Getting It Done

I have never had much ambition. Any driving goal that you might be able to identify in my life is not so much something I was to accomplish, but a person I want to be. It’s solidified for me, recently, into a phrase my brother said about someone else. That person “got shit done” and so was invaluable to his organization. I turned the phrase over in my head and realized that, without being fully cognizant of the specifics, I have been striving to be someone who gets shit done. It’s a sort of “When I grow up…” idea.

It’s a great ambition, in my opinion, this capable dependability no matter the circumstances. It does make transitions rather difficult, though.

I have been at Samaritan for three weeks and I feel like the opposite of someone who gets shit done. I’m the newb, the beginner, the *shudder* trainee. I went from being the trainer to the trainee, making mistakes and plodding along. Since my feeling of worth is so intricately connected with my ability to get shit done I’ve felt like a failure, like a burden on the ministry and my coworkers. Yeah, it’s over-dramatic, but I asked a grocery store employee to dance the hulu today so over-dramatic is about par for me. In my defense, he was in a grass skirt and had a lei around his neck so it should have been expected.

The past three weeks have been difficult. On the one hand, I feel very privileged to work with the people I work with. They are lovely souls, full of grace even when I make mistakes. On the other hand, I have felt the sharp jolt of starting over, learning a new system and new skills. That jolt shook up my sense of self, never very firmly anchored, from its place and bounced it around my insides.

Thursday someone helped strap my sense of self back in. I was telling him about our Opening Ceremonies parties, on the Friday of my first week at a new job while we were giving a friend rides to and from her third-shift job and had spontaneously decided to kidnap my six nieces and nephews overnight. He laughed and, understanding everything else going on in my world, said that no matter what was happening at work, I was still, clearly, someone who got shit done.

And something eased in my soul, a breath that said, “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.”