Drowning

When you're drowning, you don't say “I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,” you just scream.
John Lennon

I feel like I’m drowning.  And I can’t even scream.  No one would hear me scream.  No one is here.

Somehow I’ve managed to saddle myself with three different jobs.  I can barely keep it together enough to know where I’m going when.  One job, the one I’ve had the longest, is going well.  Only one day a week is it challenging beyond the point of coping.  Just one little boy who makes me want to scream.  And I can’t even fully blame him because there is some learning disability or some mental illness that is effecting him, even if no one in his family will admit it.

At another job, similar to the first, I’m working with children.  This more or less ties with the third job for being the hardest.  This one is hard because its with children who are only separated from their mother for a few hours a month.  And, of course, during those few hours, I am the bad guy who refuses to let them to their mother.  I’m the bad guy because I refuse to open doors and let them run amuck while attempting to find their mother three doors down having a meeting of their own trying to cope with the fact that they have children who aren’t of age to go to school yet.

All the kids I work with are pretty good.  There are a few trouble makers, but I’ve been in the routine long enough to sort it out and prepare for it, mostly.  The hardest part is at both jobs we’re short staffed.  There just aren’t enough moms who want to spend their day with everyone else’s screaming children.  They’d rather have the escape from their own child for a few hours and leave us with the headaches of children they have daily.

I hate separation anxiety.

My third job, I’m working with adults.  I work at a shipping store, boxing up things and sending them across the street, across the country, or across the world.  It’s a good job, really, it’s just a lot to comprehend.  I’m getting frustrated.  I’m screwing up.  And then I’m patted on the head and told “its okay, you’re just learning” and I’m sick of it.  If I make a mistake, I want to be told, and learn from it.  I just keep repeating the same stupid ones over and over again.

I want to be able to figure out what I’m doing by now.  Yes, I’ve only worked there for two weeks, but I feel like I ought to have accomplished something in that time period.  I feel like I ought to at least be able to remember a single phrase to promote our discount of the day.  I ought to remember that, while it seems overkill, even a box of books needs styrofoam peanuts on all sides.

I’m stressed at work.  I’m stressed at each one of my jobs.  I want to just hide from people sometimes; take a moment to breathe.  I’m dashing from one job to the next, often working two, if not all three, of my jobs each day.  By the time I make it home, I’m too exhausted to have any “me” time.

I’m drowning.  And I can’t even scream.