Babies won’t die.  That’s a phrase that I’m used to my boss and friend of many years telling me, but I’m stressed.  More stressed than I ever remember being in this job.  Maybe it’s because I’m not drinking and I’m dieting but I feel like I’m not handling it as well as I normally do.  This week it seems like a perfect storm, pun intended, has emerged at work.  I have a brunch for 60-80 people on Sunday, an opening night and something else I have to cater on Saturday.  On top of that I have the biggest project of the year that is due on Wednesday.  Needless to say I haven’t had this much thrown at me in a long time.  I’m trying to convince myself that I just need to stop stressing about it and do the work but that’s not working.

I work in theatre, right?  Nobody is going to die. I just need to chill.  I remember the days at the old folks home where if I wasn’t there to feed people then they might die.  I haven’t discussed this stuff publicly before but when I worked at the assisted living facility we had a man who eloped (escaped) from the Alzheimer’s Unit.  It was one of the most difficult things I have ever had to deal with professionally.  I searched for days and days for him and his body was found six months later.  It was tragic, heart breaking.  I will never forget the day when they found his bones, seeing the search team walk by you with his remains in a brown paper bag.  Then there was the time when one of the resident’s didn’t show up for breakfast one morning.  I sent one of my staff members to check on him and he had committed suicide.  I hate to be so graphic but it was horrendous.  The stress of dealing with situations like that everyday is what made me get out of that.  And every single time I get stressed out at my current job I look back on those days and remind myself that nothing could be as horrendous as that.  And it’s true.  People take their jobs too seriously some times.  I promised myself that I wouldn’t do that again, but I’m falling into the same trap.  I just need to breathe, relax, buckle down and do the work.  All I can do is try my best.  Babies or old people won’t die.

Hey, thanks for listening.  I just dropped some pretty morbid stuff on you.  Stuff that I keep inside and have a hard time processing sometimes.  Thing is that I take things very personally.  When the man disappeared I was devastated but I didn’t see other people behaving the same way as me.   Even though I had maybe had one or two conversations with him, it felt like he was my grandfather.  It was July 4th weekend and I remember walking around seeing all of these happy people celebrating thinking I was in a completely different universe.  Or the pressure of knowing that I was the one that sent staff to find a dead man in his room.  These are things that I will live with for the rest of my life, I just can’t let that stuff go, but I have to.  It’s because of having to deal with that stress that I’m pretty sure I survived at my current job this long.  I figure, if I can get through that I can get through anything.  Ok, off to bed so I can deal with a new day and not be tired!  Be well everyone!