Getting things started again

It’s been a while… about 9 months actually.
Life presented some life changing directions to take and I took them!
One of the biggest changes was that I took a full-time job with full health benefits for the entire family. On top of that I got paid on a regular basis, for work that I had been doing anyway and also had a lot of interest in. Awesome, right? It was! For a while.

But soon I started noticing things like…
spending all my energy at work. Being constantly ‘tired’ when I came home. Having a short fuse when it came to relationships with people I loved. Feeling a constant need to just zone out. Feel the need to decompress and have a drink every night (I resisted). Feeling like I missed the whole day with my son.
In a nutshell, I felt depressed.

After some reflection it became painfully obvious that I was not doing something that reinforced the person I wanted to grow into. Sure this was ok for now, but as far as who and where I want to be in 10 or even 5 years? No.
While I was highly encouraged to accept, mostly by family, that these pangs of unhappiness was normal and what 90% of society experiences for financial stability (because financial stability outweighs happiness), it just wasn’t a good enough reason to stay.

On the flip side, it was hugely important for me to experience what a “real world” job felt like. It was extremely affirming to go from college grad to mother to manager of a department, and to have other more experienced workers affirm my competence. Up until that point I felt like I had always just been winging it, though now I feel like maybe I really do know what i’m doing.

So now comes change.

(more…)