However, I'm in a slightly more relaxed job now, as opposed to the one that had me running so fast and hard every single day that I was about two days from complete and total meltdown before I quit.
THANK YOU THE UNIVERSE FOR FINDING ME ANOTHER JOB!
(Well, and thank you to me too, for getting off my ass and looking.)
I just found my brain going into these bizarre scenes of abject HORROR, imagining the worst-case scenario in all situations, freaking out about everything. I mean, it didn't help that my husband was walking to class in front of the building where all the shooting broke out at Virginia Tech this past April. That tends to put a kind of crimp in the headspace, if you know what I mean.
Anyway, I hadn't realized how much stress I was under at my last position. I hadn't realized that pretty much from 7am to 4pm my heart was pounding. No fricken WONDER I was starting to have health problems, and I couldn't lose weight, and my brain was fried.
It's just not good to walk around in an artificially generated state of "HOLY FUCKIN SHIT" all the time, especially when it's being maintained by somebody outside of yourself.
Man. I ESCAPED!
I realized though, that I'm still freaking out a little bit about the work that I left undone at my old job. But there was honestly no freakin way I could have possibly gotten through everything, as my boss, even up to my last day, was constantly throwing new stuff at me. He needs to get himself under control. Seriously. He's going to burn himself out, and FAST.
To keep myself sane, I've been writing in gratitude journals twice a day. Once in the morning. I got to do it this morning sitting on the subway platform waiting for the train after I dropped off my daughter at daycare. That was cool. And I got to see some of the city around my new workplace. This area, just over Bryant Park, feels more like home than Park Avenue ever did. It's pretty awesome. I can look out my boss' window and see the lions in front of the New York Public Library (the big one). And I have bookstores nearby as well. I'm surrounded by comfort! My favoritest things (books) in the whole entire world are right at my doorstep. Plus, I really love the lions.
But, I digress. The night time journaling is also cool. My friend (fairygodmother/guardian angel/person of great awesomeness) J. sent me a journal one year that is based on the song "I Hope You Dance" by LeeAnn Womack. What's really funny about that is that I am NOT a big country music fan, but I discovered this song when it first came out and fell in love. Now, it is one hell of a mushy, sappy, sentimental song, but somehow it broke through the cold crustiness of my cynical little heart and I fell madly in love with it. I bought the album and listened to it over and over and over. Then it got stolen from my car in Alexandria, VA, but that's neither here nor there. That car was doomed.
Not knowing that I loved that song, somehow J. was drawn towards the journal, bought it for me and sent it. Cool, eh?
I started keeping it as my gratitude journal when I was having some major postpartum depression and it was the only thing that kept me from going completely and utterly apechitbananas. Dark, dark days.
I don't know why I keep letting it slide. I'm determined not to do it again. I really like writing in it.
Whenever I get overwhelmed throughout the day, I pick up my gratitude journal and write one thing that I'm thankful for.
So. Thank you, J. for the awesome journal. I give thanks to you every single night when I pick it up and write in it. I hope that I can return to you some day, even a tenth of the love and generosity that you've given me.
