Breathing

This week has been awful. And not for the reasons I might have predicted six months ago.

I started my new job - the one I'm doing in addition to my current job - and I feel like I'm drowning. The learning curve is steep, I'm present only half-time, there are only so many hours in the day, and I've quickly learned why the problems exist in that department. Everything is a goddamned crisis oh my god I need this now put out this fire (ignore the fact I set the fire) this wasn't done falling through cracks sky is falling auuuuuggggghhhhh!

There's no time for regular work because one is always putting out fires.

Additionally, everyone has their hands in the money jar. And no one has a budget. For a variety of reasons, not assisted by not being available and present full-time, people are going directly to the financial assistant for payment and assistance. That has to stop. Making that happen though . . . sigh.

I do think I can do it. Truly, I do. My attitude is one of grim determination. Certainly, I can't make it worse.

But this adjustment period is killing me. This shuffling back and forth adds about a mile a day to my walk (seriously). In the current heat, it's killer. I haven't jogged in a week (though J is encouraging me to do so tonight). I have stayed late every single night this week - by hours. I haven't eaten lunch in the last three days, because there's not been time. Hell, today, I didn't even go to the bathroom.

I come home exhausted, and terrified I've forgotten something - after a mere few days, I'm already feeling infected with crisis-mode thinking, feeling flustered and behind and the fact I am behind the curve and scrambling to figure out really important things (the predecessor's notes were . . . lacking) is unnerving. I have good support, but figuring out how to best utilize it whilst still doing the job myself is a balance I've not mastered.

Add in to all of this the fact that Tuesday is what it is . . . sometimes over the past week it's flared up and hung over me and I've gasped.

The oddest thing . . . they don't know this about me. This thing that is such a huge part of my life and my identity. They had no idea that a year ago, I was finding out my baby was a boy and cautiously beginning to look ahead because we felt we were out of the woods. They had no idea that four perfect days were upon us and then our world was shattered.

At such a time, with everything else, it's such a jarring sensation and sense of unreality.

So I'm doing what a did nearly a year ago. Breathing, and trying to emotionally understand what I logically know. It won't feel like this forever. I'll get used to splitting time between two offices and I'll get used to organizing and prioritizing my time. I'll work out better systems to get things in the department on track and get things running more smoothly. I'll learn their budgets and funding sources and become conversant in their issues and know their staff.

That's one of the side-benefits of a dead baby; you learn you can survive just about anything, if you breathe and keep plodding on.