Bulkheads

In the past month, I have had my ass handed to me emotionally twice. Once was at work, and once was in my personal life. I try very hard to keep them separated, but sometimes, given the subject matter of my job, they bleed over into each other. When I first started my job over nine years ago, I swore not to let it define me as a person, I fear, after those nine long years, that I have failed in that task. I really want to be more than the sum of my parts, but I fear I am failing at that goal (as I do at most things I try). 

These two 'ass handings' have led me to become what I hate the most (other than my father), an emotional 'wreck.' Normally, I am not the most emotive of fellows, and I try very hard to compartmentalize my emotions. It is not the easiest of tasks, but I have been accused of doing it quite successfully in the past. I say accused, because the person making the claim about my ability to compartmentalize things, was not saying it in a positive light. The emotion ass whipping I received at work, I can do sod all about, it was delivered from on high, and a mere worker ant such as myself can not nothing about it. Not that I didn't at least try, but as I mentioned earlier, I am a professional when it comes to trying and failing. Seymour Skinner doesn't have anything on me in the failing department.

The work beating wasn't even given to me to my face, it had to be delivered to me by someone other than the architect, I guess that is what minions are for, to do all the unpleasant tasks that the throne would find off-putting. Either way it was done, and I'm still struggling to determine how much of my pride, and other important bits of me survived. It is going to be a bit of a slog, but it looks as if I'll survive, at least for a while. Though I fear the matter has merely been delayed, and will not be denied.

At least the personal beating took place to my face, though in retrospect I wonder if that makes it better or worse. I wasn't overly surprised that it happened, but I was, and still am surprised at it swiftness and its brutality.  These things are not for the weak of will nor the faint of heart. I didn't think I was either, but as flail about trying to understand what is happening, I fear that I might just be both. That is not something that I find particularly pleasant, or easy to admit. Things have recently begun to fall apart, and there is a growing concern that the centre cannot hold, and that is a oddly frightening notion to attempt to wrap my head around.

The bulwarks that I painstakingly built over so very many years have begun to collapse like a house of cards on a very windy day, and the 'ship of me' the only ship I have, is listing dramatically to the left. Taking on water at an alarming rate, and is caught on a lee shore that will be very difficult to navigate off of.  I have put all hands to the pumps, but the only hands I have are mine own, and as referenced above, me doing something equals me failing at something. It is a gift, one of the many I would like to return but can't, seems I've lost that receipt as well. 

All of this is to say that if the melancholy expressed on these pages, has been, or gets too bad, at least now some of the sources have been identified, and perhaps that is the first step to building better, stronger bulkheads. I guess failure does have its purpose. My watching the compartments I build be breached with such ease, I now understand that unless I want to stay under these waves tonight, I will have to build with more care, and more cruelty. Whether I am up to the task remains to be seen, and I wouldn't bet on me if I were you. But, then again if I were you, I wouldn't be having these problems in the first place would I?