Floating

I’ve been feeling unbearably disconnected from life the past few days. It’s as though I don’t exist in some ways. I could just drift away and I’m not sure anyone would notice.

At work it seems as though I’m not really there. My room doesn’t get opened in the morning unless Erica is the first one in, even though whoever opens the center is supposed to open all the toddler rooms. No one seems to pay any attention to my repeated insistance that they call me "Liz" instead of "Elizabeth" so I’ve just given up on it. My coworkers gossip to each other as if I weren’t even there, neither including me in the conversation, nor seeming to deliberately exclude me either. My bosses don’t even have the courtesy to tell me what I’m doing on a given day unless I ask outright, nor can they manage to remember how many friggin’ kids are scheduled to be in my classroom when they enroll a new child, even though that’s pretty much the only thing they need to look at when they’re talking with a potential new family. Is there space for this child? And as a matter of fact, there isn’t. Kim came up to me on Friday all pleased with herself that I would have a new little boy starting this coming week, but only two days a week. "Tuesdays and Thursdays?" I asked. Of course. "That gives me five on those two days." "It does?" "Yes, I already have A, J, M, and B." "Oh."

I don’t know what it is, but there is something inauthentic in what I’m doing somehow. Maybe I just can’t believe in the value of it when I see that half of these parents don’t even need daycare, but are sending their kids in for nearly 12 hours sometimes for no apparent reason. I find it hard to be a partner in their child’s upbringing when it doesn’t seem like they’re all that interested in their child’s upbringing to begin with. And I’m not sure I really approve of the system we have, with it’s overemphasis on disinfection and hygeine. Those things are all well and good, but do we need to devote more than half of the center’s daily bulletin to ensuring proper handwashing techniques? I hardly even read the stupid thing anymore because it’s the same thing every day.

I just can’t help feeling sad about all of this. To make matters worse, I was idly perusing the websites of various local animal rescue groups and saw that PAWS in Norwalk was hiring part-time help for both dogs and cats. My heart leapt. Unfortunately, at $9/hour and only 4 hours a day, I’d be making only a bit more than it would cost me in gas to get down there every day. Not worth it, even for the fact that I’d be a part of something meaningful and doing something that I actually want to do. Finding that poor kitten a couple weeks back just broke my heart and helped me realize that I want to be a part of helping animals like Abby (that’s what I called her). The lives of street cats are pitifully short and often brutal, but that’s not even what she was. She was a part of a litter that someone went out of their way to breed and raise as companions. Now either the people that bought her couldn’t be bothered to take care of her, or the people that raised her couldn’t find her a home, but she didn’t belong on the street. And the fact that we couldn’t even take her anywhere because all the shelters were full? Insane.

Alan and I had dinner in Waterbury this past Thursday because Kerry was up for a visit. She asked what I would do while Alan was away, if I would keep working or go back to school. My first reaction was confusion. I’m not sure she knows that I actually finished college. Now I’m wondering if that might not be a good idea. I was thinking of doing some online work in the veterinary field and maybe getting an Associate’s as a Vet Tech. I’d also like to enroll in Equissage courses, which might be more feasible now that they have a branch in Connecticut. It would certainly save on airfare to Virginia.

There just has to be a way for me to be happy and 100% myself. I like who I am and I can’t say that I’ve been very me lately, especially in terms of what I’m doing with the vast majority of my time, my work. Sometimes I wonder if I’m even capable of being happy. Those are my low moments. I know that I can be happy. I have been. But something has to change.

~Liz