I said something in a meeting yesterday at work. I felt it was true when I said it, but the way I said it didn’t come out right. It sounded as if I was taking credit for others work. It sounded as if I do all this stuff by myself. It sounded as if I didn’t appreciate them. It sounded as if I was being a martyr.
I said something to effect of: I would go in to orientation and say “Hey, I’m Tanya and I’m the runner of this things. I do all this stuff.” I new it wasn’t coming out right as I said it. I looked down refusing to make eye contact knowing the statement as it stumbled out of my mouth would offend. I kept trying to restart the sentence, but only made it worse. One of the members of the board spoke up immediately saying that if I was tired of doing it all myself, they would be happy to take over. I pointed out that I do the meeting minutes because no one else wants to and she agreed that she would not or could not do the meeting minutes. That gave me a chance to laugh and point out my earlier statement had some truth. I concluded by saying that I did know I didn’t do it all myself. I believe I repeated the statement twice.
I thought about it throughout the rest of the meeting. About how I could have said it better, about who I could have offended that didn’t speak up, about if anyone was mad at me, and would I hear about it later. There is nothing I can do to change what happened. There is no way to fix the past.
It didn’t stop there. I also thought about it while I was feeding a resident. I thought about it while I was driving home. I thought about it while I was eating dinner. I thought about it while I was bathing. I thought about it when I laid down to go to sleep. I thought about it when I woke up this morning. I thought about it now, while I am writing this, trying to make sure I write it well. I will probably think about it on and off all day.
The reasonable part of my brain is telling me that everyone in that meeting probably doesn’t even remember what I said, or how I said it. They have forgotten it and moved on with their days. It really wasn’t that important, and no one’s self worth is dependent on my judgement of them.