Time.

Sunday evening walked up to me and felt more like an acquaintance than a threat. Count that as the first “Sunday night before a workday” in… (years??) where I have NOT felt a sinking sense of dread as I settled down for the evening. Or that frozen panic in my chest knowing what I’m in for (another week of having to keep “clients/patients” happy happy happy at the expense of my sanity sanity sanity!)

I shouldn’t say that…. But it is the truth.

Bad memories aside, my first week at The New Job went very well. It’s a lot of information and a new language to learn - tricky at times - but I feel I am fully capable of absorbing it with repetition and patience (and probably grace).

I walked around the mall my swanky office buildings are connected to during most lunch breaks. My step count has gone up. I am making my Apple Watch proud.

I’m still haunted by memories of The Last Job, despite the fact that every day is a step and a three quarters forward. Fresh memories to hopefully put those old ones in perspective. The thing is - the memories of that job seem worse - darker - in retrospect. Perspective. I am sad for myself and who I was at that job, which inevitably begs the question - “WHY did I not leave sooner? Why did I continue to give past the point of depletion?” The answer is obvious, and I refuse to plagiarize Little Women by Louisa Mae Allcott so I’ll put this in quotes:

“I want to be great or nothing.”

I refuse to be nothing. I refuse to have die with nothing for my obituary. I have 1 verbal family member in Texas and minimal ties to the rest if I’m being honest. Romantic entanglements are risky at best, children are expensive, throw up a lot, and this is no cheery/safe world for them anyway. Not even close.

Side note - I worry about not being able to relate to people as I age. Everyone is getting married or babied off… and it seems as if that is that. That’s their middle and end.

I want freedom. But I still want to BE somewhere and have a story to tell - some type of connection - yet only to the people and things that truly matter to me.

So what are those things? How sweet of you to ask. Well here’s the tricky part - most are woefully abstract. Safety. Knowledge. Art. Literature. Being a writer. Embracing memories. But most of all? Peace.

What do I need most though?

Time to level out.