? This really did in a way nothing ever has since the day in May, 2020, when my supervisor at work told me to call someone I’d never met and wouldn’t tell me why. That stranger is the one who told me you were gone…

About a month ago, a friend posted on Facebook that running errands with friends was a highly underrated activity. Remember that time we went to the local mall to mail a package and buy paper plates? We both commented how much fun we had, and wondered why more friends didn’t adult together. We always talked about bringing a deck of cards and a crib board to play in the food court, and I regret we never did. But we could adult with the best of them. The last time I saw you, we went to Home Depot so I could buy plants that I could (hopefully) keep alive. One of them is still here… I haven’t killed it yet!

We met a half dozen years ago, when we were both going to other (crappier) jobs, and lived in the same neighborhood. You moved away, and then I got a new job in the same office building you worked in. For three years, we’d run into each other in the hall, or the cafeteria, or on messenger, and you would ask if I was going home and if I wanted a ride. When you moved again, far away, you always made it a point to say hi in the elevator or the lobby, and were always SO good about ignoring Jenny even though she really wanted to see you, because seeing you almost always meant CAR RIDES (her favourite thing!) When the pandemic hit, and the buses changed their schedules, I would take the bus from right in front of our office building. I was always surprised to get a phone call from you from the parking lot across the street – “Hey, want a ride?” And Jenny and I would cross the street and she’d always, without fail, find your car.

We talked a lot on those car rides. We talked about boundaries; I wanted to be more generous, like you, while you wanted to be more firm, like me. You told me more about what you were learning in school than what you were doing for work. You picked my brain about cat trees because it mattered to you to get your class project information correct. We talked about crafts and creativity. I made a tree of life ornament for you, which you not only insisted on paying my sticker price for, but purchased the materials and bought me lunch. Speaking of lunch…. after work, we’d sometimes go to Dairy Queen for their cheap combos ($7.50 for a burger, little fries, drink, and mini sundae). Remember that pop machine that wouldn’t dispense Dr. Pepper until I wanted it to stop? And then you threw your drink in the trash, rather than the rapper for your straw? We laughed until we cried!

You crocheted an afghan for me that stays on my couch; you dropped it off on a hard day, and I wish more than anything I had been the one to answer the door, because I didn’t know it was the last time you would walk up my steps. You texted me and asked if the colours were OK, because you vaguely remembered an offhand comment I made about my favourite colours. The tree ornament I made you got sent back to me, priority post, after you were gone; the grapevine knew that I had made it for you,

because the things people made with their hands mattered to you, and it mattered to you that others knew where the things that mattered to you came from.

The world is a less kind place without you in it. I wish I’d been a better friend. I wish I hadn’t texted you on that Monday in May, not knowing you had been gone for a whole day already. I selfishly wish you were still here and am also selfishly glad you haven’t lived the past eighteen months of the pandemic. I miss your graciousness, your joy in the little things in life, and the fire in you on the rare occasions you got really upset about something. You believed in love, in all of its forms, and were seriously the most generous person I’ve ever met.

It’s time I let you go now. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But I feel like I have to now. Farewell, my friend. I truly believe there are angels on earth, and you were one of them. Fly high, dear friend, rest peacefully. May your legacy of love, grace, and generosity linger longer than the grief and the sorrow and the pain.\

Farewell, dear friend. You lived life well.

MLW – 1971-2020.

An Attitude of Gratitude

11 Monday Oct 2021

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

It’s the second Monday in October, which means it’s Thanksgiving here in Canada. Despite the state of the world today – and the struggles and challenges in my little corner of it – I do have many things to be grateful for.

I am thankful for my rough and tumble house. It’s old, it needs a lot of work, and sometimes I seriously wonder what I was thinking wanting to keep a whole entire house in the first place… but this house has been my home for more than a decade. I know it well. I’ve made it my own – with a lot of help – and plan on continuing to do so. My winter project is to get it painted. I’m absolutely useless at this task, but I can tape baseboards and outlets and other things like a whiz, and delegate the painting itself to those who are considerably better than I. This house has trusted me with its care. Its ghost(s) have shown up. I’ve trusted these four walls with my secrets, as it has entrusted its care to me… and yes, I realize how strange that sounds…

I’m thankful for my new job, which is going well. I like the people I work with. There are many opportunities to learn, and I can even take a few opportunities to pass along information that I know. Jenny has settled in well – maybe too well, since she sneaks into my boss’ office to steal the bones that other office dogs have left behind – and looks forward to her weekly meets and greets with everyone.

Speaking of Jenny, I’m thankful for our eight (EIGHT?!?!?) years of partnership. Her intelligence, love, and sassy attitude make working with her a pure joy.

I’m thankful for my two quirky and funny kitties . Wolfie is coming into herself again, and has made great friends with Simone (AKA the Monkey). Simone, for her part, has grown up into a big kitten with impulse control (something I never saw coming!) They each make me laugh every single day.

I’m thankful for my parents, who have each in their own way raised me to be strong, kind, and self-sufficient

I’m thankful for my partner, who’s been with me through some of the darkest and loneliest periods of my life. This past year and a half has in no way gone as planned, but we’re standing together and actively doing whatever we can to make some of the hard things less terrible.

I’m thankful that my divorce is now final. It’s been over for a long time, and now a judge says it is! I’m thankful that, while things went slowly, for the most part they went smoothly, with enough time and space for us to truly part friendly and cleanly. I wish him nothing but love, success, and happiness; I would never begrudge him anything I’ve found for myself.

I’m thankful for my friends – the new, the constant companions, and the friends with whom I’ve recently reconnected. Throughout the past few days I’ve reconnected with old friends and long-time neighbors, enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner with longtime friends, and there are new people in my world that I am grateful to be building new friendships with.

I am thankful for my running friends. This weekend was the Boston Marathon – both the physical and the virtual race. For a wide variety of reasons – inadequate training, mental brick walls, and really crappy running weather, among others – I had to sit this one out. I hated it. I don’t ever want to sit out a race again! My running family has been nothing short of supportive – encouraging me to keep going, while offering support, comfort and commiseration that things didn’t go as planned. Over the past few days, I’ve received several calls and texts – “So, what’s next for you?” in short, I gotta get off my duff and get moving again! And my running family will be there, whatever that process looks like.

I’m thankful that my beading room will soon be a place of creativity. When I started reclaiming this home as my own, I moved my beading table down into a small room that was used for other things. I wanted to create, to make pretty beaded things that could be seen and felt and enjoyed. But then the pandemic hit and that room turned into my home office – hardly a great creative space. I recently got gifted a new desk from our local Buy Nothing group, and I couldn’t have asked for a better one. My plan this week is to spread things out, find places for them, and get back to work. And that room is also getting its own coat of paint!

Today, October 11, is also National Coming Out day. I’m thankful that I live in a country where I can be myself, be proud, and find community. I’m thankful for all the support I’ve received over the past few years as I’ve come to terms with my identity as someone on the asexual spectrum. I’m so grateful for the conversations and writings and community of Ace folks all over the world, and all the ways I’ve been able to learn, share and grow. And I cannot say enough about my allies – those inside and outside of the Ace community – who’ve accepted this as part of who I am with no judgment, no condescension, and no erasure. This is (sadly) quite rare, and I am overwhelmed with gratitude that my little corner of the universe is full of kind and understanding people.

I generally have a hard time with the perky, don’t worry be happy, positive thinking stuff I see a lot online these days. But if I am being honest, this is truly where I am right now. So for this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for so very many things.

“Who Peed in the Ice Cream?”: This Blind Girl’s Hilarious misadventures in the Land of Emojis

30 Monday Aug 2021

Posted by in blindness, Ultimate Blog Challenge

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Two years ago, my friend and guide runner asked me a question. It started with the careful pause he always uses when he’s not sure if what he’s asking is going to be offensive (if he’s reading this, it NEVER has been!) But he asked me if I had ever seen the poop emoji. In truth, I hadn’t. I don’t even think any of my friends had sent a text to me with the poop emoji in it. I at first thought I had prudish friends; turns out, my friends were polite enough to not send poop pictures to me, specifically (truly appreciated, guys!)

So I asked the vast social network I’ve created over the years… what is this poop emoji? I found it, no problem; my screen reader describes the 💩 as a “Pile of poo”… but what does it look like? And why in the world would anyone use it?

First off, it looks like chocolate ice cream. With big eyes… and a smile? So now it’s a smiling pile of poo? And you’d use it in places where only an image would suffice. not sure why it has to smile, but oooookay!

This sent me on an intermittent search for interesting emojis. I’ve received them in texts and on social media, but they baffle me. I mean… there’s a ⛄ (“snowman without snow”) which has been described as a floating snowman? Isn’t a floating snowman really creepy? Why not just use the regular snowman ☃️ instead? And I can’t possibly forget the hilarious conversation where we were talking about real ice cream (Fudgesicles, to be specific) where I asked (at the behest of my partner) why there was yellow stuff in the 🍨 (ice cream emoji). The response I got back really isn’t fit for printing. But can someone clarify for me if the 🍨 really looks like someone peed on it? And why someone would use it instead of the 🍦 (“Soft Ice Cream?”)

What about the facial expressions? “Sad but Relieved Face” 😥 mostly makes sense, but always seems to confuse me. Are you sad, or relieved? And is one more prevalent than the other? And why isn’t 🤯 (“exploding head”) described as something along the lines of “mind blown”? For the record, I once used it instead of 😤 (“Face with Steam from Nose”) to describe being furious about something… that really confused the recipient!

Then there are the ones I found completely by accident. One of the cats was doing something hilarious, and of course I had to message someone about it. The last word of my sentence was “cat” and then I dictated the words “Face with tears of Joy emoji. Instead of 😂 I wound up with a cat with tears of joy, 😹 which I have since learned looks really creepy!

But I needn’t fear! Coming to the rescue is Emojipedia, a vast database (rabbit hole) of emojis. Not only are they described – even in a sentence or two – but they give helpful tidbits of what they are supposed to convey. But while I do find this helpful, as emojis are a part of the technological world that we live in, I 100% agree with a dear, funny, friend of mine: “I thought we had moved beyond hieroglyphics.”

Apparently not.

And, to this day, I have still never used the poop emoji.

Guide dog 2.0: ACCEPTED

28 Saturday Aug 2021

Posted by in Guide Dog 2.0, Ultimate Blog Challenge

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,

I got the email in the spring: I’ve now been accepted to train for my second guide dog! I’m both excited and nervous, and it feels like things are both moving too fast and too slow. I’m not ready, even as I know that Jenny is nearing the age where she needs to retire. Thankfully, though, she’s not quite there… yet.

Subscribe to get access

Read more of this content when you subscribe today.

Subscribe

Happy International Dog Day!

26 Thursday Aug 2021

Posted by in Ultimate Blog Challenge

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, ,

For some reason I don’t know – and don’t have the energy or inclination or desire to look up – someone has assigned today as International Dog Day. In honour of this day, I wanted to pay tribute to the dogs that have squirmed their way into my home and my heart.

Motley: A Kid’s Best Friend

I don’t have a childhood memory at home without Motley. She was just always there, having predated my arrival by at least a year. I’ve been told that she took her job as my protector very seriously, calmly guarding my nursery room door from an unsuspecting babysitter who tried to go in there to get my diaper bag. As I grew older, and we moved to the home I remember growing up in, Motley was a constant. She had no problem letting kids ride her, was terrible at tag, and didn’t see anything wrong with eating the peanut butter sandwich that 5-year-old me carried outside right at her nose level. She seems so large in my memory, because in relation to me, she was a big dog. But in fact, it was her heart that was huge, not so much her frame.

Pebbles: “Who, Me?”

Not long after Motley crossed the Rainbow Bridge, my Mom and I brought home two puppies. bandit bonded strongly with my Mom, and Pebbles… she did her own thing. Pebbles was a bundle of energy, had no listening skills to speak of, and seemed to be getting in to everything! If you called Pebbles, she would ignore you so intensely that you wondered if she had a hearing problem. But if you called Bandit, Pebbles would come running to you, stretch out a paw, and grace you with her attention.

Pebbles wasn’t well suited to our home. After nearly two years, we found a new home for her on an acreage, where all she had to do was keep her new canine brother company. She could run all she wanted, swim in the pond, and play with the kids who just loved her. And when her new brother was called in, Pebbles would come running, stretching out a paw, knowing that she came when she was called.

\Jenny: The life Changer

Jenny is a dog unlike any other, both in my heart and to many who meet her. She works and plays, listens and disobeys, in equal measure and with equal enthusiasm. She’s taught me how to be a good guide dog handler – because I made so many mistakes with her in the beginning. I wouldn’t be a runner without her. She’s been able to pivot from a city-commuting, packed-social-calendar guide dog to a homebody overnight. She’s taught me how to trust another being with my life, because she shows me every day that she’ll keep me safe. She loves completely and exuberantly, has hilarious ways of showing that she’s right about stuff, and is constantly learning and thinking and growing.

I’ve said it before, but I want to be like Jenny when I grow up. If I can have half of her good qualities – and look as good at her human age (65+) as she does – I’ll be thrilled!

How about you?

I’d love to hear about the dogs that have impacted your life. pet dogs? Service dogs? Office dogs? Tell me about them in the comments below!

Today is Not Forever

25 Wednesday Aug 2021

Posted by in Ultimate Blog Challenge

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

Life is funny. It shifts and changes, and sometimes alters the course of the people we thought we’d become. Sometimes you fly, sometimes you’re brought to your knees, and sometimes it’s all you can do to take that one extra breath.

I’ve been thinking about this lately. For many of us the past year and a half has seriously altered our lives. Some of us have lost jobs, others have lost loved ones, still others have lost opportunities. But what we’re experiencing now won’t be this way forever, even if it seems like it. The past year aside, however, I’ve come to the conclusion that we are all emerging creatures, and the person we were five years ago can’t possibly be the same person we are today. How can we be? We’ve lived a whole bunch in those five years – made and lost friends, loved and lost, learned, felt, experienced – and only going through those experiences can bring us in to the person we will eventually become.

I look back on my own life, and I can’t help but be surprised at how so much of me has changed, and how much is still the same. I’ve always been outspoken, usually said what I thought, loved fiercely, overthought things, and generally gone after what I wanted. But over the years, how I’ve approached things has changed, the things I thought I valued have shifted, and things I thought were rock-solid turned out to be shifting beneath my feet.

And I don’t think I could be happier.

When I was young – really young – I wanted to be a veterinarian because my next-door neighbor and best friend wanted to be a veterinarian. Then I realized that veterinarians had to put pets down, and deal with blood and guts and puke… and I didn’t want to be a veterinarian anymore.

When I was nine, I wanted to be a singer. One of my friends and I were firmly convinced that all we had to do was send a recording somewhere and we’d be on the local radio any day now. We would perform weird concerts for our parents, singing the same songs they’d heard for the hundredth time. Little matter that I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket (I’m horrified by cassette tapes I found from that period). I just spent hours and hours in my room singing to the radio until I sounded okay, and maybe even good. I got to be a singer for a while, to lead bands at my church as a teenager… And then I burned out.

At seventeen, I believed it was my calling to work with teenagers, to work in a church as a youth pastor. I remember the argument with my mother – the one where I wanted her blessing to attend a four-year Bible college; she didn’t want me to bury myself in the church. I don’t think I had ever felt more misunderstood, but I also knew that I couldn’t just trot off to Bible school, spend four years and thousands of dollars, and still be angry and resentful of one of my parents. So I vowed that one day, I would go to Bible college; it just couldn’t be then, and it couldn’t be like this. And I did. I asked questions and learned and grew and made friendships that I cherish to this day. And I no longer believe it’s my job to enlighten or evangelize or persuade anyone when it comes to their faith journey.

I thought I knew what I believed. I believed God was a “he”. I believed in a Jesus who fed thousands with five loaves and two fishes, and whose words of love and justice were so radical that he died because of them. I believed in piety and purity and separateness, believing that my radical acts of self-sacrifice would make a difference in the here and now. I didn’t realize the things I “gave up for God” would cost hundreds of dollars to replace, and years of self-doubt to claim in the first place.

At twenty-three, I married. I vowed until death did us part, and I meant it. But marriage, like life, changes you. The woman I was at twenty-three wasn’t the same woman she was at thirty-four, when it became clear that a marriage couldn’t be held together by sheer force of will. Today, I am just waiting for a seriously backlogged court system to process my paperwork, and then I will no longer be legally married.

I’m still here. I’m still myself. I still say what I think, ask a zillion questions, want to understand how things work. I still want to plan things to the nth degree – like a month-long trip across the western United States – even as my own life has shown me that changes in myself and in circumstance are inevitable. Maybe the person we are today wouldn’t recognize who we were one or two or five years ago – maybe in big ways and maybe in small. We can’t go back to the formerly comforting days; we’ve all lived and learned and loved too much. We can’t keep painting pictures of a nostalgic time and place, fitting our current selves into the image, because the colours are too bright or too dark or too faded.

If we could go and tell our past selves what would happen in the future, we wouldn’t live our real lives. My former selves wouldn’t believe the person I am today. And my current self wouldn’t believe if my future self came along and told me all the things that would shift in the coming days or weeks or months or years. And maybe that’s why we have to do the best we can with whatever we have… because nothing is permanent but change.

So… That Flirting Thing?

23 Monday Aug 2021

Posted by in Ultimate Blog Challenge

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

,

A couple of weeks ago, my partner and I were visiting a local shop. While my partner was along for the ride, I was the one who wanted to shop there. After a brief conversation, getting more information from the shop employee, and making my purchase, we left the shop to head home.

“They were totally checking you out!” my partner said with a laugh as we walked toward the bus.

I sputtered. “Wh-what? Really? Like checking me out checking me out?”

“Yeah, really. It’s a thing.”

I pondered this for a while. It’s not the first time someone has pointed out to me that someone else is flirting with me, checking me out, or otherwise romantically interested. Perhaps because I don’t intentionally flirt with others, I find it incredibly bizarre that anyone else would view me that way.

Not long after my husband and I separated, I spoke to a counselor about some tangentially related things. I remember addressing some deep-seated fear of romantic relationships, because I don’t flirt, and don’t conceptualize how a romantic relationship can just spring out of two people meeting each other and vaguely being interested. The counselor seemed very convinced that casual flirtations and hookup culture were foreign concepts to me because I didn’t get the visual context of staring at a guy across a crowded bar or dance floor.

But that never seemed right to me. Even in situations where I should have picked up subtexts of flirtation and romanticism – phone chats, conversational volleys, summer camps where tons of relationships flourished – I never noticed any of that. When watching a movie or reading a book, where I was supposed to intellectually understand how or why the main leads were going to end up as a couple, it almost always seemed to come out of nowhere. Like, you hated his guts and then decided they were hot stuff because they made eyes at you and it’s all okay now?

It’s an alien concept to me, and yet it seems so ubiquitous. Before my relationship with my partner began, we were friends. I remember telling him that I didn’t understand flirting. I remember saying something like “If you’re going to flirt with me, you’re gonna have to make it REALLY obvious. You might even have to say something along the lines of, ‘hey… I’m trying to flirt with you.'”

But there’s hope for me yet. Not long ago I was on a work-related phone call. I don’t remember the entire conversation, but for a minute or two the banter was friendly and kind of fun. I hung up the phone, only for the thought to pop into my head… “Wait, was he flirting?”

I’ll never know. And maybe I’ll never get this flirting thing all right. And maybe… that’s OK.

Never Stop Learning

19 Thursday Aug 2021

Posted by in Ultimate Blog Challenge

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

31 days ago, I entered my office for the first time as an employee. Since then, I’ve learned lots, asked what I’m quite sure are the most foolish questions ever to be asked at a new job, cursed at Microsoft Word for creating documents with six different fonts…

And, despite my perfectionism, and the feeling that I mustn’t fail at anything, ever, for any reason… I’ve made mistakes…

And it’s OK.

Because the mistakes I make today will not be made again tomorrow. I now know how to make sure my document has a universal font. I’ve googled more Microsoft Word key commands in the past month than I have done before. I want to reach a point where I feel confident enough in my document production that I don’t need someone with working eyeballs to spot-check it.

And I’m getting there.

The common wisdom is that it takes three to six months to settle in to a new job. I’m feeling that discomfort these days! I find myself thrilled that I know certain industry-specific things; it feels like I’m making up for the things I don’t know off the top of my head about document preparation. I haven’t worked in an office with paper in nearly a decade, and I find myself irrationally intimidated by something as pedestrian as a postage machine.

but when I get something – like all 17 steps on how to book or reschedule something, or why things are done a certain way – I feel this sense of joy and accomplishment. I had been at my previous job long enough to train fellow employees; I’m not used to being the trainee. But I didn’t mind being a student, where you are expected to learn, to ask questions, and to improve over the course of time.

Maybe it’s best for me to look at my new job as – yes, a job with rules and expectations – but also as a “school” of sorts. it’s time to be comfortable as a student, to learn whatever I can. Heaven knows I’ve got plenty of patient teachers.