I’m okay

At least this is what I’m trying to tell myself more often.

I have a job I’m pretty passionate about. I have bosses who appear to appreciate me. I have customers that appear to appreciate me. I also am seemingly good at my job. At least that’s the cue I’m taking from coworkers calling me for advice when I’m not there.

It all still takes me by surprise. I spent 36 years doubting everything about myself. In the past whenever I would feel myself gaining confidence something would knock me back. It would be being taken for granted at one job. Being expected to work forty to eighty hours a week without being paid more. Then a job after that being expected to work forty to eighty, but with the addition of being paid overtime. It could be not knowing how to do something I was expected to know, but without any real training on how to do it. But for someone as smart as I am it’s tough to not know how to do something in retail.

Added insult to injury when my family was in the process of moving from one part of the state to the other I asked for a transfer and was told the other location wasn’t hiring. When I happened to bring that up with a people leader who was shopping where I ended up she was surprised. Turns out it worked out really well for me, but to know there was lying involved hurt my confidence. I wasn’t worth moving to another store.

But today I’m okay. I’m asked to do things in other stores, visit other parts of the business, be a leader.

See the lyrics below for how I’m feeling today. I think I’m learning to walk again.

Today’s lyric making me think, from Bad Wolves “Learn to Walk Again:”
I had to fall to learn to walk again
I had to crawl to learn that I could stand
They told me don’t look down, don’t be the victim
Don’t you run away
I had to fall to learn to walk again
Learn to walk again