Must-Learn-Not-To-Care (Sigh) in Everyday Ramblings

Yesterday I went out and took proper pictures of “Grandfather Hickory” as the teachers at the fancy alternative private school call the heritage tree in the park in the next block.

I was able to do this because I stopped teaching my Friday yoga class at work and because I was enough of a mess on Thursday I decided to take Friday off and regroup.

My doctor says she will fill out the paperwork for a medical leave if I decide to go the route. But I have a financial dilemma if I do this. The institution I work for was a state agency for a long time, it is still a hybrid state agency, and we participate in the state retirement plan.

In 2000 they changed the rules so that people hiring in after that date are what they call Tier 2. That would be me. The plan is not as absurdly generous as the Tier 1 is and I get that. We have a huge unfunded liability. The calculations for the two tiers are different and our calculation in 2 is based on years of service, final salary (last 36 months) and accumulated sick leave.

When I found this out about 5 years ago I started hording sick leave.

I ran the calcs last week and if I take 12 weeks off for medical leave I have to use sick leave and that lowers my accumulation enough that when I am able to retire next year I will get $50 a month less in payout. Over a 15 year certain payout, which I am going to take, that is $9,000.00.

My plan is to live those 15 years.

If I had say a professional career making the big bucks like most of the folks I hang out with it would not be a big deal. But I made a choice about 20 years ago to take a lower classed job so that I could not have to be a manager and had more time to be creative and pursue my outside interests.

Turns out over the long haul I made the wrong choice there in terms of the actual job I chose. And part of the reason I chose this stupid job was the benefits! I am not all resentful about this. I do regret it but I accept it.

It allowed me to have the rich crazy poetry infused life with Mr. Finch and I don’t regret that at all. It was a wild ride and I am more tempered and experienced deeply in what matters in life than I ever would have been if I had taken a safer corporate manager route.

When I talked to my doctor about this she said, well if it were me, and I took the time and lost the payout I would be bitter and resentful. It made me laugh because I said I thought I could accept it as a price for taking care of myself in a toxic situation.

We talked about laughter and how the science has shown that it improves blood flow.

We also tinkered around with the whole slew of drugs I am now taking.

She doesn’t think my heart is in danger. She thinks I am having a direct physiological response to the stress at work. I can’t argue with that.

Motorcycle Man is making bad decisions and telling folks things that aren’t true and not directly answering questions; and he is basically doing a crap job. And he is fully and completely supported in this crap-ness by Mr. On the Spectrum and HR.

I don’t want to have to take anti-depressants to numb me out enough so I can get through the next 50 weeks. We are trying a less all consuming drug that I can take as needed that dampens my nervous system response (and makes me a little sleepy) first.

What I need to do is learn how not to care. That is the crux of the matter.

Show up, do what is required and not care. And I can’t just pretend to not care because that backfires and expresses itself in all sorts of unhealthy ways. I have been trying that and it does not work!

What I do care about are the cats. And they have had the virus again this week. Diego had a rough time of it Thursday. He is feeling better, sprawled behind me now, purring and the sun is out and it is Saturday.

I am going to spend the weekend building an internal mental fortress that I can believe in. The thing is that once I leave this ridiculous badly managed horrible job I won’t care. I need to figure out how to do that a tad bit early. The not caring part or the leaving part.

Oh and thinking about the moon landing. I listened to this great podcast yesterday that I can’t link to because you need a podcast app, it is called Today Explained by Vox and the episode is about what we left on the moon…and it is called Holy Shit! Check it out.

Last updated July 21, 2019