Pep Talk

Today seems less fraught with sadness and angst than yesterday, but I’m still feeling down and kind of over-sensitive. Generally, I do not like the term over-sensitive. People are as sensitive as they are and if they feel especially sensitive, that’s life. It’s like the Doctrine of the Eggshell Plaintiff that you learn in your first year of Law School in Torts. If you are a Victorian Gentleman and tap someone on the shin on purpose with your cane and that person happens to have Brittle Bone disease and ends up with multiple fractures, you are liable for the injury. You take your plaintiffs as they come, not as you would wish them to be. If that’s true in the law, why do we go around blaming people for supposed oversensitivity to our barbs and jokes and comments?

I’m feeling “oversensitive” because I just finished a huge project at work that is currently being reviewed by the Brass Hats, as we refer to higher-up people in the federal government, the really tippy-top people in the Agency. No, I don’t work for the CIA, we all refer to our federal workplaces as The Agency. While they have relatively few comments on my work, I keep hoping to see some kind of little accolade in the Comments Section like “E-, this is so well-written and intensively researched. We are so lucky to have you at this Agency and surely we would not know what to do with ourselves if you had never been born and come to work here.” You know, some small crumb of praise thrown my way. A feel-good moment.

Yes, I know, I’m not four years old. I don’t need a plaque and an award and a ribbon every time I mangage to button my own clothes correctly. In general, I do feel people respond to praise and positive reinforcement better than criticism and negativity and I try to “supervise” that way although I don’t really supervise anyone right now. Except Polly the Beagle. And she runs me ragged. So I guess I’m not really qualified to say too much on this subject. But I always praised Sarah a lot and talked about all the things she could do. We had our heart-to-hearts in the early mornings when she was feeling anxious and we would discuss Big Feelings too and sometimes cry together, but I wanted her to feel good about her life and the world around her. School lunch in the cafeteria? Yum, so fun!!! Staying in a hotel for a week because of a power failure? We were having an adventure and could use the pool every day!

In the last couple of years of her life, she had some anxiety about her relationship with Daniel, her best friend/boyfriend from Sixth Grade up until she died. He was super loving and attentive with her but I think she had a lot of obsessional thoughts about the relationship and some jealousy and possessiveness over him. She would sometimes point to his pictures next to her bed and pull a sad face. Maybe he’d eaten lunch with other friends, or paid attention to another girl, I’m not sure. Max said that a friend of his from AA who also had a teenaged girl assured him this was typical girl behavior over teenage boys, but I felt bad for her. I gave her lots of pep talks.

I don’t know anymore if pep talks are such a good idea. I don’t want a pep talk right now about Sarah’s death, some crap about her being in a better place or God needing another angel. I can raise my mood for a little while but there’s no way to pep myself out of this.