Year 6, Day 308: A sad and scared worry. On the weekend, I’d been up and about for maybe 1.5 hours doing basic chores and my body buzzed with the sort of exhaustion warning that means the longer I do this, the harder the crash will be. I’ve “rested” (doing almost all the usual parenting and some of my work and some of my housework) for almost a month. What if this is my new baseline of awful? What if, unless I do something drastic like quitting my job (in this economy/fascist country??), this is the best/most my body can do?
My job sucks right now so obviously I am not fundamentally averse to quitting but I am completely averse to not having income and the consequences of that (eventual poverty). That’s the curve my mom’s reality took: work really hard to build a solid foundation, get sick, lose eveything. That takes very little foresight to predict if I don’t save and invest enough first. (And even then I occasionally wonder: really, how safe is our net worth?)
I wish it wasn’t a choice between potentially gaining health improvement in the short term by way of committing myself to the long term consequences of having cut my income at the peak of my career.
Year 6, Day 309: Today I’m reminding myself that the reason that I stay at my current job is that I have a level of autonomy that would be difficult to get elsewhere in the industry and that it’s entirely remote and that latter bit is what makes it possible for me to survive having a full time job while being a full time parent and doing all the other things that I need/want to do. I will still be sad and complain now and again but those are the two things I have to come back to – these are the things that would be very difficult to find in the COVID+6 years world where everyone is irrationally hot to get bodies back into office despite there being ample evidence that many jobs could be remove (and therefore more accessible to the disabled community). My therapist doesn’t think it’s healthy for me to think of myself as disabled but if I require a job that lets me work from bed for two months, or else I wouldn’t be able to survive doing my work AND being a parent, I’m not sure what else to call it. I don’t need to be called disabled but anywhere else in the professional world, what I need to do well at my job and manage life would be considered an unreasonable accommodation.
Year 6, Day 310: Is it ironic that while I’m still slowly shedding the tentacles of depression that bonded to my brain, death metal felt very soothing? Maybe but hattip to Fleshgod Apocalypse (a friend’s rec) and later on, The Hu, for helping ease my mind through a rough patch.
Shutterfly sent one of their “A glimpse of your memories from twenty years ago” emails and it served me a picture of me with an old friend, and an even older friend who died of cancer last year. Wow that hurts.
Year 6, Day 311: I love dental cleanings. I love that it’s only a 7 minute drive away. I especially love when I get what feels like an A or B at my exam. I got a “looks good” from the dentist, a “looks pretty good, not much build-up” from the hygienist and gum measurements show some improvement since my last exam. My goal is to have no 4s or 5s in 6 months. Hope hope hope.
Other things that are good: one friend’s divorce from a suddenly awful spouse who just upped sticks is final. Two more friends are divorcing abusive husbands. I hope their dissolutions are quick and drama free, I don’t trust those men even an ounce.
Trading unhealthy relationships for better circumstances FTW!
Year 6, Day 312: An unseasonably warm day today was an unanticipated treat. We’ve had a couple weeks of rain on and off. Even hail and a thunderstorm once! That was actually pretty neat since we don’t get a wide range of weather here.
I’m dragging into this Friday but at least still practically upright despite all kinds of staffing drama this week. I’m still putting a few of the smaller fires out but the worst of the solvable problems this week have been.
Year 6, Day 301: It was a mental health crisis weekend wherein my brain was taken hostage by the depression and it was rough before it passed. I think it was, at the very least, a culmination of the pressure of having to enforce what felt like idleness (which means working like maybe one person, not 6, and still parenting, and trying to keep abreast of the most critical household stuff) for so many weeks, having the pain hit like a freight train as soon as the CFS let up even the littlest bit, and frankly, the dam just broke. I’m not past it yet, there are lots of whispers of “what would be best” but the worst of the death doldrums have passed.
Year 6, Day 302: I’ve had a white hair every few years since my early twenties so it wasn’t a surprise to find this year’s iterations. But I think it’s got company. There’s about five of them? Which led me to thinking: why do people call them greys or silvers? Do they appear grey or silver instead of pure white on other people? Yes, my brain is wandering because it is firmly fixed in the fog.
Year 6, Day 303: I’m finally just about back at my baseline which is roughly 65% human. I don’t know what the other 35% is but it’s not helpful.
Year 6, Day 304: Every Winter Games, I learn a little bit more about the sport of figure skating, mostly from social media. This year’s little learning came from Courtney Milan on scoring and medal possibilities. I don’t have any time to get deeply involved so I appreciate these small glimpses.
Year 6, Day 305: TWO wins today. Animals, of course. Our tiny dog neighbor came by for skritches and love. He’s delightful, likes to politely sniff noses, and is properly spoiled so he always smells good.
While I was doling out the love, I noticed the ravens from last week were back. Not only that, the ground one (they usually come in pairs and split up: one up high as a lookout and one on the ground) kept quoorrkkking and walking / hopping a little closer to us every few seconds. It kept a minimum distance between the strange people and the dog, but it was clearly heading my way. And the longer I petted dog buddy, the more the ground raven puffed up his feathers until he was nearly round. I can’t tell if that was posturing but as soon as our neighbor and dog friend walked away, he slicked back down to normal proportions and then looked at me very expectantly. It’s delightful and astonishing it took so little effort for them to be comfortable enough with me that I can approach within 6 feet of them now. I’m slowly building my Corvid Coalition.
Year 6, Day 294: I keep wanting to make a box cake. Then I remember: it’s so mediocre I won’t enjoy it. Which, I’ve always known what it is BUT I liked it just fine. I took advice to use butter instead of oil, milk instead of water, and added an egg to make it better and still, meh. I keep wondering if it’s me or if something changed with the mixes. Everyone else likes them just fine. I used to live week to week for my Friday night box-cake-and-laundry ritual in middle and high school. I want to reinstate the ritual! But not if I can’t enjoy the cake part of it. I’ve gone searching for other ways to make it better. It feels like by the time I’ve added the butter, the extra egg, the ricotta, the pudding pack, maybe I might as well make the whole damn thing from scratch? I can’t remember the last time I did a cake from scratch, if I ever have. But it feels a whole lot more energy intensive than I can afford. Which takes me back to being grumpy about box cake not tasting quite right anymore.
Year 6, Day 295: Last summer I impulse purchased beautiful Maya Kern skirts with enormous pockets. Advertised as “fits a Nintendo DS”! I don’t have a Nintendo DS but I do have a phone and a wallet and keys and kids who always need snacks and water – I foresaw a fabulous future of magical pockets full to bursting. It was going to be my Mary Poppins moment.
However. While the pockets were absolutely not oversold, the waists are a simple elastic and they defeated me. All of my other skirts have defined waists so I never had to think about it before. I could just pair them with pretty much any shirt and they’d be fine.
Maya’s feed is full of lovely women of all shapes and sizes, mostly plus size with more shape than less, looking wonderful in their skirts with a simple top tucked in. When I put it on, and tucked in a tee (because when packing my bags for that weekend I wasn’t thinking beyond “clothes for the top part”, “clothes for the bottom part”) I looked drab and frumpy. Drab, I’m used to. I’m ruler of sweatpants at work world. But frumpy, ugh. During bedrest, I scrutinized the pictures of Maya’s customers: trying to take notes on how they styled their outfits to get some ideas and even asked some of them for their thoughts. The simplest one seemed to be adding a belt so, using the existing customers’ pictures as a guide, off I went shopping for belts in various colors.
Next problem: I’ve never accessorized with belts successfully. I’ve bought belts but they’ve never made an outfit look better. Fashion bloggers made it seem so easy! This week I finally tried on the belts and promptly made the outfit look much worse. I texted bestie pictures to confirm and she both confirmed it did NOT work and gently guided me to use different color combinations whereupon voila! The belts work for me, not against me! Honestly. Only I add accessories and end up looking significantly worse. There’s a whole world of rules around colors and shapes and lines that I’m overdue to learn in order to dress my adult self.
Year 6, Day 296: The to do list is about a mile long and growing. I’m adding things that need to be done faster than I’m able to do them.
So much grumble.
Year 6, Day 297: Bedrest again. I managed to clear my call schedule for the week though, so at least while I’m confined to working from bed, I don’t have to fake my way through video calls. Yay for that.
Year 6, Day 298: Depression has hijacked my brain.
Year 6, Day 287: We let JB have a friend over for the weekend AND we did fun stuff with the kids on both days, so now I’m paying the piper. Again. Well, I suppose it’s not “again” if it never stopped. Worst game my body plays – is it virus or is it CFS?: slight congestion, brain fog, fatigue, body aches, massively sore throat. Since I still can’t take off work, I still cherry pick only the most critical work and the rest just has to wait.
I’m relieved to see that, for today/now, Haitian TPS status is preserved.
I have had Rizzoli & Isles on for background these past two weeks and was really sad when they cut out one of the main characters at the start of Season 5. Looking him up, the waterworks turned on – the actor had died by suicide over a decade ago and they had to write him out of the show. I’d excuse myself saying that being bedridden for weeks has me maudlin, and maybe it has, but I’m pretty sure motherhood broke my thick armadillo shell of stoicism. I cry over the most random things.
Year 6, Day 288: Accounting fun bits: I’m changing our annual tracking sheet variables. I used to define Fixed and Variable spending as separate categories. The idea was that we had more control over Variable and could cut back on that type of spending in a pinch so it’s good to have that spending pre-identified. Several years later, it’s never been useful information so it’s all just Spending. The side income category isn’t useful anymore so now I track Reimbursements – I’d like to know what income is actually repayment from friends or entities (FSA, Delta Dental, etc).
Looking ahead to 2027 when both kids will be in public school, there will be a massive savings on the daycare line item. In its place, I need to project the cost for summer camp for both kids since the dependent care FSA is up to $7500 – can we use that full amount. A shame that couldn’t have been increased years ago when we could make full use of it. But two kids, summer camps seem to run $500-800 a week (on the higher end for some of the specialty education options like science stuff). PiC found an art camp year but $1000 a week was far too rich for our blood. Let’s say they’re in 8 weeks of camps x 2 kids x average $600 a week: holy smokes, that’s $9600 for part of the summer. There we go, we could easily use up the $7500 FSA for 2027. Phew. That’s one question answered.
Year 6, Day 289: JB’s dental woes continue apace. More of their adult teeth are coming in crooked. They haven’t come through yet but we’re definitely going to need braces again when they do.
SmolAc’s latest dental X-rays confirmed they will need braces eventually, too. Drat. I knew it was a strong likelihood but hoped. *Mentally allocate $6000-7000* Unfortunately our dentist no longer refers to the one we are currently using for JB because they don’t like the quality of their work. JB’s halfway through their treatment, so we have to stick with them until we know what we need to do for Phase 2. I bet we are only paid up through the start of Phase 2 but best to review the paperwork and be sure. Meanwhile I’ll need to do a bit of research on the recommended local orthodontists. This change in quality is a damn shame, their office is so convenient for us.
Year 6, Day 290: I’m on a fairly annoying weekslong quest to improve my working from bed conditions. I’ve got a lapdesk that tilts. It’s been fine for 1-3 days working from bed but that’s half of what I need when I have to work for weeks in bed. I really need a lapdesk that tilts and is mounted on a swingarm so that I can move it away from my position on the bed rather than struggling like an upside down turtle when I need to get out. I’ve searched all over and there are dozens of options, none of which fit the bill. Accidentally ordered one in a fit of optimism only to realize the measurements were all wrong, so that’s going to back. I spent a day trying out different set ups with the stuff that I already have on hand, that didn’t help, it just set off a cascade of pain. Whoops.
Related: I tend to save the Ilona Andrews blog to read in big bunches, especially to stave off depression after long bouts of fibro or CFS flares, and so I’m only just now reading the Christmas Eve post. Innkeeper Innkeeper we might get our next Innkeeper this year!!! (Also those straw mushrooms are the correct mushrooms to use in tom yum soup but our Thai restaurants started using sliced white mushrooms instead. Yuck. So I feel Ilona’s pain.)
That news really hit the spot.
Today was the first day there were signs of the CFS receding even the littlest bit after several weeks of dying slowly inside from fatigue. Hilariously, the heartburn and fibro pain immediately flared up in its place.
Year 6, Day 291: I’m up to feeling about 15% human today! That’s well up from the 0-3% I’ve been feeling for about 3 weeks. I’ve been in the sub 20% range for 7 weeks. This is the danger zone. This is where I feel juuuuust human enough that I will force myself to do “little” things I need or want to do, repeatedly, because I haven’t sunk under the pressure YET and willpower through until collapse. If I do that when I’m nearer my baseline of 65%, I can recover in a day or three. At 15%, it’ll be weeks of recovery. This round I’m working on being extra mindful of this tendency and communicating better with PiC. More honestly, more transparently. I’ve always been one to hide my weakness but it’s too dire to hide now. It’s been hard crawling out of this hole I/we dug for myself.
In exercising, this impulse is precisely what gets me in trouble – this hurts but I can grit it out! Then I am laid up for 3 weeks. Thank goodness for my trainer keeping me on very calibrated workouts.
We’re meant to see our friends this weekend and I want to! But hello, self, all the weekend socializing that we’ve done through January is exactly what took me down to 0-3%. So. Right. Being self aware that 15% is good but not GOOD. I need to refill this tank a great deal more because I have to solo parent one month from now and we cannot risk my being a sludgepile when it’s just me and the kids.
Please enjoy some self-awareness and a walrus vocalizing with me.
Year 6, Day 280: Snow adventure with new friends completed! It actually went much better than I had feared. The new friends were incredibly gracious and considerate housemates (making my anxiety flare up around whether we were the gross, gauche, inconsiderate housemates by comparison because we were not in the least bit prepared for the levels of FOOD they perform at). All the kids got along like a house on fire. Naturally JB was at the forefront of all the ruckus, being both the eldest and, well, themself. The 3 younger kiddies gladly and loudly followed their lead, crashing up and down the stairs, amok amok amok.
The snow adventure itself was also loads of fun. The kids tried skiing for the first time despite so much trepidation and I stayed safely on the sidelines with my bruised / busted tailbone. I even accidentally made the acquaintance of someone who is nearly a neighbor to us back home! It was fun for all and now I need a week to recover from it all. Plus do 18 loads of laundry. Cold weather/snow gear is so bulky.
Year 6, Day 281: ACK. I can’t tell if this is because of a virus (very possible, JB went down hard with a sore throat and headache today) or if I’m just so exhausted that my body has completely given up and fell “sick” but I feel like barely warmed over death. Between my muscle aches, fatigue, brain fog and massively sore throat, it’s awfully close to what they might have. A friend has pointed out that if I feel sick, that’s pretty much being sick. So the two of us are stuck at home, together, sick and miserable.
I’ve got two whole hands of ginger so I scraped a chunk and tossed it into a pot with chicken and garlic in hopes that we’d have a warm nourishing lunch while I was too tired to exist. I still had to work, I’m covering for other people even sicker than I, this month is critical to making progress in the backlogs that accumulated over the holidays, and I have to complete annual reviews this week. I have so MANY.
Year 6, Day 282: I didn’t think it was possible – laundry is my favorite chore (sincerely) – but I’m too tired to do any more laundry. I’m six loads in and all the ski/snow gear is clean, some is still drying. Most has been squished down and packed into the newly dubbed Snow/Winter bin. I’ve never had enough cold weather experience to warrant a full outfit, this is novel.
But between the *gestures at self* and the work that I’ve dragged myself through, there’s nothing left in the tank so even though I resent it, rest has to come first, or at least as soon as I can wrap the two most important work things.
I carved out a few minutes to cut out bag shapes from one of the sheets of washed and steamed fabric. I got as far as two sets before my whole body was shaking, and on the verge of passing out collapse. Tis unfair and I’m grouchy.
Year 6, Day 283: The annoying byproduct of this process of prioritizing health is knowing that none of the less critical things, the fun things especially, are getting done. I really want to do them! I want our counters cleaned off, my desk area tidied, the piles of accumulated junk sorted and recycled. I have to settle for up to ten minutes of hobby time as the antidote to work.
Today’s microdose of fun was pulling the now clean but incredibly wrinkled fabric out of the dryer and steaming them. It took me a bit to figure out how to do it but then it was like magic! The crumpled all to hell balls of fabric opened up like a blooming flower and I could see the patterns and colors again. Yay! I’ve hung them up for now so they stay relatively line free until I can figure out how much of it can be used. They’re weirdly shaped scraps but I’m pretty sure I can get at least one large bag out of the biggest piece and maybe one tiny bag out of the smaller one.
Year 6, Day 284:Rant: I’m so tired of whatever this is, more and more it seems like a CFS flare up, that I can’t even sustain my anger at still being knocked down and useless. I am angry in my head, and stressing over everything I absolutely cannot do, but I can’t even use the rage as energy like normal. /huff
I did manage to submit the Costco clothing order for the second Lakota family we’re helping but I hadn’t been able to do the second dry goods order they need.
Sigh. Anger brought to you by my making commitments that my body cannot keep. JB wants to table at this craft fair this fall, and I’d like us to try, which means we have to be making a fair amount of goods every month through June to have enough stuff to put in an application. Having multiple weeks where we’re not getting anything done makes me itch.
Year 6, Day 273: How do we seriously still have a president who has giant baby tantrums over not being given the Nobel Peace Prize when what he really deserves is to spend the rest of his life in a deep dark hole, and the rest of the world has to worry about World War 3 as a result?? *Endless screaming*
Also frustrating on the micro-level of life: my throat was full of lumps this weekend. That’s a sure sign that my body’s trying its damnedest to fight off an infection and not quite managing it without doing damage to me. I’ve upped my antivirals to the “acute infection” dosage. Crossing all the things that they do the trick because our next three weekends are booked solid, I’m trying to figure out Spring Break, summer break and summer camps. It’s a bit more than my brain has capacity to manage right now. But it’s all got to be done before we have no choices.
Year 6, Day 274: I agreed to go on a little quick weekend snow adventure and I’m having pangs of regrets about the whole endeavor. House sharing. Bathroom sharing. Being in the cold much of the day. Not being in my own little Hobbit hole? Not being able to spend the weekend cleaning up the papers piling up like snowdrifts and trying on the belts I ordered for my skirts to see if they work? It’s about all I can do to make myself take deep breaths and be Zen about it.
PiC’s in charge of organizing all the cold weather gear because I have no time and this is more his deal. Plus I have never properly done any of this – as a Southern Californian born and raised, and without money to travel or do fun things, snow was a thing that happened to other people. He’s getting everyone outfitted from head to toe and that’s going to cost a pretty penny in the end. I’m not looking forward to totalling up the costs but I set ourselves a budget and he’s doing his best to stay at budget.
Year 6, Day 275: A nasty byproduct of being deemed competent in a leadership position is being voluntold to do things like presentations and business travel. I hate presentations and blergh business travel. I very tidily dodged all but one trip last year, through honest but perhaps less than chivalrous means. (Must I be chivalrous when dealing with an equal counterpart?k May I manage the same this year, or better. Zero trips, I vote for zero business trips. I want to see nothing and nobody. Just let me do my job.
In exciting news, I’ve been promoted to the 8 lb weights for my bicep curls. Did I mention that? I can’t recall. But we start with very low rep ranges (6-10) when we start a new weight level and I was enthusiastically trying to hit the high end of the range tonight when I reread my assignment and realized it said FOUR sets. Not just two. Oh. Oh that’s very different from what I was mentally prepared for. Also physically braced for. Well then. Change of plans: taking a good long break between each pair of sets to avoid stressing my wrists. My hands look ridiculous holding these 8 lb weights because they are, by comparison, enormous. It worries me a little bit that my wrists won’t bear up under the strain. If you weren’t around 20 years ago, my wrists are the original focal point for my fibromyalgia so I try to be at least a little mindful of overstressing them without being hypervigilant or babying them. It’s a weird balance.
Year 6, Day 276: ✅ I have done the donations part of my activism today. ✅ I have cut out fabric using my little graph paper pattern for two more wee bags. ✅ I’ve ordered a couple organization options for my tech bin to get the cords and cables under control. Maybe also for other uses but they will occur to me later. ✅ I’ve ordered several batches of very competitively priced supplies (manicure kits, cleaning cloths, socks, underwear) for our next Lakota community shipment. I know some friends will be bringing me their weeded out clothes next weekend so this will go into that box since weight isn’t a factor. I could have shipped this all direct but, at these prices, I wanted to vet the goods before sending them on.
Freezer and leftover dinner! November me divided a big batch of Japanese curry in two and froze it. I pulled that out midday with no plan at all. When everyone got home from their long day, we threw it on top of fettuccine and called it good. (They actually did like it, so it was indeed good.)
Year 6, Day 277: I go to bed hurting and exhausted every night, and I wake up hurting and exhausted every morning. The manner of pain varies, usually, but the cadence does not. Yet I am acutely aware that it could be so much worse. I’m in regular contact with a minimum of five migraine sufferers most days, and boy, it makes me so grateful that my brand of pain is what it is even while I’m so sad for them. I have gritted it out through so many kinds of pain, in so many muscles and bones, as long as it’s below the skull/neck. Eye pain, head pain, jaw pain and dental pain though? Absolutely not. I cannot function with those. I support them the best I can depending on our relationship but wow does it sound awful.
Well here’s some fun (not). I discovered 4 more orders at the art shop two days after the orders had been submitted – oops? I didn’t check the business email so totally missed those notifications. But as I started clicking into the details something was weird. The shipping address on all four were the same as one another. Waitaminnit. That’s the same address as the order from two weeks ago.
I logged into Big Cartel to ask them what to do about these weird transactions that seem scammy and logged into Stripe to check the transaction history to find almost 500 declined transactions since Jan 11 – that first order from two weeks ago. That’s over $3000 in attempted charges, 4 of which slipped through. At first I was trying to figure out how they were trying to scam us, now I think this is someone just using the shop as their way to flip through stolen credit cards and as a result we’re going to lose money because when we refund everything, Stripe is going to keep their fees for all the charges so we’re going to end up OWING them. It’s not a ton but the principle of it is infuriating! ARGH.
Year 6, Day 266: Two little bits of excitement for the day: JB seems to have had an organic sale of one of their art things!
I Mcgyvered a toothbrush duct-taped to a pen to dig out a ton of the lint stuck down in the trap. Feeling Quite Accomplished. It’s not the full cleaning it needs but it’s progress, just like the toaster oven door with 1/5 of the glass clean.
This scene got me right in the gut. As a person whose parents didn’t always like her, as a person who watched grandparents treat her beloved mother with disdain and outright hatred, and as a parent who deeply loves her kids but sometimes finds them insufferable.
Year 6, Day 267: It feels like I’m being responsible and forward thinking when I scan every possible job listing (at least for the title, location, and pay range) to eyeball likely postings daily. But they all depress me. Every high level well-paying job that would roughly one to one replace this job seems to have all the same characteristics of the job I already hate (mostly corporate incompetence, also “number go up” culture). I’ve never been one to turn down a professional challenge, but having been learning how not to create more problems for myself on the personal front has changed my perspective on this career hustling moment.
Applying that awareness to this situation, job hunting feels like it’s now hypervigilance rather than proactively looking for opportunities.
Is this me being tired of the looking? Maybe. I don’t really spend all that much time looking, but it is an entirely deflating however many minutes I spend on it. There’s nothing exciting about having to look and interview and present myself a certain way and all that. It’s absolutely exhausting.
Year 6, Day 268: PF buddy Abby was asking about our retirement plans and I wanted to be hopeful but that healthcare piece remains a wild card. It seems impossible to budget for now that the US government is being run by a pack of wild murderous dingos.
Looking at those example numbers I cited before from someone who is self employed – $17k premiums and $6500 deductible which works out to $24,000 before their insurance covers anything and their situation isn’t even the worst healthcare plan out there – how does one budget for the possibility of somewhere in the neighborhood of $50k – $100k a year (for 4 people) in healthcare premiums and deductibles?? It starts to suggest you’re better off self insuring.
Except you’re not. My family took that route when I was growing up (pre ACA) and it was AWFUL. So that’s a tough needle to thread at the best of times, while we’re currently in what certainly feels like the worst of times. The unsettling part is knowing that it could get a lot worse, because that’s definitely the Republican game plan.
*****
SmolAc has been slightly under the weather with a cough and sore throat so I made them ginger garlic chicken and ginger garlic rice. They appreciated none of it. But it was really good! So it’s been my lunch for the week. Turns out you can have an easy almost Hainan chicken experience if you lower your standards some.
Year 6, Day 269: My friend challenged my thinking about what kind of savings through investing we can manage in the next two years. I have plans to squeeze out every dollar that I possibly can and put it into our investments but it still seems like it’s so far from enough. So they asked what our gains were in each of the past two years. I went back five years and was really surprised to see that with the exception of 2022, every year since 2021 has seen six digits of growth. We’re still far from my ideal number (which admittedly has been creeping up again in this, the worst timeline) but these numbers are so far from small it’s laughable. And yet, I still think “I won’t be able to save enough in the next year and a half” in case I get laid off.
Whenever the thought about a potential layoff comes up, my action-planning brain hides in a corner. I really really don’t want to have to find another job, all the job hunting notwithstanding. I really want to have enough invested that I can be let off the hook of having to work if I lose this job. But I still want to be able to work on the Lakota families project, to help out folks who need help, to afford some small luxuries like a dozen books a year or to adopt a dog when I’m ready. *wistful sigh* Wishful thinking!
Year 6, Day 270: I had my annual review today. When it was scheduled, I was awash in anxiety for a few hours. Then I got over it. I did my little notes and write up, had a friend take a look for perspective, and gave it a last cursory 2 minute brush up the next day and moved on. Therapy’s done me a world of good, I know my anxiety would have been through the roof about this six years ago.
I know that I put in an extraordinary amount of work last year. An unbelievable number of hours. And despite months of stress and friction and worry and under-resourcing battles, and shitty entitled staff battles, we eked out a win by the end of the year.
Even though the review was quite positive, it was hard for my brain. I struggled to accept the positive feedback. My brain wanted to undermine it all within 3 hours of the relief. “What if he was just saying that? what if he’s just gassing you up but doesn’t mean a damn word of it and will undermine you later??” it demands. I wanted to be mad, why can’t you let me enjoy this???? But there are reasons. I want to see that in writing for it to be real. It feels like all our massive efforts would only have been recognized under these circumstances – pulling a win out by the end of the year. It feels less than genuine because my boss was largely absent last year, like they’re only basing the judgement on the end result rather than the whole picture. Not that I’m saying that they WERE being disingenuous, it just feels like when people make that “you’re smart” comment – what exactly are you basing that on? What are your objective metrics? While I am perfectly happy writing up my people’s reviews based on their genuine efforts, for myself, my brain simultaneously demands to be recognized for being awesome (because professionally, I am) AND demands extra proof of that awesomeness. My brain is my worst enemy some days. But speaking of metrics, as we’re into the new year, I guess our bonuses (or lack thereof) will be a tangible metric.