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epitome of incomprehensibility
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Oddly, the seed for this blathe started at "sadness" - I was going to concur with nr that I can be surprised when I feel sadness on its own. Too often anger comes first and I haven't sorted out my feelings enough to realize that I'm also sad.
So I thought back to a day in 2007, when I was weirdly comforted to find myself in a state of simple sadness: this was right after the Dorval Leisure and Culture boss told me she wouldn't have a place for me there the next year. I stood in the kitchen, crying. My mother: "What happened? Did someone insult you? Did someone hurt you?"
Not physically, and maybe not intentionally, but they did, and it *would* have made sense to be angry in that moment. See, one of Paula's reasons for preemptively firing me was that a co-worker had complained I was "covering my ears and turning my back on children when they were asking me questions."
Too late I realized what the co-worker had been talking about. Yes, I had made those physical motions, but the context had been misrepresented. We were at a waterpark and the four children I'd been assigned to watch were talking over each other after I asked them where they wanted to go next. I covered my ears and spun slowly in a circle, calling out something like, "I can't hear you unless you stop talking at once!"
Pah. I wish Sally (I think it was Sally) had asked me about it. Then I could have explained, and she wouldn't have brought it up to Paula.
But the thing was, I *did* do irresponsible things that day. I left a first aid kit clipped to a tree or pole so I could go on the slide too. Then I forgot I'd left it there, so I had to drag the whole group back while I retrieved it, since we weren't supposed to separate. And maybe I should have made sure they had enough sunscreen: one of the younger ones got sunburnt shoulders. And lastly - this one wasn't necessarily my fault, but I couldn't keep track of everyone in the group while we were in the "wave pool" because my eyes weren't good enough. No one got lost, but...just in case! Should I have kept my glasses on? Yes, and not gone into the water there in the first place. My memory is that we monitors were encouraged to swim too, to simultaneously enjoy the waterpark and make sure we watched over the 8-12-year-olds in our care. Yeah.
It was one of the more stressful Allegedly Fun days in my life. Nothing dramatic (except the brief time I feared drowning in the wave pool because the current was stronger near the deep end) - but a constant sense of anxiety, vigilance, and self-recrimination over forgetfulness.
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