Lost

The radio alarm awoke me from my slumber this morning, and I had no idea what day it was. Was it Saturday, or was it Friday?

Darn...it's Friday. I need to go to work.

The past 12 days have been a whirlwind of activity. And if, as some believe, brain exertion is just as taxing as physical exertion, then I am worn out. I'm fatigued. Tired. I've reached a state of decreased mental consciousness.

And it's not from spending 7 of the past 10 work days at a vendor. It's not from the 2-hour 1-way drive to the vendor. It's not the project whose cryptic data leads us in circles around our minds.

It's a combination of all of it, combined with all of life's little worries.

I'm lost. Usually I'm a problem solver. And I'm a pretty good one. It's what I know I'm good at. I can look at a problem, figure out why it's a problem, come up with different ways to systematically solve it, and then figure out how to prevent it from happening again.

And, this one, well, this one seems to defy logic. It sends us one way, we get there, and then it sends us off in another direction. The current noise oscillates outside the data stream, causing us to run off every which way like a 5 year old girl chasing a puppy. Except it's not a puppy. It's Cujo.

I'm tired.

Even though I had a guy over to my place the other night who likes me, and I said he could crash at my place, I told him I needed to get some sleep because I had to get up early the next morning to be on the road at my vendor. All I could think about was sleep...crawling into my bed and just not thinking about anything.

And, so, when I stepped outside my apartment this morning, I noticed the soft rain falling from the gray gloomy sky above. I totally drove to work on auto-pilot.

At work, my boss and I finally had our little quarterly one-on-one where he told me, although I am still doing a good job, I haven't been assertive enough in my daily meeting with the vendor.

Assertiveness hasn't been one of my strongest points...especially when I am tired. It's also hard when the project leader and your boss attend the meeting in order to further drive actions as this one item becomes the major sticking point. My authority extends only so far, and beyond that I have to rely on those above me. When they participate in the meeting, it's hard to not take on a less assertive role. And I wonder if the less assertive observation is in reference to who and what I was. I may have looked like a guy, but inside I was still a fragile little girl. If they expect the assertiveness of the man I was and not the woman I am, then I may seem even less assertive.

Either way, I'm tired, and could really use a few days to sleep. And not drive. And to not think about any of it.