I figured I'd get away with titling this post with the month, since it looks like I'll be posting about once a month.
If that means I only have something to rant about once a month, perhaps that's a good thing, rather than me being a lazy blogger.
So this week has been an interesting one. On Thursday I turned 32, I spent some more time with a really nice girl I met recently, and I've had a pretty tiring week at work.
I started out spending this Family Day (a long weekend's Monday holiday for non Ontario/Alberta residents reading this :-) ) alone, ironically, and while I was trying to have a relaxing "me day", which I haven't had for a while, with volunteering to work at the Sandra Schmirler telethon in Montreal, and at the Canadian Ski Marathon over the last couple of weekends, I couldn't really relax.
I just didn't feel right, and I couldn't work out what it was. It wasn't my usual depression or anxiety, I've pretty much got those under control these days, and know what they feel like, it was something else. I finally worked out what it was, and it's guilt.
I feel guilty, primarily for things that I haven't done recently. Mulling it over for the last few hours, I realised that it probably stems from my usual depression and lack of motivation, and some is from being tired for having worked without any downtime recently, but those are pretty must just excuses, and shouldn't be justification.
I feel there's a lot of things I should have been doing recently but haven't, through procrastination, and I've been neglecting people who are important to me. I think it's because there's so many things I've not done, that it's all sort of piled up, and it's got to the point I can't pretend I don't notice anymore.
In no particular order, these things include:
There are people who I've not expressed my appreciation to as well as I should, and not just recently.
Telling people we should catch up, with intentions of doing so because I really do want to see more of people I've drifted apart from, and becoming reacquainted properly, but not making a proper effort to organise anything.
Failing to make it to events which have been organised and I said I'd attend, either through double or triple booking myself, or simply forgetting, making me an unreliable person.
Not getting in contact with people to thank them properly for things they've done for me in the last few months, from the people who welcomed me in for Christmas, and coming out to my birthday, giving me cards and gifts, to caring about my personal welfare and checking in with me to make sure things are ok.
I realise I've also been a bit selfish and inconsiderate recently, by taking advantage of other people's kindness and generosity, and not giving back as much as I feel I should, or by inadvertently taking advantage of of situations through misunderstandings.
I also feel like I've not been functioning 100% at work, and I've been short and snappy with my co-workers, which isn't good when we have a lot of work that needs to be done at the moment, and I think everyone is feeling some stress, and I'm not helping us work properly as a team.
I feel like I'm dropping the ball all over the place in regards to responding to people properly, and I know I can't keep doing it because people will get fed up and not have time for me, as I know I don't have much tolerance for people that don't respond to me, but this is making me realise that I perhaps should be a bit more tolerant than I am.
So in short, I'd like to say both sorry, and thank you.
I'd like to say thank you to all the people who do nice things for me. Invites you've given to events, hospitality you've provided me, caring you've expressed, and generosity you've shown.
I'm sorry for not being as good of a person as I'd like to think I am. I'm going to make an effort to fix this. Any extra patience you can show me while I do this would be much appreciated, even if I don't make that shown as much as I should :-)
I realise that writing this post doesn't fully resolve all the things that I feel guilty about, and doesn't allow me a way to avoid doing things properly. I'm just hoping it will buy me some time to do that, and to let people know that I now see I've been a bit of a douche recently, and that I feel bad about it.
