Vent/Rant/Whatever

I want to vent for a minute.  Remember when I wrote that I was going to focus my energy on things that made me feel good?  I do.  Maybe you can explain, because I sure can't, why I just spent most of my Saturday with people who will barely speak to me.

Let's step back a bit.  When I moved to my current neighborhood, I applied to be in the volunteer fire department thinking that I'd continue serving as I had at my old house.  What I didn't realize is that I would be the only woman, and that this group is a bunch of assholes.    I've been hoping that I would fit in with this group and they might sortof be my friends.  I spend Monday evening and Saturday morning with them every week at drill, and a few calls every week.  Let's say 10 hours a week average.  Sometimes good and sometimes  bad.  This is by far the most time I spend on anything outside of work.  I'd been feeling like the payoff for my time/energy spent would happen .... sometime in the future and that the time was well spent.


The last 2 Mondays, it's sucked.  There are some new probies, so the guys are showing off and being loud and obnoxious.  It got so bad after drill on Monday that I left when one of the guys brought out the girly vids on his phone.  The monthly meeting was on Tuesday which I didn't go to because I had meditation class (yay!).  I stopped by the firehouse on Wednesday to drop something off and the chief told me that he had chewed the guys out - something I'd specifically asked him a few months ago not to do. But the chief's wife had been in the kitchen on Monday and was disturbed by what she'd heard.

So when the chief called everyone out for their language and behavior, do the guys say, "Oh yes, sorry about that."???  Nooo!!  What they do instead is treat me even worse than before, because as the "delicate" girl, I'm the one that's preventing them from being able to say what they want, even though I didn't say or do anything other than leave.  So at drill today, it's like I didn't exist.

I'm so pissed off!  I'm pissed at the guys for being so juvenile and I'm pissed at myself for wanting so badly to fit in there.  I said that I was going to concentrate on things/people that make me feel good - but here I still am in the same crap that makes me feel bad.  Still alone on Friday/Saturday night, devoting time and energy to something that will probably NEVER pay off in supportive friendships.  I think last week I posted a quote from a book about this exact thing.

I'm going to take a break from the fire department.  It is a volunteer group after all.  I don't have to go to drills... and I won't, for a few weeks.  That's 8 hours a week of my life that I'll get back, and 8 hours a week that I won't be around negative crap.

I have weight loss news - the scale finally jumped down.  But I'll write about that tomorrow when I've calmed down.  Thanks for reading!