Ultimate Passion

   A person can have a number of passions in their life, but sometimes you have to manage which ones you can fit into your life.

    I had a blow today. It really hit me by surprise. I had been wanting to switch from a very toxic work situation. I just wanted to work with people who treat me as a living human, not someone they regard as beneath any possibility of having any value. Of course they would never admit this to management, they have to keep an image. The attitudes towards me have just gotten tiresome. I thought there would be some hope to change from a particular work group, but unfortunately, that didn't happen. To be in this toxic situation I have used more brain power than imagine to figure this all out. But you can't change attitudes or insecurities of other people.

    Add in a false appearance that they are inclusive and helpful, just enough show for management, and you have a toxic work situation. The life and times of being in-between deaf-blind. Let's just keep the disabled quiet. We can bully them around, they don't matter, they are soft, they can't do anything to us. How can I be heard when they ignore my voice. Just bully me, keep me from anything that will allow me to grow. Just ignore her, the cries will go away. They don't care that my blood pressure has been up, my health has deteriorated, I have lost a lot of my memory from stress, I have no energy to enjoy life anymore. All stress from people who are toxic. Of course I could beat myself up, for letting such people have that much affect on me. But the amount of vision and hearing loss I have, enables them to keep information, interaction and support away.

      But today after finding out the news I couldn't change to a team that might treat me like I exist and that I really am a team member, I just cried. I cried so much my head hurt. I had to take aspirin and try to calm myself down. I did get some work accomplished, trying to focus on the task to not hurt my body from crying. My logic wasn't getting through to my emotions. The emotional pain of all these years is taking a toll on me. No one cares, they care to push me away.

       How can I survive in a workplace that no one will sit next to me at a Christmas work party? One year I just brushed it off. Another year, the same thing. Heads stretching to see if there were other seats. They look back, see the two empty seats on either side, you could see them do a slight nervous pace, then they decided to pull chairs from another area and sat at the end of the table. I can brush it off once, but when it happened again, I realized no one in my department is gracious enough or open enough to even get to know me.

         Even when we have our small parties, the food is placed in our conference room that echos and has florescent lighting that is so difficult to see under, t he flicker of light and spottiness, I can't see facial expressions. I can't tell if people are looking at me, or if they are looking at someone else while talking. When I sit down, if a person sits next to me, their body is shifted away from me, talking to the person on the other side of them. No one talks to me. This is not an exaggeration, people really do not speak with me or even want to engage in conversation. I try to follow eyes to see anyone looking at me that I could try to strike up a conversation, but always always turn away from me. Strong signal of avoidance.

          The irony of it all, is, they think I'm rude, but they have shaped this behavior in me. Who wants to be around people who will not sit next to you, engage in a conversation and turn from you? I just now get the food in the conference room and go back to my office. That awkwardness they emit.

          I am a human being just like anyone else. Out of the 25 places I have worked in my life, this one makes me feel more handicapped than any place I have ever been. Past employments were not perfect and there were issues. But now is the worst segregation I have ever felt in my life. No one cares, I"m just suppose to accept it.

        So trying to be changed on a team that I could feel like someone would talk with me was a huge hope. For two weeks, my stress level went down. I had hope. Maybe it was naive hope. But getting the news today that I would not be switched, crushed me. I can only try to rise above and say, it did happen for a good reason. Having cried all day, having a not-so-good exchange with my supervisor because I was more upset than I thought, I kept trying to find a good lesson in this.

       Coming home from work, I started to wonder. I need to see the positive in all of this. I need this experience to really work for me. Life was at a turning point since I had a few other blows earlier in the week happen too. It was time to think of solutions, reassess my life and start remembering what has been good in my life.

        I then started to think of the passions in my life. What makes me the happiest. Being with my dogs is one of them. But my teaching dog classes has slipped. Why? What happened to that passion. It has gone stale. I don't have the magic I once had to pull people in and make them feel good about how they are doing with their dogs. Wait a minute, having taught in a classroom and been a public speaker, I can handle this, but something was dull. Something happened.

         I thought deeper, what has made me the most happy? It was the time I was a park ranger. The six years I was a park ranger, it was like I found myself. Nothing has exhilarated me more than being a park ranger. Once I got over my fear of speaking in front of people, got over my fright, insecurities  and worked on perfecting my skill, together in 2006 when I was at Zion National Park. It took me six years to go through this transformation. To become the person I liked. It was like I really did find myself. Getting there was no easy and I had ups and downs with health issues, then at the end of my season at Zion, it started to come together. Like I have landed.

        But just as it took me 6 years to get there, it has been 6 years since I have done a park program. Slowly and surely my skills were deteriorating. Being in the negative toxic environment I am in now, I was loosing a little bit of my happiness every day. They were chipping away at me trying to mold me into their toxic ways, but I have resisted, trying to some how hang onto myself. Keep that special part of me hidden so they can't erode it away. The more I resisted, the more they tried to shape me. The fight. Oh please don't take the happy Christy away. But I fool them, I'm just being as outward, but I still have the integrity buried in there to be me. They just don't know it. I am worn, I am tired, I am burned out, but deep in there Christy is alive, just waiting for the right time to bring her out.

        It came to me, that I need to go to one of the local natural areas and start volunteering. It will save me. I need to start doing programs again to develop that sense of wonder again. See those eyes light up, see the wonder and the excitement. How I miss that so much. It is so addicting. Infectious to the point it becomes me and I can spread that positive energy to others. People forget I have a disability, they don't care because the passion and excitement is so strong, that pours out. They get involved with the nature around them and it doesn't matter if I'm different. Maybe a hard core person will be judgmental, but most will get in with the program and loose themselves in the fun. How I need to nourish myself with that again. Even if it means to cut back on my dog activities, I need to find that light again for others, and myself. When I can, I will be able to do great dog classes again. I need to let Christy know it is safe to come out again.