Let’s just say that I’ve been having a rough go of things in
recent weeks. For the past month, it has
been one thing after another, and to be perfectly honest, it has officially
gotten under my skin. A month ago, we (Quaker
Cottage) took a residential up to a place called Corrymeela. Essentially, residential involves taking a
group of mums and their children on a four day holiday. My role was to take the children out and
about each day. Now don’t get me wrong,
I really had a great time, and it was fantastic growing closer to the kids in a
way that isn’t possible when I see them only twice a week. The problem was that some of the kids have
behavioral issues, and I have very little experience with kids like this. I had no idea what I could do to control them
or help them have a good time. At one
point, I was so frustrated with both my inability to do anything and their
inability to listen that I wanted to just sit right where I was and cry. That was my lowest point in all of my time
here so far. However, through
discussions with my coworkers, I learned that the others felt nearly the same
as me and that there wasn’t much more that I could be doing.
One week of stress finished. (There’s more bad to come, but
bear with me. I’ll get to happy stuff at the end.)
As a part of my job, I have to cook lunch for the mums for
an entire week every six or so weeks. If
cooking is an art form, then call me a struggling artist. Thankfully, because it was another volunteer’s
and my first time, we were told that we would be doing the cooking week
together. Still, this stressed me out,
but I made it through.
Week two finished.
Haha! Just kidding! Because the two of you did the cooking
week together, you get another cooking week!
Yeah, ok. That makes sense. Did you have to wait until Friday to let me
know it’s not over yet? I mean, I was
all excited thinking I would finally be able to spend some time with the kids
again. Good news is that I only burned
myself once!
Hallelujah! Second cooking week was done.
Now, in case you’re thinking that I’m a wimp because I get
stressed out by a little food, let me just say that through all of this, I had also
been working on editing a video for the residential we had gone on. I had zero experience with video editing, and
I didn’t even have a program on my computer that would do that sort of thing
properly. For those who don’t know,
video editing is an extremely lengthy process. With that in mind, it’s time to start the
third week after residential. I have
already put a lot of hours into the video, but it’s time to really get down to
business. Much of my free time for the entire
week was spent on the video, and in the final few days before the deadline, I
spent every minute outside of work working on it. I was ready for a break…
Fourth tough week finished.
And the break came! Except on Wednesday last week. That was a bad day. I was in a rush in the morning, and I had to
fill up the tank in one of the buses.
Allow me to preface this by saying that at petrol stations here the
petrol nozzle thingy is green whereas the diesel nozzle in the States is
green. Well, I filled up my tank with
unleaded when I really wanted diesel.
That’s not a good thing. Four
hours of sitting in a bus while waiting for a tow truck and later waiting on a
fuel evacuation service gave me plenty of time to beat myself up for my
stupidity. I was really upset with
myself. I was costing other people an
awful lot of money because I didn’t pay attention.
And now there’s today.
Again, I’m on the bus. I’m on a
week of holiday, so today I decided I was going to head into town to explore
some and do a bit of geocaching. I park
in a car park and pay for a ticket. Fast
forward to when I arrive back at the bus.
Hmm…where’s the ticket I stuck to my windshield? It had fallen off of
the windshield so that it was no longer visible. And then I see the parking ticket under my
wipers. £90 fine! Thankfully, I still have the ticket I paid
for, so I will be appealing the fine. We’ll
see where that goes.
So yeah, it’s been hard here. But you know what? A lot of wonderful things have happened too. Like I mentioned, the residential brought out
a new side of the kids, and I feel a lot closer to them now. The cooking weeks are over, and I’m extremely
thankful that I was able to do them with another person. It allowed me to get a feel for how it’s done
without everything being on my shoulders.
And the video? I think it turned
out exceptionally. I am extremely proud
of myself for the job that I did.
Probably more so than I should be but whatever.
The day that I sat in the bus for hours beating myself up
was odd. I think I needed that time
sitting there alone. I had nothing at
all to do during those hours except think, and it wasn’t until the end that I
figured it out. That time was like a metaphor
for most of my life. I’ve always been
WAY too hard on myself. The mistakes I
make are carried with me long after anyone else involved has already forgotten
about them. But not me. For whatever reason, I have to “punish” myself
by mentally berating myself. That way, I
won’t do it again (which I do anyway). I
know that I do this, and I know that I shouldn’t. So I’m sitting in the cold, dark bus, and
here’s my revelation: Mistakes happen. Duh-duh-DUHHH! I don’t know, but I feel like maybe this time
it will stick with me a bit more.
Hopefully, I’ll be a little bit nicer to myself. I found a quote awhile back that fits with this
perfectly: “And on those days when I am
really down and kicking myself, I have to tell myself, ‘Hey, be nicer to my
friend.’” (I don’t know who said it. It
just wasn’t me.)
There have been so many more moments when I can feel God lifting
me up. In the middle of one of my tough
weeks, I had told my mom that I just wanted a hug. And wouldn’t you know it, the next day at work,
I walk in to see the kids, and they jump up and nearly tackle me with
hugs.
After sitting in the cold bus for hours, I was shivering
uncontrollably. The man from the fuel
evacuation service was so positive and let me sit in his vehicle to warm up while
he was working. Man, did I like that
guy!
Well, I have tons more stories and things to talk about, but
I’m tired of writing. Ta-ta for now!
P.S. I tend to skip words when I write, and I didn’t feel
like proofreading. I hope you’ll excuse the mistakes (that’s a life lesson
right there!).
