Issues

I am beginning to dread work in a serious way and it's casting a pall over everything. The worst of it is that insofar as I can know about my position and stability, things are fine. I'm working hard, and I've been told I'm safe and that my superiors will fight hard to keep me if it ever comes to that. But with the situation seeming to change every week, I'm a little terrified that my personal situation will change too. And that makes me a lot terrified about everything else. What if I get pregnant? Will that alter my situation? I'll have to miss work, and then be out, and will that unconsciously shift my position downward and make someone else more seem more valuable? What about our debt and our house, which seems to need more and more repairs? What about our savings (hahahahaha) and our car, which still has over 3 years left on payments?

I'm biting my nails and grinding my teeth and no answers are forthcoming. I should have faith in what I'm being told, but my mind isn't shutting off there. It's an utterly nerve-wracking sort of experience. This is precisely why I stayed in the field I was in - because I thought it was more secure than your average pick-i-nick basket job.

I realize in all of this is that recurring tendency towards fretting and my old friend loathing for not being in control of an outcome. You would think, hard as that lesson has been driven home, I'd embrace it. And I do try . . . but I'm not good at it. I've listened to my meditation things, I've done deep breathing, and will consider yoga, should my back ever cooperate (when I feel down in the elevator last week, I think I did some damage). But when I'm alone, my mind starts spinning and spinning and spinning and you can see from the above where it goes.

Throw in a massive headache and a digestive system that seems to be protesting all the ways my current assignment has me abusing my body, and I simply couldn't do it today. I stayed home, practically whimpering with exhaustion. I wish I were braver, or able to trust more easily, or that I had an off switch.

Yeah, an off switch would be quite handy right about now.