Hellofa Day

This post published on January 4th, 2022, but was started sometime in October, 2021. I'm not sure of the exact day. 

 Today was a wild ride. It was emotional, tense, and hectic from start to finish. There are a lot of big things happening. 

I woke up at 5:30 unwilling to wake up. I think it was a text that woke me, which annoyed me. I realized that I had forgotten to get coffee, and tried to think of when I was going to get a chance to get it. This was not a day to start without coffee. Anyway, it went something like this: 

6:15 finally got my ass out of bed. I was feeling sick already. 

7:15 made breakfast for A. and I. I actually had a decent breakfast, which was a fruit smoothie, 2 small pancakes, and some eggs. They were left over from A's Ihop trip with her dad over the weekend. They still tasted decent. 

7:45 Left for the pod house. I told A. on the way about the move. She started crying, buried her face in her hands, and told me she wouldn't go. I could not make her move. She would not leave the pod. She wanted to know why we needed to move. I told her her dad wanted more time with her and I had gotten a really good job offer. She asked me, bitterly, what kind of position I had been offered. I gave her the name and knew it didn't mean anything to her. She told me I had gone to the dark side. She told me my current job would ask for me back and we would just keep going back and forth. We got to the pod house and gathered all the kids. They thought they were in trouble. I told them in less than 3 sentences. One of them sneered and growled at me as if she was going to lunge at me and bite me. The oldest girl cried. The youngest wanted to know if they could visit. We asked the kids if they had any other questions, then they went to a park. 

8:15 I arrived at the radio station to do a spot on my departure, and any other random things the host wanted to talk about. There was a dark cloud hanging over the entire community due to the loss of a 4 year old girl a few days earlier. She had gotten swept away in the flooded river and there were numerous search parties looking for her. I talked with the host for a good half hour, and faced the uncomfortable question of why I was leaving, trying to be positive. After the show another host came to tell us that the girl's remains were found. You could feel that the community was heartbroken. It is a very small place, and nearly everyone is connected in some way. 

9:15 I finally got a chance to stop at the coffee shop. Sitting there, of course, was a lady who I had sat on another non-profit board with and whom I had really pissed off. She was polite but terse. I don't blame her. I dropped the ball on many of my duties the past year. I didn't even realize I was dropping it, that's how overwhelmed and out of it I was. She was mad and she had the right to be. Naturally, a girl who had worked for me briefly was there as well. She had left mad because I did not pay her the same as someone with twice the education and experience. She was pregnant with her 3rd child. She was also polite, we exchanged the obligatory niceties, but I could feel her coldness. Yuck. I left and went to the office. 

At the office there was a real funk hanging over the office. I could tell something was wrong with one of our people, and the other was either upset or reacting to the atmosphere in the room. I sat down and did my best to concentrate on my list of things to do. I knocked things out until about 3, then met with the upset employee. She broke down and cried as the result of stress, partly related to the situation with the other non-profit where I had dropped the ball. Apparently it had ended up in her lap and she was experiencing some real anxiety about it. I apologized for the issues she was having to deal with and asked if there was anything I could do to help. She had a whole list of things that needed to be done by the board. She has no idea how deep the disfunction goes in this community. I envision that maybe a quarter of the things she identified will be put into place, eventually. 

Oh yes, before her a donor came in and said that he had not gotten a thank you letter. Shit. I pritned it off for him and apologized. 

Other members of the staff were sullen and withdrawn. I think my move somehow broke their trust. I feel like shit.