Life Lately | Stuck, Confused or Lost?
It’s difficult when you have to be a ‘team player’ and ‘independent’ too
How many jobs have I applied for when this phrase is used time and time again? It is of course a valid and acceptable quality for most candidates. Prove it, get the job, work hard and this is like second nature. But what happened when you haven’t worked in over a year and your independency is higher than being a team player?
Mostly, I am out of practice. I can’t be a team player when I am blogging: that is for me and only me, I organised and motivate myself to write, work and set deadlines. It is a solely singular profession.
When it comes to my job though, I have to be both. I need to be both. And I do do both. I’m trained up to do both; it comes back and it fits. I understand why my role demands this.
But my independence elsewhere is rising.
And the question I now ask myself is this:
Is my independence these days affecting my ability to make friends?
Life with the ostomy is great. Physically, I have no need to be seen by a GI or even a SCN lately *touch wood* And the mental acceptance of what having a stoma is and means, is slowing healing too. I am more comfortable, more forgiving and more relaxed about being a ostomate. I’ve recently been reaching out to places and organisations to get myself more involved in something new – ostomy or medical project wise – as I find it strange without it. It seems I need to be active in that world, to still feel connected despite being ‘medication free’.
I do wonder though, have I become too independent?
Pre-ostomy, my life was a series of flare ups, hospital appointment, short-lived jobs and pain. I depended on my family and my boyfriend for physical and emotional support. These days, I support myself, in both respects. I find going out, doing stuff, being alone, working my way through my mental health issues to be very important. I have weaned myself off of my family; so much so that moving away from them was breeze. The self-care I have been practicing has helped that. Have I gotten used to self caring that it is all I do now?
I do still wonder and worry about how my IBD – no matter how flare up free or in ‘remission’ I might be right now – or my ostomy will be and react to being in all these new situations I’ve found myself in lately, but I am pushing myself to find out. However, I am alone when I do new things. I find the exploring so much easier and controllable if it is just me. There is no expectation to what needs to be done, I can go at my own pace.
Is this a control-on-my-own thing or an independence thing?
Why is it so confusing to think of these things?
It is years of being held back, sometimes physically but always mentally, about trying something new. It seems that my surgeon not only removed my disease colon, but he somehow removed some of my fear and being caught up in how I am perceived.
Or maybe, I just want to prove to myself something..? What that ‘something’ is, I don’t yet know.
