Dooley Noted: 7/4/2014
It started yesterday at 5 pm, with a flight delay due to the hurricane.
I put off mailing my rent. I then beat myself up for it for the next hour.
Sound ridiculous? In retrospect, it was. But it wasn’t without its importance with what transpired.
In the past and present, I haven’t experienced many people putting pressure on me to succeed. I can’t think of a single person that pressured me.
I was doing too great of a job at pressuring myself.
That pressure would cook until a storm of emotion raged itself like a miniature hurricane. And then, it was gone…like it never happened.
My storms are largely tempered. However, that storm warning is still within me and showed itself yesterday…with a late rent payment that wasn’t even really late yet.
I believe I am drawn to people like me, so stormy from their internal pressure. I believe this is why I became a doctor and an educator, since most patients and students drawn to me have a tendency toward being hard on themselves.
Having already experienced my storm (in front of my wonderful boyfriend, no less), a calm washed over me. As the hurricane started affecting the flights, my flight was delayed from 7 pm…to 9 pm…to 11 pm…to midnight, when the crew timed out and they officially delayed it to 11 am today.
People became whisked into the storm. I already had my fit over rent, so I felt like the calm you find in the center of a tornado.
People were angry at Delta for the lack of notification, and angry at Mother Nature for messing with their plans. A lady and I laughed on our cab ride home, while the other two passengers were nasty crab apples about the foiled plans.
I figured out in one storm the kind of human I want to be.
I want to be one who learns to forgive herself even more easily – like she forgives people (and Delta).
I want to be the woman at the counter who helps a stressed employee think clearly, instead of the dude I watched yell at him.
I want to do as my boyfriend suggests, and use the rent experience to fuel me never letting it happen again while giving myself this one grace.
I decided to carry this over to my patient load. They get one grace of last minute cancellation, and then it’s full charge for my time.
I learned some independence from storming this weekend. And it’s still only Friday.
I hope you work towards independence from the storms.
As always, it’s your call.
– Dr. Kathy Dooley