I didn't cry at work today

Or maybe I did.

As I mentioned in my last post, I live on an emotional level. Sometimes I wish I could pack up and move, though, especially in some situations that come up at my job. In this way, I wish I could be more like my boss. If you've ever done the True Colors personal inventory, you'll understand what I mean when I say that my boss is hard-core green. She is smart, analytical, hard-working and logical. These are classic green traits. I, on the other hand, am pure blue. I am sensitive, emotional and often think about how others will be effected in any given situation.

My boss is very green and very calm and collected under pressure. She doesn't take things personally, doesn't fret about if some random person is mad at her, and doesn't sit down after the fact and go over and over all the things she should have said in her head. Man do I wish that were me.

Instead, I'm true blue. I do exactly the opposite of what my boss does. I take things personally, fret and beat myself over the head with all the witty things I should have said in order to sock it to the person who had the nerve to be mean to someone as sensitive and kind as myself. I'm sort-of like Meg Ryan in "You've Got Mail" - if I do happen to say something snappy in the moment, I feel pretty bad about it later and end up having to apologize to the instigator who should actually be apologizing to me.

ANYWAY, the belabored point of this post is that I had a mini-breakthrough at work today. Without getting too descriptive, I was sitting at my desk with my emotionally stable boss, working on a pretty large on-going project while the phones rang off the hook. A person came into the office and needed something from me that I couldn't give to her at the moment (through absolutely no fault of my own). She got upset and started essentially laying in to me.

I started to feel this pressure building up in my chest, as I usually do when I'm presented with conflict from someone I'm not comfortable with. I was already overwhelmed with the large project and the phones ringing like crazy, as well as with the fact that work in general has been a nightmare for the last two weeks. I was basically at my breaking point.

As I tried to walk the fine line between standing firm and defending myself and trying not to say something I'd later regret and that could get me into trouble, my voice and hands grew shakier, my head started swimming and my ears started ringing (which always happens when I'm faced with confrontation). Thank God my boss was at my desk at that moment, because she stepped in and dealt with the issue in her typically calm and cool manner.

The instigator left the office furious, but at least she finally left. At that point, I knew what was coming. Not a moment too soon, I said to my boss, "Excuse me, but I need to take a minute." I walked quickly down the hall and into the bathroom, where I proceeded to cry like a wiener.

"So what is this breakthrough you had?" you might be wondering. "How is it a breakthrough when your boss had to step in and you had to run to the bathroom to cry?"

The breakthrough, my dear readers, is that I made it to the bathroom before I started crying. I'll pause for a minute while I soak in the applause.

Eye of the Tiger

Today is one of those days when I'd love nothing more than to be home with Lucas, watching Ellen and The Price is Right. It's been snowing all morning, starting with those big, fat, fluffy flakes that make you want to curl up in bed or on the couch with a hot cup of whatever floats your boat (tea, coffee, cocoa, bourbon) and just laze the day away with a good book or your favorite show on DVD.

Alas, this is not possible for me today, so here I sit, blogging on my lunch hour because it's cold out and I don't feel like going outside and getting the hem of my too-big (more on that later) and too-long pants all wet. Want to know what I've done today? While my boss was in a meeting in his office, he asked me to sit on the phone holding for him because he had a question to ask whoever he was calling. Want to know how long I was on hold? An hour and a half. I'm not even kidding. And my boss had been holding for half an hour before that. So we were on hold for a collective two hours before he finally told me to just hang up. Yeah, I had to hang up. No one ever came to the phone after TWO HOURS. My ear hurts.

So, not to give myself a major pat on the back, but my pants are too big. "Why is this?" you might be wondering. They are too big because I've been on Weight Watchers for 3 weeks and have lost 9 lbs. so far! I'm really pumped, and am starting to see why people who do WW tend to keep the weight off after they reach their goal. It's not because it's easy, but WW teaches you what an acceptable amount of food is. Seeing what I've been eating on WW compared to what I used to eat when I thought I had been "good" on any given day makes it painfully obvious why I am so far above my goal weight. So, 9 lbs. down, 31 to go (cue Rocky music).

On a related note, I somehow now enjoy exercising. I don't know where this came from, as I used to despise working out. And actually, now that I think about it, despise is a really mild word for my feelings towards working out. Abhor? Detest? Loathe? All those words seem so inadequate, but I guess they'll have to do. Anyway, some switch must have flipped when I was pregnant with Lucas, because once he was born, I was chomping at the bit to be cleared to exercise.

I started out with the 30 Day Shred, but once Level One was taken off Free Exercise TV OnDemand (and Level Two made me want to cry), I moved on to Walking for Weightloss, just to keep myself moving. I liked it, but it was a bit too easy. Now I'm doing the Couch to 5K running program with my friend Theresa. The only problem is that we have nowhere to run while it's cold and nasty out! I'm trying to find a gym that has a super-cheap monthly membership fee, but as of now no such luck. Stay tuned.