Day 109 – Cleaning Knife Wounds

Of course, Cleaning Knife Wound refers to the emotional knife wounds – it’s not a medical site!  It’s a personal growth site.  Day 105 was the day I felt I was knifed in the back by a work colleague.  Today, I needed to speak with let’s say, “him”.  The only thing left from the “betrayal” (I know it’s a dramatic word, but go with it), is me being frustrated.  The longer it goes on, the more difficult it becomes.

As part of my job, we still need to communicate regularly, so avoidance wasn’t going to help anyone. The phone call was made and because we had/ have a reasonable relationship the discussion went like this:

“Hi Anton” (not his/ her real name)

“Hi. I s’pose you’re dirty with me?”, said Anton sheepishly.

“Yessssss!”, was my slow response.

“Hey, I’m sorry! Had a bad day”, he replied apologetically.

“Kudos to you. At least you know you did something dodgy. Did you want to talk about this tomorrow?” Was my reluctant reply.

“Nah, Mik. You know I’m just a pawn, right?” Defensively, before anything further had been said.

“You sure?” I asked again. “This can wait”.

“Nah. Go for it!” Words, I’m sure, Anton later regretted.  Shh… I was nice about it. Maybe he was of the mindset, if you’re going to have a bad day, it might as well all happen at once.  Tomorrow will be better.  No guarantees it won’t be brought up again 😁.

It was a great relief to get that discussion over with. This is how I imagine an AFL player feels the first time playing against the side he used to play for (perhaps other sports have team swapping to, AFL is just the one I know.).  It’s customary for the crowd to boo at first touch or even first quarter depending how much he was previously loved 🙄.

As mentioned somewhere, holding onto a grudge takes too much effort for me.  Usually, time will pass, things will happen then the trigger to say, “hold grudge attitude here”.  For me, too much going on, “grudge?” who has time for a grudge.  To hold a grudge, you need to feed it at a trigger point or keep reminding yourself that you’re holding a grudge.  Some of the emotions which usually give the trigger its food, are pride, ego, disappointment, stubbornness and determination. 

Okay, still processing the discussion.  There are several “go-to” elements for me, food or cleaning.  Haven’t worked out which triggers which yet.  Both are stalling strategies for me.  The cleaning activity is by far the more beneficial one of the two stress processing techniques.  Today’s processing used cleaning.  It’s amazing how much better you feel just having something cleaned up.  Makes me feel like everything is accomplishable – at least until the next time I sit down.  Maybe, in my choosing cleaning I am also simultaneously cleaning the wound made by the metaphorical knife.

In addition to processing the discussion with Anton, at the back of my mind is the request from the GP’s (General Practitioner – doctor) clinic requesting for me to make an appointment.  It’s probably just to talk about the bone density and blood tests and it if were urgent, she’d have rung, right? Or … maybe not.  She’s on leave at the moment and will be back according to the calendar by the end of April.  See, nothing to worry about.

Let’s see what the cards have to say!