C: Everything Explodes

I have been "going through some stuff" lately.

I was a bit foolishly optimistic to think that I would have super lots of time to myself when school ended. This is after all the busy season at the store. Gus phoning in with possible kidney stones on the weekend didn't help, and Karen took it more severely than it was apparently meant since he was back this morning anyway.

In any case this all coincided with a shiftbomb where I had agreed, against my better judgment, to take a shift for Jess, despite it infringing upon my feeling of entitlement to have at least 2 days off each week. My attempts to take this up with Kare only resulted in more unpleasantness (albeit none directed immediately at me.) And then when this Gus thing happened, everything went whack and I swallowed my sense of entitlement and agreed to work whatever. It ended up being just one extra shift -- Chantelle asked me to take her Tuesday morning and Wednesday night shifts, because of an exam and a concert respectively. She ended up working both days anyway, so I guess the real burden falls on her and I need to stop making myself feel like a martyr for taking a few extra shifts.

Yesterday, I was giving a woman her change, when she objected. I was giving her change for $25, but she insisted, "This isn't right, I gave you two twenties, I don't have any fives left!" I handled the situation badly. As sure as I was that she'd given me a twenty and a five, I capitulated and gave her change for forty, which was dumb as sin, as my till was $15 under. I took it way harder than my manager did, however, which

By the end of my seventh straight day working -- today was my eighth -- Ryann asked me why I was trying to please everyone. I was on the brink of my sanity and I guess she could see the toll it was taking on me.

I guess I've just been feeling a lot of pressure lately. Pressure to be the hero at work (although there have been others taking on as much if not more and handling it substantially better). Pressure to be the sane, practical son in the family, given my brothers' problems and issues. I can't show weakness anymore, I'm not sure I ever could. That shit, that ain't healthy. And all this time I'm going insane and I feel like the entire fate of the human race rests on me.

Here's where it gets weird. Yesterday, as a coping mechanism of sorts, I began to "see" my late friend and former co-worker Cait. See, it was just over a year ago that we met, and things were different at the store then and I guess mentally, I began to feel like she was back at the store, chirping me for how wrapped up in all that shit I was getting and trying to ease my mind. And I guess it's not fair to idealize her or anything, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I missed her and was sad she's gone. So I imagined her back, even though I know HMV is the last place she'd want to be even as a ghost.

I went to bed early last night, well early for me anyway, at midnight. I didn't get out of bed until 11 (as I was to begin work at 4,) and that next morning, when I was in that place between dreaming and awake, when you're not sure what's a dream and what's just your own thoughts, I heard someone say, "Don't worry so much about the future. There's a long road ahead." And whatever that means -- the two statements seem to be contradictory -- it was rather comforting, whether it was my subconscious, or my waking conscious, or a ghost whispering in my ear. Either way it helped alleviate the weight of the world from my shoulders. I felt better-equipped to deal with shit today.

If you told me, in my waking life, that I didn't need to worry so much, I'd have a hard time believing you or following your advice. Even now I'm finding it difficult, but I'm trying and it seems to be holding. For now, anyway.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto