Clematis

That's good, Kay. Glad to hear you had a nice time with Arlie. I appreciate this message you sent, and your ongoing support - it means a lot to me. Verklempt is a great word, huh? It says so much, but doesn't exactly fill in all the gaps. I am going through the motions without feeling the purpose most of the time. It seems like there is a possibility that I might feel really feel motivated some day and I am trying to keep my wheels on the track in case that happens. I feel motivated about little things, and get engaged in my work or this or that endeavor - it's just not part of a big picture...

I played the cello at a contra dance in Flagstaff tonight, driving up there in back in my dad's '93 Mercury Grand Prix. The dance was good...the best part was playing "Pig Ankle Rag". My dad's father loved ragtime music and as of late I have heard him coaching me on how to play rhythm for a rag. I am there playing the cello, and he played ragtime music on that banjo that my sister threatened to disown me over, but there he is in my ear urging me where to accent the rhythm. Pretty cool. Driving home from the dance I felt all verklempt in the car, remembering when he coordinated his move out west. He unloaded tons of stuff onto my sisters and sent along a stuffed moving van with the Mercury IN the van, while he flew across the country and worked during on the flight on a term paper for a class we were taking together online. I just wish I could start those ten years over. Looking back it seems so short. It was the best decade of my life. I knew that at the time, but it is even more clear now. He used to tell me things like, "Oh I bet you never knew what a burden I would be when you asked me to move out west..." I always told him that he was never a burden and it was the best thing I ever did in my life. It really was. But now I am so lost. More lost than I was before that decade. I don't get it.

You are probably right. It seems like it should be better by now, but I lost my dad and my best friend and my link with my family history and a lot more. My safety net is gone and also that cozy feeling of having someone who was always on my side... Last night my neighbor told me that she might be moving to Reno to live near family and it just seemed like too much. We have become very close and I would really be alone without her. Today she told me that she was having a really bad night and she really does want to stay here...

I've really been thinking about my dad a lot lately...maybe it's because of leaving my job and things feeling so uncertain. I sure miss him. I keep thinking about all the little things that he used to do, things he said all throughout my life, things he did and what it felt like being around him. Sometimes it feels like I am back at the beginning again and I'm not sure why. Partly due to the uncertainty and changes and partly due to my friend Greg being in Texas with his dad, who seems unlikely to recover from his slow decline. I don't know... I remember a few weeks after he died having a dream that he walked in the door and wanted to know why I was giving away his stuff and what would he do without it. Since he died I recovered from a car accident, combined our household stuffs into my small condo, got a new job and held onto in for a year. I set up my condo with mostly his furniture, in a mirror image of his condo when he was here. Sometimes late at night I feel like I am in his condo and he could appear as in the dream. Sometimes I feel like everything is gone. Sometimes it feels like nothing really matters at all..

We finally got through that one. Michael the SpEd director - the guy who mercifully separated me from my job - is trying to stir the pot and trip me up any way he can. I got through the situation above...it all worked out in spite of Michale's interference. I have generally found that if you act in the best interest of the child, you are doing what the parent wants and the teachers think is best it will all work out. Michael is trying every way he can think of to trip me up during the time I have left, in spite of the reality that I am really busting a gut doing my absolute best to serve the district, help the kids, and complete my obligations during the remainder of my contract. Mercifully, he is leaving the country on vacation for two-and-ai-half weeks. He'll be gone from Monday May 7 until Wed May 23. I have off work every Wednesday from now on, and my last day is May 25. Time to start counting the days, I think. Pretty soon I will be able to count them on my hands. Twelve days left!!! Yay!!!

I know what you mean. Everything changes. My mother died in 2005 and I was afraid my dad would follow her. I coaxed him out west and we had ten good years together before he died in 2016. My beloved aunt died two months after my dad. I thought my mother's death would straighten out the twisted nature of the family dynamics and was kind of relieved, even though I loved her and missed her. Things seemed ok with my sisters while my dad was alive, but after his death I realized that my mother's narcissism had been passed onto my sisters and they had been making nice with me so that I would persuade my dad to send them money. Once he was gone they didn't seem to have much use for me. Suddenly it was like my entire family was gone once my dad died. Losing him was devastating enough but being all alone was too much. Things have improved a little, and the sister I was never close to before is making some efforts to be civil and maybe even a little friendly. They were both really angry with me after Daddy died, mostly about things that had nothing to do with me as well as that they thought they should have gotten more money. It was all really terrible. There are so many stories here and everywhere about families falling apart after a death, people doing crazy things to each other over money after someone dies, and so on. While I was handling my dad's affairs after he died I would tell people about the icky and awful things my sisters did and said to me, and over and over people would say, "oh, you're the executor, huh?" One sister in particular went particularly crazy over the money. Naturally she was the only one of the three of us that had ever been comfortable; she married two men with money and during the years in between when she had to work she managed to loosen over $100K from my dad by lying to him. She ended up getting about that much less in the end and assumed that was my doing. I have also found that I don't really enjoy the things I used to as much as when my dad was alive. Things seem flat somehow. It's been two years and I miss him every day. He was my best friend and always had my back. He was always on my side no matter what, and was always interested in what I had to say. I remember him telling me when I was in high school, "No one will ever love you as much as your parents..." but I realized eventually that he was really talking about himself. I miss so many things about him. I miss him every day. It's hard to believe that all of those memories are all there will ever be...I know what you mean. For me it's been over two years and I'm still devastated...It's not as bad as the first year. Things do change. Hang in there!

That is sure the truth, and the year is ending in the same way it has gone all along - sweating bullets. I have been trying to complete an evaluation for a girl, but it seems to have turned into a game of "monkey-in-the-middle"/keepaway. The SpEd director (who should not even be involved) was very engaged in stirring the pot, working with the principal to get me to start this evaluation over, until I pointed out that his plan was illegal. Meanwhile the principal has been busy working with the teachers -and probably the parent - in some back-biting recreation of what actually happened. Sounds like monkey-in-the-middle, huh? And the SpEd director tells me that I have not been a team player in all this. I think if he engages the team in playing monkey-in-the-middle, with me as the monkey, it is impossible for me to lead the team because he has organized the team to play against me. We started with a meeting on Jan 30 for this girl, and legally were to have completed the process with a second meeting within 60 days. The parent cancelled the meeting on March 29 and no one told me what happened or who canceled. It took me weeks to figure it out. Since then the parent does not return my calls as I try to re-set the meeting. There was an alleged 30-day extension (which never was obtained or signed as it turns out). Now it is seriously out-of-compliance late, and the SpEd director is getting nervous. He figures the parent will sign everything and we should just backdate it all. The SpEd coordinator tried to help fix this by setting up a meeting on April 30 and giving me a 30-day extension to have the parent sign (backdated), but the teachers were on a walkout and there was no school. Now, the coordinator is out of town for a week and we 90+ days out on a 60 day process and the parent won't talk to me about setting up a meeting; she sent me a text saying I should email her with any questions or information. Meanwhile I have a huge load of other evaluations I am desperately trying to complete before the end of the school year and this is starting to look unrealistic. All the energy I have used on this one has taken time away from the others... Ultimately, the person who will suffer the consequences of all this is the SpEd director, because the district gets dinged for every evaluation that is not completed within 60 days. The law is written in such a way that the kids shouldn't suffer because ultimately the grownups will have to get it together or they will have legal consequences. As for me, I suppose I should stop sweating bullets because I have been kept from doing my job, and just do what I can reasonably do. If some of these evaluations that I have tried so desperately to complete are incomplete at the end of the year when my contract is complete, the district will be in a pickle. They then could contract with me to complete the work (probably paperwork at that point - that would be hard for someone else to do) after the end of the school year if they desired to complete the processes. Or not... I suppose ultimately this is Michael the SpEd director's bearing the consequences of his own monkey-business. Why am I sweating bullets?

Thanks Kay and Marty! I think things are going to be ok. I passed my clinical interview and the review of paperwork and just need to provide them with references and sign a contract. We have an appointment to talk this morning, and it will be a good opportunity to ask questions. I am very excited about this opportunity but since it is very different than anything I have ever done, there are a lot of unknowns.

I have been going through the interview process with a company that does online evaluations and therapy. I have done two preliminary phone interviews, a "tech check" to see if my computer and internet service will work with their system, and a writing assignment. Today I had my "clinical interview" by video, and I think I knocked it out of the park. Near the end I told the interviewer that I was hoping to be able to tell my former professor and one of the authors of the test kits I use most frequently that I was going to be involved with this company. They are the only company that is authorized to administer these tests online and I would be thrilled to be able to tell her this. The interviewer responded, "Oh you will - you will be able to tell her that", and added that the only thing left was to look at my writing. I think they'll be happy when they see my writing. When it was my turn to ask questions, I asked the interviewer what they were looking for in a candidate and she essentially described me! They want people who are experienced, seasoned professionals and mature people. They also need people to be comfortable with high tech operations and to be flexible - to be able to go into a variety of settings with schools that may really be struggling, and just do the work we are there to do. She also had a couple of other comments that really sum up how I approach evaluations. She also was really pleased that I am an LCSW as well as a school psychologist, and willing to get credentialed in other states. She told me that the fact that I was able to do counseling would stabilize my income; the psychological evaluations are somewhat sporadic, but the counseling is more steady, since it is ongoing. It was very exciting, and the best part about it was that she seemed to think she had hit the jackpot in finding me. After having been treated like something to be thrown out with the garbage, that felt really nice.

I think you're right. It makes sense that a principal would figure that the SpEd director should be an expert on the law and if there was a difference of opinion between him and a school psychologist, one might figure that he was right and go with that rather than believing the school psychologist who is leaving anyway. It may have been unnerving for her to run into this situation where she sided with him in trying to make me do something that is redundant (and therefore unnecessary) as well as do it by an illegal path. I am unable to do this thing for them given my load, but given the redundancy and legal questions, she chose the wrong person to side with. Sorry - that is not my fault. But she almost had her position eliminated and is probably feeling rather shaky...

It has been just horrible. It seems like much of the staff has their sights set on my head and I am found to be the blame for everything imaginable. There is so much incompetence, and everyone is also very stressed by the end of the year, an upcoming strike and the unknown of the near future schedule - or lack thereof, and everything else that has gone wrong. I went to a meeting this afternoon at the elementary school and the principal I wrote about earlier just glared at me. On top of it there were other problems. The Gen Ed teacher was disgruntled because she hadn't been properly notified, the OT hadn't gotten the message at all about the meeting and we were barely able to get her there at the last meeting, and the SpEd teacher/service coordinator Edna was particularly upset that she hadn't been notified properly about the meeting. I just kept apologizing that everyone didn't have more notice. After I went home it occurred to me that Edna is the SERVICE COORDINATOR and she was really the person who was supposed to be coordinating all of this, making sure that the related service providers were notified, and working closely with the Gen Ed teacher and myself. But Edna has taken to doing less and less, while I have helped her and covered for her. And whose fault is it that she did absolutely nothing on this one? Well, it is my fault, naturally. And everyone is so used to Edna doing nothing they don't look to her but to me. When I thought about it, I realized that I have totally forgotten what it is like to work with a real special ed teacher who really knows what they are doing to the degree that they could work effectively in a team with a school psychologist. Then, after that meeting I went to a meeting at the middle school and the people were so nice to me I was dumbfounded. The principal was very sweet, the SpEd teacher was helpful, people participated with enthusiasm, no one was glaring or withholding or playing stupid games or anything else. There were some rough spots, but everyone worked together to get things done. It makes such a difference to go to a meeting where people are working together for the common goal of helping the student - rather than working together to trick/trap the school psychologist. After the meeting two of the participants made a point of saying what a nice job I did at the meeting - and at the meeting before that as well. It was amazing!

Thanks! I have SO much real work to do - evaluating kids who really need the evaluations. I need to focus on them and not let Michael drive me crazy or distract me in his effort to win this battle - to force me to do something impossible and inappropriate. I have already evaluated this girl and redoing the evaluation in an inappropriate way that the team rejected in the first place is counterproductive. He is using the ignorance of the principal to get her to align with him. The whole situation makes me feel like my head is going to explode and it is very distracting. I am trying to get as much real work done as possible before I leave and don't want to be thrown off of that. It feels like he is trying to force me to my knees and submit to his will and it has nothing to do with helping the kids. I am trying to keep my head down and avoid him, but I feel like there is a huge psychic force being leveled at me from him and it's hard to ignore.

My coworker's reaction to all this...I almost fell out of my chair laughing!

It's been pretty stressful at work lately, and to complicate things further, the teachers are about to strike in AZ and the schools are closing for at least one day. I have TONS of work to do and I have this other rats nest that makes me feel like my head is going to explode. At one of my schools there is a student who has one of the most horrible abuse histories I have ever heard of and understandably she has severe behavior problems at school. We met at the end of January to get permission to assess her and the principal wanted to do an FBA (Functional Behavior Assessment), which is a clunky awkward process to figure out why a student is "acting up" in the classroom. I proposed that we do IQ and academic testing because ti sounded like she probably had such an extreme variance in her abilities that she was even more anxious (this is common in gifted people with severe deficits (I was right). I also suggested that since we already knew why she was acting up in class, that we do a clinical assessment, mostly by interview, whereby I would talk to her foster mother, therapist, teacher, etc. to see what I could discover. Her DCS worker (and legal guardian with the state) agreed with me, stating that an FBA was really meant for severe autism, conduct disorder, etc., and was really inappropriate for this girl. When we had the second meeting - to talk about the results- someone canceled the meeting, but no one would tell me by whom or why. It took me weeks to figure it out and get the meeting with all its participants re-set. But the principal isn't happy. Apparently, no one was paying attention at the first meeting, when the team decision was to NOT do the FBA. She insists we have to do it anyway, and even though she was the one leading the "monkey in the middle" or keep-away game a month ago when the meeting was supposed to occur, she is angry with me because this is nor her biggest priority (and she messed it up). So she goes to the SpEd director Michael, the guy who worked so hard to separate me from my job, and he tells her that I absolutely WILL do the FBA, even though I told both of them there was no time and I could not do it. His latest is to respond to her that an FBA is part of the social/emotional assessment that we got permission for and therefore I had to do it. I called the SpEd dept at the Department of Education and they told me that I was right and they are wrong. We have to get a separate consent signed for an FBA, which starts a new evaluation process, for which there is not enough time before the end of the school year. And I am way too busy anyway to take this on. So Michael is determined determined to force me to do this FBA, which is redundant (we already have the information we would get), inappropriate, impossible, and illegal. And he keeps assuring the principal that I am going to do it, while I keep telling both of them that I am not. And this poor girl and her foster mother are caught in the middle all this. It really blows me away. The principal told me over and over that FOUR people at the meeting thought we got permission, while it was only me that was saying that we didn't get consent. Me and my little piece of signed paperwork. Four people...don't they teach critical thinking to teachers? How many people were there who thought the world was flat or that no one would ever fly in an airplane. (More than four).

I think you are right. Part of the reason this has been so traumatic is that I went through the same thing in another district; the SpEd director, STG, did the same thing to me. I think I have PTSD from it, but also more awareness that this can happen. I had no real allies there either, thought people were my friends who turned out to be making up stuff and reporting it to STG, and so on. STG had a real affinity for the underdog, the disabled, the incompetent, etc. She also liked men. She had no problem with me when I started. I was fresh out of school and floundering, as I was the only school psych and had no one to help or advise me. I figured it out and by February of that year was all caught up and on top of things. Within a week of when I had caught up, she started actively bullying me. STG had a pattern of hiring competent women from out-of-town, and then trying to dismantle them. She would try to bully them into quitting them mid-year and if they didn't leave she would work at rearranging positions and reshuffling the work so that this person's job was eliminated. She spent two years trying to bully me into quitting and then tried to eliminate the position for two years. The first year the board told her that everyone knows it costs more and not less to contract professional services like the school psychologist's work. The second year, the board had changed and they didn't know what they were doing and so they opted for contracting the work. It was a four-year nightmare for me. But not long after I left, someone figured out how to get rid of her and since then she has bounced around all over the place. She never gets in more than one year anywhere. Then, this current year, she ended up as a SpEd teacher in the same district where I have worked. Not only did she butt heads with the SpEd director here (no surprise - they are both extreme narcissists), but she apparently had a year from hell. A school that had been a delightful little school with no big problems had five high-needs really difficult kids transfer into that school and she had a room with all five of them. I know another teacher had a really bad year because she had three of these difficult kids in her mix, and STG had FIVE of them. It was clear a long time ago that they were going to get rid of her...and she had had fantasies that she would manage to be promoted to be the SpEd director here. Anyway, I believe you are right, and I have believed that for a long time... that Karma takes care of things and I don't need to get mixed up in it. I think I will be ok. Truthfully, I really only need to get through a few years and I will be good. When I lost my position in 2009, I was terrified because I was a LONG way from retirement and had no idea how to get contract work and had no contacts. Now I have contacts and an idea how to get work. In 2009, my dad helped me enormously, at sometimes carrying me entirely, as I struggled to find any work I could, tried nursing school, taught ukulele lessons, did medical social work for a home health care agency, and so on. My dad promised to not let me drown and he was true to his word. By the time the economy had recovered a bit and I had found work again, I had LOTS of more skills and a much stronger bond with my dad, which continued to the end of his life and beyond. I had to learn to trust and depend on him, and a gradual change happened where he had to trust and depend on me. I miss him every day even though I feel him with me... I think that's wise. Last night I was wishing I had someone to advise me, but I think I figured out the right thing in the end. Leaving the trail as clean as possible - I like that and think you're right. The Twilight Zone... that sounds familiar. When I was working for STG and after I was forcibly separated from my job there, I was angry and bitter and I talked about it ALL the time. Eventually I realized that any one I knew fell into one of three groups: they were still working with/for her and were afraid to get involved, they had escaped working for her and didn't want to get pulled back into the negativity by hearing about it from me, or most frequently they had no idea who she was and the things she did and said sounded SO crazy it made me sound crazy to even talk about it.

When I was given the results of my evaluation and the news that the district would not be renewing my contract, they told me that I could respond to it in writing and that would be filed with the evaluation. I have pondered this over the last nine days, but couldn't figure out if it was worse to say nothing or to protest. I finally decided to say nothing. If anyone ever read it and actually looked at it carefully along with my resume, it makes no sense. And also, I did in the end resign. I guess that's ok like it is. When I finally started to write, anything I wrote looked kind of crazy. Somehow defending oneself against crazy illogical stuff makes a person look crazy, it seems, and there is no way to say anything without it being excessively lengthy as well as seeming whiny and defensive. So I decided to not write anything. I think it would somehow make me look worse. Nevertheless I feel angry about the injustice and kind of feel embarrassed and humiliated at being separated from my job. But I didn't do anything wrong. I guess I shouldn't really say anything to people at work either...just say that I resigned and am going back to doing contract work. I told a few people this today and of course no one questioned this at all. Who would stay there in a job like that when they could make more money in less time with far less aggravation doing contract work? I still feel badly about it all, but there really isn't a single person who feels badly for me about it. Other than myself. And that will probably change once I find something else. Or a few of them... I called the guy I worked with before - I did contract work for him for five years before taking this job the last year; he was delighted to hear from me and said he was fairly sure some things would be opening up this next year. Nice to hear he was happy about the prospect of getting me back. Also, I have a phone interview with a company that does evaluations and therapy over the internet. That might be good - it sounds interesting, anyway. I could be a stay-at-home cat mom. Just stay right here and work at home over the computer, while Lena lounges in the chair next to me. Or maybe do that part time and work for the guy I did before part time - like one or two days a week...

Awww- How adorable! I love the kitten picture with the tiny paws steadying the bottle and hand. My cat Lena does that when I’m holding a treat for and it always touches my heart to have her little paws reach out to my hand. That is such a young age to lose a pet. It’s terrible at any point, but that is really sad. I feel for you. When you lose a pet or any loved one after many years you lose your friend of all those years...and the longer you’ve been together the deeper the relationship is. But when you lose someone after so few years, you lose the potential of all of what might have been and that is really hard.

I have been thinking about this. A Special Ed director is in a unique position in education. Most of the school system seems like a goldfish bowl, but most people aren't very interested in what we do or how we do it. They just want those struggling kids out of their rooms as much as possible. No one is really looking and even if they are, they don't really understand what they are looking at. One needs to have a certain amount of information to understand what is going on. Therefore, the SpEd director has a tremendous amount of power to do whatever they want with no repercussions because no one is aware of it. I may even try to meet with him after the school year is over. Or maybe I will run into him and can have a word with him. I just want to make sure that I meet with him alone.

Definitely a help; I felt relieved when I was told they were not renewing my contract. I felt badly that the superintendent, who was the one who was pulled in to tell me this news, is a good-hearted guy that I have always good feelings towards and from. I'm sure he has no idea what has gone on and what the situation is; he is merely supporting his administrator in an administrative decision; he wasn't part of the process and he is unfamiliar with the details. I feel badly about that. It's hard to go in to work - I feel really uninspired. Other than that, the future is a little uncertain but I fail optimistic about things. I'm finding my way through things, including this workman's comp puzzle. Thanks for your support, all of you. It really means a lot and has been very helpful.

Yeah...I seem to suddenly have a suboptimal attitude towards work... I wish I could stay home and enjoy Lena and the flowers.

Anyone know anything about Workman's comp? I went to the ER and they said to follow up with a doctor in Phoenix who has the same last name as my local doctor but a different first name. They said that was a mistake, but that is what my ER discharge papers say. I got a big packet of paperwork from the workman's comp adjuster and asked her about how to follow up on the ER visit and she said that the only approved places in town are the ER and Urgent Care. I asked her if I can go to my own doctor and she said only if he will bill workman's comp. I called and asked the person who does billing if they will do that and she said probably not or some fuzzy negative like that. I am still having neck pain and stiffness from this injury - from the kid hitting me in the head. When I look down - like at something at a table of a desk, I get a headache that doesn't go away with Ibuprofen as most all of my headaches have always done. I think this has triggered the head/neck injury from the car accident 22 months ago. I can't figure out what to do. The adjuster told me that if I do nothing within a 30 day period, the case will be closed and so I have about ten days to figure this out and go somewhere of I will have to deal with it on my own. Should I go back to the E.R. and get them to straighten out the paperwork? They are about1/2 mile from my office. Should I email my doctor and make sure what I was told was correct? Just go see him? Call the adjuster back and question her some more? Make an appointment with my chiropractor? I'm sure they will bill workman's comp... Should I do all of these things?

May 25

Thank you, Kay, for your wise and thoughtful comments. Looking back, it seems clear that my supervisor was never too keen on me from the beginning. He did hire me, but he didn't have a lot of choice. There was only one other applicant and the other person wanted a lot more money than the district would pay. I actually think he might be more comfortable with someone who was fresh out of school than a seasoned professional. I think he found me intimidating. I don't take things at face value, and can recognize half-truths, illogical conclusions, and things that aren't thought out rather easily. This would include most of what he says and writes. I was polite and respectful, but never obsequious, which seems to be what he wants and needs. Nevertheless, he is not really my concern or my problem at this point. I need to figure out what to do about my evaluation. I can leave it as it is, or write a response to it. I don't want to write anything to extensive or too extreme, but I feel uncomfortable about leaving it stand alone. I would like to optimize my likelihood of doing any contract work that is possible with this district - being paid per evaluation (independent contractor via 1099) in the future. I am thinking that if I write something that simply straightens out a few things without protesting too much, it would good. He won't be there much longer and they are likely to need contract work done in the future. They may not be able to fill my position and all of that work would be contract work. In the future, if there is a new special ed director, if they went to look at my file to see why I left, I would like to make a few points from my perspective as to what happened. I did high quality evaluations and my writing was excellent, but I was boxed into a double bind of either being seen as insubordinate or following directives to not adequately communicate with parents, even though following his direct orders was against my clinical judgement. I was criticized harshly in my evaluation for doing what I was told. Meanwhile, I woke up this morning and ran some calculations about what I have been making as compared to what I could be making - and was making before - as an independent contractor. If I worked two days per week at the kind of work I did before, I would make about exactly as much as my current take home plus the value of my insurance. Three days of work per week would bring me one-and-a-half of my current income. That would be good. There is also a company that does online evaluations and therapy. I could work online and not even have to drive anywhere. I saw a mug that said, "I just want to be a stay at home cat mom". Perhaps this is my future...

My mother died 11 years before my dad, and I coaxed him into moving from PA to AZ to be with me. We had ten good years together - just me and him and my cat Lena - and I was devastated when he died. I remember a really vivid dream a few months after he died...in the dream he was alive and suddenly came home from the hospital, demanding to know why I was getting rid of his stuff and what was he going to do without this and that. It was really unsettling, but it was just a dream and the way I was processing his death and handling of his affairs. I was afraid that he would die within a year of her death, as many older men do after their wife of many years dies. I spent a ton of time talking on the phone with him before he moved and then spent most of my time off work with him once he was in AZ and living in a condo less than two minutes from mine. I was really trying to keep him alive. I remember thinking for awhile that he might find another woman to be with and people used to tell me that my dad really should find a new partner as if I was supposed to facilitate that. But eventually he told me that he really had no interest in anyone else after my mother, and that relationships are more work than he was willing to devote. So we just settled into being there for each other. We became very close from spending so much time together, and that made the time sweeter but the loss deeper. I also was very isolated after his death. I had spent all of my time with him and hence had really no friends that lived near me. I have built some relationships since his death, and that is good.

I wake up feeling angry and frustrated. I tried so hard to make things work in my job - to accomplish a massive amount of serious work while figuring out the lay of the social landscape and how to be successful there. I think I totally failed at this last part. I took people to be my friends that were actually working against me, and I ended up alone because I failed to figure out what was really going on beneath the surface. Now I am wondering what I could have done differently. I am honest and straightforward, and tend to figure that others are doing the same. I have never understood this kind of thing and it trips me up every time. The whole system has a mix of people who have hidden agendas that they are working together on, and people are uninvolved. Probably most people are totally unaware of any of this, but wouldn't want to get involved if they did know. But nobody will tell me what is going on or what the game really is. How can a person accomplish a big job like the one I have been trying to do in a minefield, wondering about every step and wondering if every person I interact with might be showing a falsely friendly front while taking anything I say to my boss, who is actively working on a plan to sabotage me? Is this how it is everywhere?