"I suppose Tim and Felicia will survive the weekend without me since her kids have gone to her mother's and Daxton will be in the hospital under good care all weekend."
Wrong.
Tim felt sure I would come to the hospital, since he knew I had the day off. And, what I didn't find out until late Saturday was that Daxton had taken a turn for the worse.
I've never been a phone person. Calling people to check on them is not something that I think to do. If I ever do it, it's an anomaly. I feel almost like another person has taken over my body. It's just so unusual for me to think to PICK UP A PHONE and call someone.
Texting has helped me do better. Since I've learned to do that, I do tend to check on people more. But, if you text, you know that texting doesn't consist of long conversations. And, in my case, it's not frequent back and forthness --like it is with a lot of younger folks. I'll text and then check hours later for an answer. If I need to answer back, it may take all day for the total communication to be finished.
Unless there's something urgent.
If there's something urgent that I want to know about, I do turn my phone on loud enough that I can hear the beep when a text message comes in so that I can look to see what it says at THE FIRST CONVENIENT opportunity I find. (Meaning when no customers are around or I'm not on the registers or some such. I don't use my cell phone at home most of the time. Or, any phone for that matter. Not for long conversations, as a rule.)
If I haven't predetermined that I want to get messages immediately, I leave my phone on vibrate and I only know if someone has called or texted if I happen to think to look at it. Sometimes I don't think about it all day long, depending on the urgency of what I'm doing at work or how much it requires my undivided attention.
But Daxton was improving. The girls were with Felicia's Mom. There was not a sense of urgency about the situation. And I had previously made plans to eat out with Davis and Fred and then go to Jef/Jeni's so they could have a night out. Jeni wanted to do something nice for Jef, she had told me. And I CHOSE to go to their house so the kids could get to bed early and be able to make it to church the next day without a hassle.
I was at Jef's. At almost eleven, Tim called. He felt slighted because I had not even come to the hospital to see Daxton on my day off.
I am not a winner.
That is something I learned a long, long time ago.
I can try, try, try and try again to do what I think is a help and I'm just not a winner. I used to feel bad about it. Now I just muse on it... I have even stopped the wishful thinking that it will ever change. It just is that way and I have no faith that it will ever change.
I also learned a long, long time ago that I needed to do what I do not because someone else is going to acknowledge me in some way for it. If I can't do what I do for others just because it's the way that I can help... just to be a help... and not to be commended, then I would have quit doing anything to help folks a long, long time ago.
Notice how many long, long, long time agoes are in those paragraphs? That's because, I'm much older now and it did take me a long time to just accept that you can't please some people but that's not good enough reason to stop trying to do what you can when you can. I don't do what I do for the "rewards". I do it because it's in my heart to want to help and I help in the ways that I think of and am able to do. If other people expect more or better than I do, then it's going to be their problem when I don't come through for them like they think I should and they'll have to figure out how to deal with it.
But I didn't think about going to the hospital on Saturday... not one time. I didn't call. I didn't text. I ate with my brothers. I took a short nap. And I drove to Harvest.
But, I really didn't mean to make anyone feel bad about being neglected, so on Sunday, I went to church and I went to see Daxton in the hospital.
I was able to do Felicia and Tim a favor by taking home her cousin who HAD COME TO THE HOSPITAL to help her out. (I forgot to mention earlier that I also knew that her cousin was coming to the hospital to help her out.) I drove her and a friend to Guntersville. Then I came home and went back to church.
Tim called me again just before church and asked if I could keep Felisia for the night and get her to school on Monday morning. I went and got her, we came back here and she made a Valentine for her teacher, then was off to bed.
I took her to school on my way to work.
And, by the way, I went in at 8 and started working on that order by 9AM--after putting up ad signs. Except for taking 30 minutes out to eat, I did not stop working on that order. And GUESS WHAT? My name was not put down for register duty. ( I wondered about that.) Anyway, I worked all day on that order and I did not finish it until 4:15!! I worked as quickly as I could work. I did have to stop a number of times and answer questions and show some customers where things were, so you could subtract probably an hour from my total order time. That means it took me 6 hours and 15 minutes. (.3 x60= 18) In other words, when they say it takes 6.3 hours to do my order, THEY KNOW what they are talking about. I actually could have used more time, because at the end I wasn't looking as closely at what was on hand as I should have been.
I was SCHEDULED to leave at three. I left at five. But for the most part, I did "a good order".
Then I went to the hospital and got Felisia and we came home. I will take her to school again in the morning.
And, then....
Maybe.
I'll clean house.
It sure needs it.
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