Vagabond At Heart

Mum is home and I am glad.

It feels comforting to have her back where I can just look at her to assure myself that she is fine. That, definitely was not the sentiment when I approached my uncle for help. Then, I felt like I was on the verge of collapse, between bouts of helplessness about her condition and stress at work. When I am at work, I worried about mum all alone at home. When I am at home, I worried constantly about work and deadlines.

It is wonderful what 2 days of rest can do.

After sending her to my uncle place so that there is someone to take care of her when I am at work, my mind cleared enough for me to function again. I decided to be realistic and requested for extension of deadline on my report.  Being so new, there may not be the ideal thing to do. But, I figure, no point killing myself over the stress and still end up not being able to meet the deadline and gave boss a bigger headache to solve. I also decided to tell my boss about my situation at home. Not to ask for sympathy but because I think she has a right to know why I am leaving office on the dot while work is piling up and she is slogging away late into the night reviewing my report. She was really decent and nice about it.

Sometimes, I just have to accept that I cannot do everything alone. If I need help, then I should just accept the fact and ask for help. And when I cannot handle it, then, I should just be trueful and admit it, so that the problem can be solved. That applies both on the home front and work.

So now, mum is back. But, she is acting like she is preparing for her funeral which is really freaking me out, even though I tell her she is being absurd. Really really absurd. There is just this inkling of fear in me when she keeps giving me instructions on when things are kept, what is to be throw away and given to who, etc. Yes, I am being absurd too.

I have asked aunt to help take care of her on Monday but am unsure what to do after that. After all, I cannot possibly expect my aunt to take over my responsibility. She looks rather tired today when I went to fetch mum. Doctor wants her to stay at home for the next one week since he thinks forcing her to stay at the hospital is bad for her condition. Today, the thought to quit flashed across my mind since leave is not possible. After all, nothing is more important than family. But, I guess that option is abit too drastic for now. Maybe, can get my neighbour to just pop in occasionally in the day.

Guess will have to wait and see if her condition is better by Monday.

On the bus journey home, there is suddenly this overwhelming sense of relief that mum is sitting beside me, holding my hand. I suddenly remember this line from some movie, “He ain’t heavy. He is my brother.” Just at that moment, mum looked at me and said, “You are really tired out too, rite? It is my fault.” I wanted to tell her,”I ain’t tired. You are my mum.” But instead, all I did was to shake my head and tell her no. What I really wanted to tell her was, even though I grouse alot normally about her, she is the most important person in my life. I love you, mum. And it is really ok even if I am tired, you are my mum.

So, we went for a meeting at a client place today.

When all had been said and done. The client entertained us with an comical tale of our competitor A.

Together, we happily devoted 5 mins of full force laughter aimed at competitor A.

On our way out of the building, my boss told me, “They actually (Competitor A) handled that very well. We wanted to do the same but before we got around to it, the client happened (intentionally, maybe?) expressed their displeasure to us about Competitor A’s action.

So, if we had been more efficient, we could have been the joke that client shared with Competitor C. That 5 mins of entire gaiety could have been meant for us.

What a total bummer!

This blog is my refuge. My cousin has his too. I hope I will not be reading rude things about my mum on his refuge soon. Oops.

Was desperate. Too tired and stressed. Decide to send mum to hospital, only to be told no bed was available.

Upon hearing that, she insisted on coming home instead of going to suggested hospital.

My uncle kindly came to the rescue. Mum is now staying at his place for the night.

Came home relieved but just so tired. Need to do the fucking paper. If I can’t churn it out by this week, I am dead-meat. Brain not functioning. Think I am driving my boss crazy with my lack of memory and ceaseless slip-ups.

Just so tired. Not sure how much longer I can hang on. Am not thinking anymore. I just do,do,do,do and do work mindlessly.

I hour sleep first. Paper later.

Involves lots of balancing and coordination,

Patience in hopping along steps by steps,

Calls for great leaps ahead as you progress in the game,

Confidence aids performance and enjoyment of the game.

I am playing hopscotch at work too.

I need to learn the balancing and coordination acts,

Be patient with my own progress,

Work at preparing to take the leaps and challenges ahead,

Most of all, I need to build my confidence in the new environment and role.

And of course, building enjoyment to add meaning to my work.

When I signed on the dotted line, I was aware that I have lost the right to take my vacations as and when I like to, which is perfectly fine and completely reasonable to me.

What I missed out was that I have lost the right to fall sick as and when my body decided that it is high time to rebel and completely screwed up my body system so that it can finally get some badly needed rest. It was unfortunate but my body has decided to strike at a most inappropriate timing. How inconsiderate of it to break down the very day that my dear colleague has decided to take a day off to support our very own GSS and boost the economy.

tsk..tsk…tsk…how very inconsiderate of me to fall sick and deprive GSS of making some very important sales. And really, to make up for the very audacity of falling sick at all, I really should be making calls to the office every hour to prevent the inconveniences of having my colleagues make the calls. tsk…tsk…tsk…And really, how could I bring work home and neglect to make some sense of the string of words floating dizzily around in my head? That is so critical for timely submission.

Now that I have wilfully given in to my body’s signal to call in sick and spend the day at home popping pills and texting colleagues. Maybe, I can now successfully convince my body that it is really really unacceptable to breakdown. With all that reports due and colleagues all desperately needing to clear leave, it is a bloody inconsiderate & selfish act to fall sick now. While I am at it, maybe I can convince my body that falling sick is rather pointless since it is rather impossible to get proper rest with all that texting anyway. And really, getting sick is such an outdated act cos we are all too bloody busy. Worse when you are new and fumbling all over the place. From now on, please throw out all pathetic excuses of sickness. If there is a need to, then, be sick in office. Then at least, we can save some of that needless texting time and use it to clear some work.  

Well, I have a little confession here. I will probably have dragged my body to work and floated around the office doing the wrong things if not for 2 things.

Incident One: I sent out a very stupid email last week. An email that announced this person has obviously stopped functioning and is currently in need of a thorough brain examination. Or, in short, the sender is an idiot! It was fortunate that the recipent, despite being someone in a position to tell me off as I deserved, was nice enough to shrugged it off good-naturedly by telling me, “When I read it, I thought that you must have been really tired when you sent this out.” 

Incident Two: P declared to me when we had dinner the night before, “J! You look like shit! Are you even functioning anymore? You look really tired and brain dead. Are you sure this is what you want?” I could only shrugged cos she was right. I had reached a point where my brain was too overloaded. I have to admit that I barely knew what I was doing anymore. Somehow, my ability to adapt seem to have paled significantly. Not to mention the memory lapses that I am suffering from. I am not just forgetting things at work, I am forgetting things in all aspects of my life. She followed up the point with her msg later that night, “Hey! It is just work, you know. Get your priorities right!”

With the email incident and P’s comments ringing in my mind, I decided to concede that I am barely functioning. I do need rest badly and I need to get well first before I make even dumber mistakes at work. Or send even dumber emails. I may not be so fortunate the next time. It is probably hard for my colleagues to understand but only I can know my own boundaries. When I need rest, I need rest. And, that is all there is to it. I can only try my best and not give myself too much undue stress. I do need time to adapt and learn. And I need to set up my own system cos only then can I function better.

Meanwhile, I still have P’s question of “Is this what you really want?” to contest with. That will to be for another time when I can get myself to function and have cleared enough backlog to stay on top of work. The hastily formed reply to myself now is to think long time. Yes, the opportunity to acquire experience and skills for long term is worth this mind numbing transition period.

Although, looking at my boss, I doubt things are going to get better in the form of working hours and stress as I go along. Somewhere in my mind, there is already a nagging doubt of how am I going to find my worklife balance? The little dreams of picking up a new language, photography, continuing with my course, even travels. When am I ever going to find the time to fit them in? In a couple of months, work seem to have taken over my life so completely that I sometimes wake up in the mornings wondering if my sole purpose in life is to work. And how meaningless is that? Then,” I will whisper to myself that it is only for now. Just bear with it for now and it will be worth it eventually. This is a necessary phrase to moving on.” 

P.S. I can barely believe that, this time, last year, I was in Europe doing absolutely nothing except to eat, sleep and romp to my heart’s content. How I miss the joy of freedom.

What do you get when you have 5 or 6 depts involved in one project?

Chaos. Alot of it.

Confusion too.

Plus a room full of people with all with different concerns.

And 2 or 3 discussions going on concurrently.

Sounds fun?

Well, I am actually kind of enjoying it.

Cos I suddenly caught on and started to see some light in the big picture of how everything falls into place. Not all of it. The big picture is still kinda of misty but at least I can see the form and structure coming into view.  

About time too.

Another visit to ICU.

This time, to visit another uncle who had a sudden heart attack. He is scheduled for an operation end of the week. The doctors seem to think he is going to be fine which is great.

Recently, the frequency of having to make hospital visits is kind of freaking me out.

Last week, over lunch S told me that her blood test result was irregular. There is a lack of oxygen flow in her blood stem due to lack of Hemoglobin. They are doing more tests on her. I really think she is taking it quite well. Now is not the time to panic is her attitude which is rubbing off on us. 

A is also requesting to do a neuro scan cos of her frequent headaches. Guess it is good to be more prudent.

In a rare fit health consciousness after leaving the hospital, I went to Carrefour and get a load of vegetables intending to survive this whole week on salad for lunch as my detoxifying effort. But, I doubt smoked salmon and salad cream is helpful in detoxifying. Well, at the very least, I will be eating healthier lunches. For this week.

Oh darn! I still need to go for another x-ray to double check on my lung infection.