June Renew: Day Thirty
I haven’t had a day off work since I took seven workdays off in April. I’ve just been working straight that entire time. This might have been something that used to bother me, but right now, I don’t particularly care. I’m not necessarily craving a day off, though I am taking one next week and then I go to Utah after that. Work doesn’t seem like a slog anymore. I’m just here to do my job and pay the bills. But the reception I’ve been receiving is something I’m not fully prepared for, and something I’m not sure I even want.
During my recent tenure as senior producer on my show, everyone, including the president of my company is lauding the work I’ve done. Not only do they tell me how proud they are of me, I should also be proud of myself. I mean, I don’t. Not really. I did a good job. Now I’m home and I don’t have to deal with news for two days. But feeling proud? Receiving adulation for just doing what I’m supposed to do in this juncture in life? I don’t need praise. I just want to get paid and be able to chase my dreams.
I do want to examine this feeling I get when people say they’re proud of me. I get cringed out and don’t know what to say. My lips purse and I contract in on myself. It’s taken me this long to finally accept compliments from people, but I can’t go deeper than the surface level. My own father the other day started saying a laundry list of things he loved about me before handing the phone over to my mother, and I couldn’t help but cringe. It was a weird mixture of that and acknowledgement of a parent’s love for their child, something I hope to instill to my children one day. I just hope they don’t inherit my coldness and learn that some people can also say how they feel about you, rather than just silently feel it.
Until my life journey takes a new turn, here I’ll be, doing my job, chasing my dreams. That’s all anyone should expect from anyone. I hope one day I learn to accept those who wish to pat me on the back as I do so.