You don’t get gold stars or extra pay for dead (sometimes what you are giving is so over-the-top and ridiculous – it won’t be appreciated, but you will be frustrated).
I remember one year I was traveling in the rural mid-west to fill in for another employee who was on maternity leave. For some reason that winter, you could easily predict what days of the week we would get snow, ice and blizzard conditions. It was almost without a miss, the days I was supposed to travel to that clinic. Even the other employees and clients began predicting the weather by my schedule.
Now if you have not driven in this type of scenario, you may not realize what it’s like. Those 65 miles were taking nearly 2 to sometimes 3 hours to travel, on narrow 2 lane roads, between nowhere and just north of nowhere. Out in that rural area, there is nothing to stop the wind so you have blizzard conditions even when it is just gently dropping the powdered sugar type snow in the cities. You pretty much have to see it to believe it.
One of the highways I had to travel had its own bumper sticker, proudly displayed by the natives of the area: “I travel Hwy #??, Pray for Me!” (hwy redacted). This is in an area where we were getting snow from Sept/Oct through May that year.
As I was traveling home one evening, (even more fun to drive a blizzard in the dark with deep drop-offs on each side of the highway), I was tired, scared and angry about making this drive. My car was pointed forward down the road. But the wind was so strong and it was so slick that I actually started moving sideways across the highway. This was different than anything I had experienced before. I wasn’t fishtailing or turning. I was still moving forward but doing it as I crossed the center line and then was in the other lane. I was going the wrong way in the other lane!
I had no control over direction at all. In the dark. In a blizzard. In the wrong lane! Where I could only see about a car length in front of me. At the time of day, where this was the main path for those going both directions to get home!
Needless to say, there was a lot of praying going on. And probably some expletives too! Amazingly and miraculously, no one came at me while I was in their lane. I was finally able to get back into my lane, and eventually home. I think that night took about four hours to get back home.
Later I was recounting and commiserating my night of excitement with another native familiar with the thrill of driving rural Iowa in winter. She told me about wisdom her mother had given her many years ago. “You don’t get a gold star for ending up in the ditch. And you don’t get paid extra for dead.” She said she tries to keep that in mind when weighing her commitments in winter. As a former schoolteacher, she had had more than her share of those kinds of dilemmas. I laughed but took it to heart.
I was no nervous Nelly regarding winter driving. In fact, I had always taken pride in my ability to drive through pretty much anything. Weather had never stopped me if there was any possibility of getting there. I would get where I was going even when others couldn’t even get out of their driveways.
But right now, right or wrong, I felt bound by fear. Not of the weather but that I could lose a job I really needed, if I didn’t, at least try to make it. Often the drive would be horrible but when you got into the city or town, the roads would be quite passable. So they would not even know what difficulties there were getting there.
After that winter though, I realized, regardless of what others were experiencing, regardless of what my job did or did not expect, I was the one who had to choose to take care of me. I noted that no one was in life or death circumstances if I did not get there. And although I didn’t know what my employer would think, and I couldn’t afford to lose the pay, I had to make my own decision according to my standards. Because I wasn’t going to get a gold star. And I certainly wasn’t going to get paid extra if I died along the highway. Sometimes just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.
Has that ever happened to you? Where you gave and gave and gave but in looking back, it didn’t matter as much as you thought it did? Or no one cared? Or you ended up suffering and getting “blamed & shamed” for your efforts? That’s when you go above and beyond for someone, you are hurt emotionally, financially or physically, and then you are blamed and shamed for it too. Such as “what a stupid thing to do” or “I never expected you to do that, what were you thinking” or “it serves you right, why would you do that.”
Or the ultimate wound, when no one even notices. You put your cape on, answered the bat call, but Gotham city (your Gotham city – whatever that is) didn’t want your help, didn’t care that you helped, and may even be angry you tried.
That is the picture of a codependent giver. Jumping over tall buildings to do the mundane for the uninterested. Because they feel entitled and you feel you have to do it. Maybe it’s time for you to quit jumping? That might really be the scariest thing you’ve ever done! You’ll get used to it. You’ll be glad you did.
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