I Have To Get A Job

Here I sit having worked freelance for the last year (+1 month) and I feel the fulcrum is cresting, it is giving way, it is folding in on itself. My husband looked at me last night and said, "It's time to get a job". So there it is...this heal-rest-restore-rejuvenate and then move on with my life phase is coming to an end. A year is really more than most could ever hope for. Not that there haven't been ups and downs and all arounds during that year, but still. I have been truly blessed to have been able to take this time and not work a regular job. I pined and whined and cried for this option, this elusive opportunity, to be mine to take when I was so sick and working so hard and we were still living off credit cards. And I got it. And now it is coming to an end, and I am overwhelmingly conflicted.

On one hand it is time to organize myself and execute a job (or career) search and move forward. Maybe I have to bite the bullet and take a lower paying job for more hours to get off my feet and into a chair. Maybe I have to go back to school to gain a specialized skill. Either way, the time is now. I owe it to my husband and I owe it to myself. I owe it to everyone who has stood by me these last few years for countless hours as I bitched and moaned about how horrible I felt and tough my life was. I owe it simply because now I can. I can choose what I want to do and how I am going to be successful doing it. And I can choose this on my terms and make it work. My life is a bit of a blank canvas. With the same hard work and determination and passion I have applied to all my successful endeavors sum-ing these last 33 years, I can achieve what I set out to achieve.

Which is why on the other hand I am scared shit-less. I am feeling weepy and pitiful and sorry for myself and like a complete victim. When I think of looking for a job I get woozy and dazed. And the anxiety shoots through the roof! I feel like I do eventually want to get a darn-near full-time job but I am still a long way from there. I am just getting my pep back, and am still sleeping 9+ hours a night, and still have bouts of very mild insomnia that I am quickly able to rectify with my flexible schedule. I still have unmanaged pain and unstable symptoms, and I really want to take Spanish II next semester on Tuesday & Thursday during the day. And I feel panic cold fingers of gripping fear at the thought of managing Fibromyalgia and work and my life. Oh yeah, and my happiness, too.

I suppose the truth resides somewhere in the middle, as it usually does. Let the extremes fall off of either end and absorb the two middles into one. The most progressive schools of thought for any ideal would be represented this way. But I digress... What I have been able to do is schedule an appointment with the career center at my community college to utilize their services. That is next week. 'Till then I have a little thought brewing in my mind. Maybe next time I will know enough to share.

Thanks for joining,
Leah