big moment for me

    

I was hit with an epiphany last weekend that proceeded to throw me off all week.

After a really good therapy session, I came home and did what I love most: shared what I'd learned.

That was a Friday. I went to my mom and was so freaking happy to share with her something that literally changed the way I understood life to be. My therapist shared 3 diagrams and they each worked to explain how people generally operate when they interact with each other and how boundaries work in turn.

I ran through a general whatever just so she could see the gist of all the everything. She seemed happy and impressed and I was happy. In my mind I was like "yes! hopefully this helps her as much as it has already helped me!"

Saturday, on the way home my mom brings up the aforementioned moment. I don't remember what the context was and it honestly doesn't matter because what she said next, no exaggeration, hit me hard as hell: "You came in and told be all those things and I honestly did not understand it. You just comprehend things on another level. Well that makes me sound like I'm dumb. It's not that, I just learn differently than you. My brain works differently,"

What many people may see as a compliment, literally made me want to shut down and cry. Retelling it now, makes me want to stop writing and cry because I'm knowing this story doesn't really get better.

She put to words what has plagued me my entire life. I felt vindicated, but in the same moment I felt abandoned.

All my life, I feel like I have been cursed to walk ahead of the crowd. What I mean by that: have you ever been with a group of friends or family and at one point turn around and realize everyone else is walking much slower than you? So you slow down and maybe even turn around and walk backwards to rejoin the group. I've spent all of my life walking ahead of the crowd. Even in moments where I realized what was happening, and I decided to rejoin the group, I'd still end up ahead of the crowd unintentionally.

I've gone my entire life, alone, ahead of the crowd. At each age, instead of the people I love encouraging me to go on and they'll catch up, I've been met with questions. "Why are you walking so fast? How'd you get far away so fast? Do you even know where you're going?"

Instead of encouraging me to advance, the pressure to not be-- God, I've hit a wall.

I've never known where I belonged because I've never felt like I've belonged. When I'm walking with the crowd, I'm uncomfortable because I feel me holding myself back. When I'm walking faster than the crowd, I'm uncomfortable because I feel disparaged and belittled. 

And my entire life I've only ever thought those where my two options. Hold myself back or be disparaged by the people around me.

And now I'm crying.

Because all week I have been uncomfortable at work.

I work with two older women. I knew they weren't going to be my "friends" but assumed they would at least be decent adults. I was so fucking wrong. We're a team but I've always felt like I've been put in this cage by them. Not by way of my job title doesn't require xyz. I mean my ability to pitch in and help the team has been limited.

First, I thought it was my skill level holding me back. I assumed they were both fully qualified, certified etc. No problem, I'm a quick learner and I freaking love to learn. Sign me up. 

Well now I know they know as much about our job as me, but they've just had more time actively working in this field than me. Which is also fine. Respect it.

But the longer I worked with them, the more I learned about them. They only know just enough to get the job done. No one is professionally trained. No one. Which then made me, who has this field as a fall back, understand why they hired someone who hasn't touched this field in five years. Why would two underqualified people choose to hire someone more qualified than them? They wouldn't because that would mean they're hiring there replacement.

It started small. All stuff when I still felt kind of like "maybe it's just because I'm kind of new"

• Hey, I can help out with payroll
• No, it's fine. Its' best if we just be the only ones who handle this
• Hey, if people send _____ to the wrong email account all the time and you hardly ever check it, just keep an auto-response on that account that says xyz fwd here for this, fwd here for that. That way if someone forgets, they'll immediately get a warning.
• No, they really just need to not email that account. They should know that by now.
• Hey, if that company is crappy when they should be in the honeymoon phase of trying to sell us, we don't need to use them. If they are failing at swooning us early on, their actual services are not going to get better.
• No it's fine. We're just going to talk to some people and complain. (Sidenote: even when they had to learn how to use this company from scratch, I was not allowed to be involved in the learning process)
• We should record these returned checks as withdrawals and just class them at the bottom so it pulls the money out correctly.
• No, I'm just gonna have to do a journal entry. Just put it down on my desk, I'll look at it later ***later**** "We're going to just write a withdrawal check so we can make sure the money balances in the end. So at the bottom, we're going to class them...." (Like, bitch. That was my idea.)
• Oh, this is just this _____ I made this week for lunch.
• Oh you cook? Well you don't have kids yet. You don't have a family to take care of.

Then this week it evolved and pushed me over the edge.

• I preemptively completed a project for the team when a problem came up. They were confused about how I was able to do it, grilled me quizzically, but was happy at the end result. Even emailed it to each other and asked me to update the numbers with the new ones we had coming in.
• Not only was my work looked over, they looked at it all day, the next day did their own version identical to mine using all my notes, and then they took credit for my work (that they honestly fucked up because it was done wrong) and tried to hide the emails. Then asks me to update her new charts with new numbers to make sure she didn't miss any.
• Then I see an email chain where they're talking soley to each other about a conference next month. One says 'I think we should go to this' The other 'yeah I think that's a good idea' The next email legit said "sign us up slave" Like, wtf. I'm black. How are you proudly talking like that in your work email chain.
• And then proceeded to forward the email chain to the accounting email for no other reason than for me to see it. Only use three have access to that email and it had no receipts in it. And guess who 'us' is at a higher learning work event: only those two. A class that they both thought 'we should go to' and I'm not even invited. I didn't even get the chance to turn it down. It wasn't even presented to me.
• One of them made a sly remark about how $15/hr wasn't really much for pay yet I'm a fucking $15/hr employee
• One of them said she's convinced adult who don't know how to swim were just completely messed up at one point. (Enter me who just learned how to swim like 3 years ago, enter majority of my grown ass family who cannot swim.)

I'm just fucking pissed and honestly disappointed. And outside of everything on the surface, I realized why something I would normally brush out made me so uncomfortable.

I was walking in front of the crowd. I felt disparaged and belittled. And then I was being put in my place in the crowd, but I still didn't belong.

And I honestly just feel like, if you don't want me here, do me a favor and fucking let me go. Let me go.

If my talent and skills aren't welcome, neither am I. This therapized version of me is not giving one without the other. My body caries the talent and skills I have. There is not one without the other. They are a part of me which means wherever the fuck I go, they motherfucking follow. Where I belong, so do I.

I'm not joining the crowd this time. I'm walking ahead.

The only thing is, I'm alone, I don't know what this means for me, and I don't know what lies ahead.