It’s funny. One of my dearest friends is going through something almost identical to me right now, but the circumstances of our lives just makes it near impossible for us to talk to one another. At about the same time I was posting the below, she was posting a similar thought in her own journal, only she managed to be so much more succinct and on the nose with it all:
Whenever I try to talk to someone about it all, the response I tend to get is basically, “Suck it up.” (In nicer terminology, of course). The problem is, I don’t know if I can anymore. B~ once told me my tendency to just keep taking everything on and sucking it up was going to backfire in a job someday, and I can see that happening at this one – on the one hand, the faculty says, “Don’t take too much! Remember, you aren’t paid for it.” On the other hand, they often don’t realize that their vague expectations and the need for me to constantly clarify is part of that too much. It all sounds petty, and it is, but it’s also significant – I can’t quite figure out how to prioritize anymore, b/c to me, the details I let drop are the only ones I can sometimes.