Heartsick

I totally forgot that it was Valentine’s Day this Friday.

I received an email from one of my longtime colleagues announcing her leaving our company, and that her last day was this Friday. She might have sent it when I was already off shift on Tuesday, or probably Wednesday when I was out sick.

Oh, it’s been a hell of a week because I’ve been sick with a sore throat, swollen lymph nodes, and fever. And even when I’m legit sick, I feel guilty about not working, and about not going to the office for our required two days there. Actually, maybe not guilty, but there’s some resentment mixed in. I’m feeling resentful about some of my teammates feeling entitled to take the whole Holy Week off when they don’t even have half the amount of workload that the later shifts do. It is totally lacking consideration of the team as a whole and our operations, especially it’s not even a holiday for the rest of the offices that we support round-the-clock. So it’s my resentment of this that’s driving me to work even more and take even more. Toxic, right? I haven’t realized that I’ve been dwelling in this toxic energy for a while.

Brain dumps do help.

I shouldn’t feel guilty for taking my much-needed sick leaves because they’re part of my team and it’s their job to support, the same way I support them when they’re out. Teammates support each other and don’t make each other feel guilty for being out sick or taking a leave.

I went to the office on Thursday, and it seemed like our manager talked to them and also ensured that I’m supported in my special projects, which I truly appreciated. It also lifted a whole load of weight from me when my manager added one of our specialists to one of my ongoing projects and she worked on the edits for two of our high-profile email campaigns. I couldn’t have completed it combined with my daily workload and also supporting my teammates’ ongoing tasks when they already went home. I went to the office that day and while I felt fine for most of it (aside from the sore throat), my condition deteriorated in the last couple of hours of my shift, and I started getting feverish and sleepy. So I didn’t linger in the office and logged off as soon as I could.

Valentine’s Day, I guess I could call it the day I slept the best this year. So far.

I left the office around 3:30 a.m. and got home around 5:30 a.m. I went to bed right after peeing and changing my clothes. I woke up nine minutes before I needed to log in, which was 5:00 p.m.

Good hours.

I felt refreshed and as if reborn, though still with a sore throat.

I started my shift and now it’s 11:20 a.m. and I haven’t slept a wink. I will be paying for this later.

And I do need to get checked. My throat might have an infection, that’s why it’s not healing and my lymph nodes are swollen.

Anyway, the reason I started this brain dump is my longtime colleague leaving.

She’s in our Mexico office while I’m from another continent, and we have opposite time zones.

She’s been there since I started. I think we joined the company the same year, or maybe I was ahead a few months.

She would email me directly whenever she had a question or needed advice on CRM or email marketing related projects, and when she needed to give my team a heads-up on an incoming urgent request from their office. Not the team inbox, but me.

We’re not close, but I’m quite fond of her. She has a place in my heart.

I wasn’t cognizant of this before, but when I was responding to her farewell email, I started crying.

I felt sad. We’ve had many leavers in my team, but I…

I think it’s signing the leaving card that gets distributed to people that helped me compartmentalize and minimize my feelings of sadness and appreciation for my teammates who had left. I was damn busy, too.

I had planned to send my colleague a leaving card as well, but when I was writing my message, the character limit was too short. So I opted to respond to her email directly.

I was able to express my appreciation, and I guess that’s why I just started feeling things.

It’s okay to feel.

It’s okay to linger on appreciation, on good memories. Maybe I should do more of that.

I think I’ve been emotionally unavailable lately.

It’s okay to feel. It’s okay to take the time to feel.

It’s okay to take my personal time and do something personal with it.

Work should stay during work hours, regardless of how much there is.

I know how to manage my deadlines, and manage expectations, though lately I’m just swept away by other people’s deadlines. It’s not good and it’s not helping.

I told my manager that I needed to improve delegating my tasks. Easy to say, difficult to do.

I will do better.