Quitting my Job

Conversation I had today on Twitter:

tisfan Made it to the gym, 35 minutes on the elliptical and now I'm all shaky. No more gym skipping. Bad me!

dragoneyes @tisfan You get points back for going back, tho!

tisfan @dragoneyes well, yes, but if I didn't let the damn wagon get so far ahead of me when I fell off, I wouldn't have to run to catch up.

dragoneyes @tisfan Yah, well, your job is to beat yourself up for your transgressions. My job is to congratulate you for your triumphs

tisfan @dragoneyes my job sucks.

Conversation I had the other day with my husband:

Me, hands on hips, looking around the living room, "This house is a mess! I have been such a slacker recently."

Husband, soothingly, "We've been busy and Darcy's been sick. You've had a lot to do..."

Me, "Yeah, well, nothing says 'I suck' quite as much as a filthy carpet."

Him, "You are SUCH a perfectionist."

Me, harumphing, "You'd think if I was a perfectionist, I'd be better at it!"

Him, "You say that like being a perfectionist is a good thing. You need to say enough, sometimes. You keep striving for something that's not possible. You do your best, and that's enough."

Me, "This isn't my best, though. This isn't even CLOSE to my best."

Him, "This was your best for last week. Next week, you'll have different problems."

It's one of my more aggravating tendencies; this refusal on my part to ever recognize accomplishment.

Pride... is one of those emotions I'm not very familiar with. It's sort of like... I don't know, liking your parents. You know you should, but most days, you just don't feel it. (Ok, when I say "you" I mean me. I don't know how you feel about your parents. Mine and I have a whole separate airplane to ship our baggage.) People see me and they're all "Wow, you've lost so much weight, I bet you're really proud!"

Well, I should be.

But. I'm not.

At all.

I can see, in comparative pictures, how far I've come. And yet... I can also see how much farther I have to go. My house is never clean enough, I'm not thin enough, my writing is never done, my parenting style is somewhat lackadaisical. I don't volunteer enough, I don't keep up with my emails. I don't, I can't, I'm not.

Gyah. Reading it isn't even a wake up call, it just makes me feel even more pathetic.

What does pride feel like? I really don't know.

People compliment me a lot these days, and I've trained myself (mostly) to stop saying "Yeah, but..." I still downplay my accomplishments, and even when I don't, I still don't feel like they're all that. The 3-Day, for instance... it wasn't hard. It wasn't tons of effort. I trained for it, I was ready. I got it done, and that's what I set out to do, but... anyone could do it. (Yes, in my head, I recognize that while many people could do it, quite a lot of people don't. And that's what makes me different.) And still, all I can see is how much more/better I could have done.

My job sucks.

I think I'll quit.

Someone want to give me a severance package?