Misery Longs Company? Part 1 of 2

This post is a little overdue, but I have been biting my lip on whether or not to write about it! Basically, the whole story below is about what a total spaz I can be, and how I really need to not let other people get inside my head so easily! This month I have been completely anxiety-ridden, stressed, hormonal, etc. I'm not exactly sure what it is about this month, but I feel like it's probably all hormonal and it's pretty much making me a total nut. It probably has something to do with having winter blues/cabin fever, and all my expectations for a new year, plus turning a year older. I'm sure those are all factors in this, plus adding in not being able to secure enough work to keep me busy lately. (Didn't get any work for today, and I have errands/appointments for tomorrow... which means no work Tuesday either.)

So anyhoo, yeah, I've been a little on edge lately. Sigh, but this is life, so I just gotta deal with it. The real point of this post is all about what happened on last Monday evening/Tuesday afternoon, also known as my "last day of 25 outing" and my 26th birthday. I had mentioned in my previous posts that last Monday I spent the day hanging out with my friends Lauren and Dan. (I usually don't like to name people completely by name, but seeing as I know they'll never have access to my blog, and people reading my blog don't know them, I don't see it as a big deal.) I had mentioned in that post that sometimes Dan has a tendency to ride my nerves, but on Monday he was being pretty agreeable. Well, he was mostly being agreeable. He really triggered all my spazzing out moments from a few stupid comments he made to me on Monday evening. I'm not completely blaming him for me getting all worked up, but I would be lying if I said that I didn't get worked up due to him.

Monday was really cold, and we spent most of our day outside, walking from shop to shop near a riverbank. Needless to say, the wind was killer! It literally seemed like ever half hour we were stopping at a coffee shop or cafe just to get something warm to drink. I'm not a coffee drinker, and while I do admit to having a bit of a Coca-cola addiction (I almost typed "I'm addicted to Coke" and that just doesn't sound right!), the caffeine in all the coffee really helped to put me on edge. I didn't realize how the caffeine was effecting me in the moment, but later on at night I really regretted it.

After spending what had been a very pleasant day with Lauren and Dan, we made our final pit stop at a Beaner's coffee shop. Here we were drinking more caffeine, and our conversation naturally started to fall on whether or not we planned on working another summer at BL again. Lauren went on about how she really wished she could, but since she was going to South Africa for a study abroad, she wouldn't get back until after orientation was over. I made a comment about I hadn't made up my mind yet, but I was still having some mixed feelings. Dan started complaining, talking about how he hadn't gotten an email from our boss Adrian like "everyone else" had, and that he was upset that they were seemingly "snubbing" him.

A quick note about Dan: He had a pretty significant job at the camp during the summer, and would have probably been hired as year round staff if he had the desire. Instead, he got really burned out at the end of the summer, and instead of talking to one of our bosses about his difficulties and frustrations, he chose to walk out of his job a day before his contract ended. He then claimed that he had "no idea" that he wasn't allowed to leave, but at the same time mysteriously turned off his cell phone for a week. When the camp director called him to try to figure out where he was, he of course, didn't return her calls because he "forgot" to turn his phone on. Now, he's upset that our bosses thought he "quit" even though he hasn't bothered to try to talk with anyone about it. So... it may be pretty obvious with my quotations what I think of the situation, but make of it what you will.

Now, I know Dan well enough to know that once he starts complaining about something, he's going to try to turn the entire length of the conversation on to his problems. I tried to turn the conversation by saying something about "Ah, well, you know, we could all just go to Hawaii for the summer!" Dan wasn't taking my bait that easily. He started going on and on about how hurt he was, and how he still was hoping that Adrian might be contacting him soon. One other thing I know about Dan is that he also isn't going to let you continue to stay positive either. Dan went on to make a comment about "Oh Tamara, you have nothing to worry about. You know Heidi and Adrian will always take good care of you. Must be nice. Adrian actually cared when you mentioned you weren't getting along well with coworker J. He listened to you when you complained."

Err. Dan was trying to turn this in to a pity party, and wasn't going to relent until me or Lauren felt as bad as he did. I was still trying to change the subject, but I felt like I was in quicksand, and all my struggling was just getting me deeper in. I replied with something like "Yes. J and I had our problems, okay? Everyone knew it. I did discuss it with Adrian, a while ago. I worried more about upsetting Jenn (my boss) because she really likes J. But I wouldn't be a good leader if I didn't speak up. So it's done, it's over with. Besides, I haven't said yes to anything yet. Like I said, Hawaii, still sounds pretty damn sweet. If I'm going to have a fantasy, might as well make it a good one, right?"

Of course, that wasn't the right thing for me to say. I should have known better than to try to explain myself to him. It was only giving him more fuel, and boy did he have a match to strike! Our conversation went on as follows:

"Oh yes, while Adrian and Heidi love you, Jenn loves J with all her heart. I mean, she loves you too, but she's got a special relationship with J." - Dan
"I know. I don't even want to open that can of worms. It was difficult for me to speak up in a way that might offend or bother Jenn, but it was what I needed to do. That's part of being a grown up, I guess. It really isn't important though, because it's over. That was last summer. It's gone and done." - Me
"Yeah. So I heard J said he wouldn't come back unless he had your job, or got hired to do waterfront." - Dan
"So I've heard." - Me
"Well, that's interesting because I heard through the grapevine that J has already been hired for the summer." - Dan
"Oh really? I wouldn't know." - Me
"Yeah, and I heard it was on the health side of stuff, too. Like apparently as a health officer?" - Dan
"Well, that's not a big deal, he was hired as a health officer last year. It just means he had a higher health certification than most of the other staff. I was one too, as were the associates." - Me
"Well, no actually, I heard he's been hired for more than that then, because he apparently is higher certified than Jenn." - Dan
"No, not unless he took more training. He was certified as an EMT-B, which is the same thing Jenn has. Plus Jenn has a lot more experience than he does, so there isn't really any comparing the two." - Me
"Well, whatever the circumstances, I've been told he's already been hired, and has a pretty cushiony job on the health side of things. I'm surprised Adrian never told you." - Dan
"Well, like I said, I wouldn't know." - Me

Now, of course, it was like ten minutes after this and we ended up saying goodbye. I had to leave early so that I could make it to rehearsal on time, and Dan was driving back to the west side of the state. I should have known that Dan wouldn't have been happy leaving without trying to make me or Lauren as miserable as he currently was. What the heck was he going on about, J being hired in a "cushiony" job on the health side of things? Why was he trying to indicate that perhaps my boss Adrian had purposely left me out of the loop? The better question was, why was I letting Dan get under my skin so much? I drove the 50 minutes home replaying the conversation over and over in my head. What did this all mean? Why was this bugging me so much?

I should have known better than to listen to Dan. I mean, I had just caught two errors in his supposed inside scoop. Number one, he thought it was something significant for J to be hired as a health officer, when I knew that this was a title J had already had. Secondly he thought J had a hirer certification than Jenn, which I also knew was wrong. To top it all off, he made it seem like J would get hired in to a job similar to Jenn's, when he had little experience. To make it clearer, he made it seem like J got hired to do the job that I held last summer. I knew that Dan had to be full of crap, didn't I? Didn't I realize that Dan was regretful of his poor decision last summer, and was possibly jealous or resentful of me?

But truth of the matter was, apparently I didn't know. I couldn't stop replaying the conversation in my head! I was over analyzing every bit and piece of what he said. I was throwing my own knowledge in to the mix, which was only making the thoughts more complicated and worse. In my head, I kept thinking about how Jenn wanted to make J her second assistant, and how adamantly opposed I was to the idea. Adrian and I had talked about it at length in November, and he seemed to agree with me 100%. But what if Adrian was just humoring me? What if he just thought I had a really negative attitude? What if he agreed with me but Jenn was upset with me? She has a tendency to be a bit passive-aggressive, so it wasn't a real stretch that she wouldn't tell me something like that. The biggest question was why were people getting hired before me? Not that I'm so important, but I was administrative staff last year! They always hire at the administrative end first before hiring counseling staff. Was I really being snubbed?

These thoughts went through my head during the entire drive home. In fact, they were still racing through my head non-stop through choir rehearsal, so much so that I ended up leaving early. I was in a really pissy mood at that point, and I just wasn't able to concentrate on my music. Schubert isn't exactly the thing to be practicing when you have your mind a million miles away. I could have slapped Dan! He was so thoughtless in his comments and he had to have known what he was doing by saying those things to me.

(Continued tomorrow.)