the aftermath

I had hoped that blogging about my harassing officer experience would be my bit o' therapy and I could move past it, but apparently I was wrong.

today we had a faculty inservice at school and there was a department meeting I was sposed to lead in the afternoon. and there were a million little innocent missteps leading up to the meeting; I haven't been at any faculty meetings lately because I've been coaching cross country, so I'm outside the current dialog. The email that the admins sent to dept chairs outlining the purpose for the meeting didn't include me. When the admins checked in with dept chairs about the preparations for the meeting, they didn't catch me on Friday. Still, my co-chair and I managed to meet at lunch one day and come up with an agenda we both felt really good about. so there was really scant reason for my eyes to well up with tears of frustration as we discussed our preparations for the meeting this morning.

but the tears came. and then our boss came over. and now I'm crying in front of my co-chair and my division head, trying to assure them its nothing, really.

and I didn't realize this until I talked to one of my closest colleagues at the end of the day, but I think I still felt "less than" from my running encounter on Friday. His comment made me feel small and powerless, and coupled with a 2.5 hour meeting for which I was underinformed and underprepared, I was overwhelmed.

Then I started over-analyzing everyone around me. Is he making excuses for me? Is he giving me special treatment? Is she apologizing in overly gentle tones because she doesn't want to trigger another crying jag? I'm sure they only meant the best for me and wanted to make sure I felt comfortable and confident, but as a young, petite, female colleague I don't need anything else like a reputation for crying keeping people from taking me seriously. It's bad enough that some people call me "kid" and parents mistake me for one of the students.

I just want to be me. Not sexualized, not infantalized, just me.