So rarely am I ever at a true loss for words. You don’t have to know me long to know I’m happy to talk your ear off about anything and everything. Rarely does a thought pop into my head that I don’t share, even if it’s simply out loud to myself.
So this struggle with words over the past week or two is astounding. I’ve written plenty, sure, but not what I really need to talk about. What I really need to bring up.
I feel this hole within me that only tears seem able to fill. But the thing about tears is that they drain out of this hole quickly so I’m left with this need to refill the hole with more tears. All while searching for something that just maybe won’t drain as quickly. Nearly collapsing when I turn a corner out of line of sight of others at work, all activity stops for a minute of my body shaking with sobs fed from tears that won’t come, because I don’t have time to cry just then, but I can’t hold the anguish in so it has to escape as quickly as it can before I can reign it in. No one check the vault tapes. Those are private moments that don’t involve the green stuff.
I’m not suicidal. That would be ridiculous. I’m responding to life, and this emptiness I’m feeling won’t last. I’m not self sabotaging. That would only make things worse for me. So clearly skills are working and I will pull through. This isn’t even BPD. I say that with no doubt or hesitation. Anyone wondering how I know isn’t paying attention.
I’m working 50 hours weeks. It’s a job I love. A boss and team that makes me feel important daily, unlike I have ever felt before. I’m working 50 hour weeks week after week while raising 3 kids and going to school. I love every bit every one of those 3, but I’m tired. I thrive under pressure and I adore a packed schedule, but I too must rest. I too have my breaking point.
We have no staff at work. No tellers, anyway. The other side of the room is beautifully staffed. Except that they end up having to run teller windows because we have no tellers. So we must pick between one side of the room or the other having no staff.
It isn’t even the lack of staff alone that has me feeling this way. We have a solid team. We are Human Sigma 6 three times running for a combined 18 months. There is no higher honor when it comes to customer and employee loyalty. We set the bar others strive for. Our staff is currently small. But it’s solid. “This is my family, I found it all on my own. It’s little and broken but still good. Yeah, still good.” Our numbers need to triple behind the line but who we have is the best damn team you could ask for. So where others would fall apart, we hold strong and show you WHY you are loyal to our branch, customer and employee alike.
It’s the reason we are short that has me hollow. We didn’t lose our last 2 tellers because they were done with us and simply took a different job down the street. Life decisions took them far away, from my world. One to Chicago and one to New York and with it went what little local and true friendship I really have. My branch is my family, but those were the two that made a point of hanging out with my weekly outside of work. Board games or bars. Pool or Kayaking. Climbing or Walking. Those girls showed me what real friendship was actually like. Lisa was the first real, solid, healthy friendship I’ve had ever in all my years. I met her when I was 20-fucking-8-years-old. 28 years of thinking unhealthy settling was the best I could have. The best I deserved.
Years of asking what the hell is wrong with me? What the fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck is wrong with me? Is it me? Is it you? In thinking that there is either something wrong with everyone else, or simply something wrong with me. As much as I’d like to think I really was born with an over abundance of awesome and the rest of the world just can’t handle it, the reality is that if it seems like everyone around you is an asshole, you have to seriously consider that the problem is actually you and they are responding to what you are putting out there.
I am the Sheldon Cooper of my word. Only less brilliant and I really am crazy. “My family had me tested.” I could get away with it if I was some super genius. Or regular genius. But despite being a human calculator, all I am is the sole member of my bank team that actually likes math.
A tired, lonely, empty, human calculator. If only I ran on batteries and not heart.
Instead, I’m all heart and as such it breaks over and over and over. As you walk away from 10 years of, admitted unhealthy friendship, over a pair of shoes. As my local close friendship moves away. As I reach out to you for companionship and you show no interest. As I see how socially awkward I really am but don’t know how to fix it. As I know based on well establish pattern that the majority of the people in my life who have been the closest to me, tolerated me the best, I’ve never met face-to-face because I’m best when there is an entire internet between us. Which would be glorious if going to a movie together didn’t involve having to find a movie that starts at the same time despite time zones. If going to the bar or playing board games didn’t involve plane tickets. And I don’t mean to diminish that friendship because these people I may have never met, at least not yet, would be there for me for me in a second, shovel in hand, asking who I know with a decent backyard. They laugh. But not because they don’t agree.
But as amazing as that friendship is, it isn’t enough Not since I have learned what it is to have a regular girl’s night, in or out of the house, just hanging out not caring about a thing but spending time together.
I have a few I could work into my life more. I girl I went to school with who has a kid Sambam’s age. We talk about setting up play-dates. She is about 10 minutes away A girl I knew a long time ago that I’ve causally kept in contact with over the past few years. We’re going kayaking next Saturday, in fact. She is the furthest at an hour or so away. Another woman I met at work as a customer, who is fun and I’ve hung out with her a few times. She lives about half way between the other two. But you know the difference between a friend, or even best friend, and an acquaintance? While you can indeed hang out with both, one fills a deeply driven need, the other fills an afternoon. And that’s Ok. Not everyone should to be everyone’s BFFOREVER! But I could appreciate the acquaintances more, because I’m sadly currently incapable of appreciating them as much as they deserve, if I had a local BFFOREVER.
I have fun with acquaintances. Girlfriends know my soul. And that’s what I need. Someone local who would never need to read a word I wrote because they already knew it all.
Yes, that’s what I need.
I need to fill this hole. With something that lasts longer than tears. The vault is getting soggy.