A Personal Light Bulb Moment

I finally admitted to myself something that I’ve known for pretty much my whole life but never had the courage to say out loud – especially not to myself.

I’m a perfectionist with an enfeebling fear of failure.

I fear failure so much that quite often I don’t even begin a project because I’m too terrified it will go wrong or I’ll make a mistake of some kind.

I reached a clear understanding of my “condition” with my recent fevered work search.

I’ve applied for many, many jobs – all within my wheelhouse, or at least expertise-adjacent – and while I have received about 90% of the “thank you, but we’re not hiring” or “thank you, but you’re not what we’re looking for” and (my favourite) “thank you, but we want US citizens only” responses, the other 10% have responded with “You sound perfect for this! Please complete our short entrance test/exam and we’ll see where you stand and where we can use you!”

I’ve completed two so far. Two.

I’m the queen of excuses; the duchess of rationalization; the empress of reasons to dilly-dally.

I’ve started another test; “set up” (by downloading the files and filling in the forms) for 3 others, but whenever I find the time my brain starts to look for excuses: I have no space on this tiny desk to work properly (the movers took our nice big table away, so husband and I are sharing this tiny rickety desk and we barely fit, even sitting on opposite sides of it); the glare on my screen is too much for me to accurately see what I’m typing; I’m tired; I’m restless and the dogs need me to… do something; the laundry needs folding; the kitchen needs cleaning; I can’t use my pedal correctly and it makes my legs or my back ache sitting at such a strange angle.

And the excuses just roll on in.

The thing that REALLY pisses me off is that once I START on something and get rolling and into it I’m just fine! I can churn out a great deal of excellent work when I focus!

I enjoy my work! I studied hard; I worked hard; I learned a great deal; I actually ENJOY the subjects I’ve trained for, and the other work is interesting as well because I CHOSE them specifically because it was something I knew about or was interesting in! It’s just getting over that “Well, what if I make a mistake? What if they don’t like my work? What if I do it wrong?” initial emotional mental blast, that’s what’s driving me nuts.

I even put off doing another entrance test today so I could write this blog post.

Ridiculous!

I can honestly partially blame this self-doubt on my head injury – because of the nature of head injuries, there was a long (YEARS) period where I couldn’t trust my eyes/ears/understanding. I would hear words that were not there, or not hear words that were. I would forget the meaning of the most basic, daily words. I would forget what I was saying AS I WAS SAYING IT. I would start something and completely forget what it was for. I couldn’t read because I would lose the story after about 3 lines.

I called the bank once to check on some strange activity on my account (which was not strange at all, but stuff _I_ had purchased) and about 1 minute after the lady started speaking to me, I forgot why I called. I could NOT remember.

As soon as I hung up… it came back to me.

But it’s been 14 years (end of this month) since my accident and I have made incredible progress in my recovery – built new neural pathways and discovered new ways of looking at things and doing things that I didn’t think I’d ever master again. I CANNOT hold the excuse up anymore. I am stronger than that; I am MORE than just a “survivor” of TBI.

 

The time has come to move on; to get over it, under it, or through it – whichever works.

Tomorrow is a new day and I must embrace it.

Counter the excuses, the ill-formed reasoning.

I must stop being afraid of making a mistake; stop being afraid of failure.

 

I can still strive for perfection, but not at the cost of efficiency or progress.

 

 

 

Difficult decisions, difficult times

The Vees Big Adventure is up in the air, free-falling, and we are devastated.

Due to circumstances beyond our control and unscrupulous RV dealers, the costs to repair the RV properly (despite us being told by the salesman AND the technician that it had a FULL check out and some “brand new” bits and pieces) are piling up at an alarming rate. The repairs could cost almost as much as the RV. The RV dealership basically told us to take a hike and read the documentation. Husband is reeling. We’re both reeling. Our savings is pretty much gone at this stage and we’re faced with some very difficult decisions.

I’m still struggling to find work, despite my certifications and practical experience. I’ve applied to more than 50 jobs and written at least 12 different entrance tests and been told: “we’ll get back to you.” The movers come to pack up our household goods tomorrow morning and remove it all the next day. We have to vacate the house within the week after that. Dogs still have to go to the vet for their annual checkups and vaccinations (always an expensive visit for all three). We still have to buy some things we really NEED for the RV in order for us to live in it and WORK in it, and these are NOT cheap.

We have nowhere to stay, no income, and no means of transporting the dogs and us across the country. The Jeep was going to be towed behind the RV because it still needs some work and we were going to do that in New Mexico, before heading to Oregon – we don’t know if it would make the trip being driven.

Husband has crunched numbers and no matter how he slices it we come out of it incredibly badly. Our hearts are broken.

This was going to be our big adventure – everything seemed so bright, so inviting, so promising. Husband could finally work on himself, instead of being at the whim of the military; I was going to finally be the breadwinner for a while and take some weight off his shoulders – I was looking FORWARD to it!

Everything just feels so soiled and broken thanks to these dishonest asshats at the dealership. Our dreams are crushed. There’s no more excitement, only a vague desperation to everything we now decide.

I take people at face value, and I’m the one who dealt with them right up until the day we drove the 4.5 hours to go fetch our Brave. We were SO excited. I give people the benefit of the doubt, always, and that’s my downfall, apparently. I treat people honestly, and I’m clearly under the misguided assumption that people would do the same for me. I am so wrong. I will never again trust anyone who has any kind of sway in my life when it comes to these kinds of things. My heart is crushed. I am so disappointed it makes my throat ache. I feel so responsible for the whole mess, which makes me feel quite sick.

I’m also angry. Seething, fuming, red-eyed, silent raging angry. (Unfortunately, when I get really angry I also tend to cry, which makes people take me less seriously and think I’m weak and pathetic. It’s infuriating.)

We have to get the RV repaired either way – whether we decide to try living in it and traveling up to Oregon and even if we want to sell it. So we’re screwed either way.

I’ve never been in such a hole of despair before. I’ve had moments close to it, but nothing like this where there’s just NO decision that leads to some sort of head-above-water for us both.

 

UNIVERSE, I NEED TO GET SOME WORK!

I don’t have to earn much for us to get by, but I have to get SOMETHING!

*Shakes fist*

 

*deep breath*

 

So, that’s our unfortunate tale – not even on the road yet and our adventure has hit major bumps and our lust for adventure is severely tarnished.

 

 

Irma versus The Vees

Alright! Just a quick update on our RV situation:

The RV centre finally got in touch on Friday and said our little Brave was ready for pickup – Monday afternoon! Hooray!

And then we put the phone down and looked at each other and realised Monday was also the arrival of Hurricane Irma in Georgia. What to do? We had a good think and a hearty discussion.

The RV centre is way up north and west and won’t be “touched” by Irma until late Tuesday, and Irma will no longer be a full-on hurricane by then (in theory) “only” a heavy depression. However, due to the timeline of our pickup and the storm, we’ve made the decision to head out that way (we will leave a good few hours before Irma hits the Georgia state line down below us) grab our RV, drop our rental car off (we didn’t think Daisy would be up for that kind of long drive, plus we wanted to BOTH be in the RV with the dogs – not have one of us driving behind) and head up further north to Tennessee to visit our good friend from Germany who is now living in the USA. He has space for us, the dogs, our RV, and lots to show us on his farm there. We can ride out the rest of the storm and get our first taste for RV living – probably a little bit safer than in Augusta too.

Just hope our home, and Daisy, hold up while we’re gone. We’ll batten everything down outside; unplug everything inside; take everything upstairs that can be moved and hope for the best.

I’ll take lots of photos and maybe some video too (to add to our YouTube channel, of course!) of this first big step in our Big Adventure!

You certainly can’t say The Vees do anything in half measures!

Photo courtesy of racingnews.co
Hurricane Irma – Sept 2017