it's been a week since i started training at my new job.  i am going to be flat out honest here, as i always am.  and this is the one place i can express myself without worry of letting someone down, or any such thing.  there are only my own expectations here.

it is not good here.
it is a delicate eggshell i am walking.
it isn't just missing Henry.  but it is that also.
it isn't just missing being a housewife.  but it is that also.
it isn't just the newness and complete transformation of my day.  but it is that also.

it is gaining a paycheck.  it is gaining daily camaraderie.  it is working for a company with guts and integrity.

it is also completely losing my time to create.  it is also trying to cram in time to walk and create amazing dinners and play with Henry and watch my shows and all the little things that make me into me.  it is ordering my time, 7 days a week, to make the 5 days a week work.  it is getting up at 5am so that i have time to eat breakfast and get ready and get out the door and commute 40 minutes and walk 2 blocks from the parking lot to sit in a dark and Very Warm classroom with a 30 minute lunch brought from home, while all i want to do is cry.  very hard.  and so, on the way home, i hyperventilate.  or call someone to distract myself.  but the inevitable will be the inevitable, and the gut-wrenching tears will come anyway, sooner-or-later.  it's also going to bed at 7 or 8 latest, in the guest bedroom because i'm going to bed 5 hours or more earlier than husband who snores and wakes me up 5 or more times a night.  it's missing my warm little cannonball of a dog at night, who curled against my tummy and sucked on the sheet to get to sleep.  he sleeps upstairs.  i sleep alone with my brand new cpap machine hissing.  it is also not having the time, temperament or energy to continue working to repair and strengthen ties that have gotten dry rotted…they dangle still.  it is also not having anything left to give those that i want to give to.  my sister and i have never had a relationship, having only met 3 times (long story).   she was just diagnosed with breast cancer.  despite the distance, i want to reach out to her, and i will, but feel like my well is empty.

it's also about the arguing and nastiness that has overtaken my house whenever i try to express these things.  and when i feel time-crunched and choose hemming pants over going to buy new window blinds, feeling a knife in my heart as an angry back slams out a door to go shop alone.  despite the unresolved conversations of the week.

i feel no shame in admitting that i cannot remember a time where i felt so entirely alone and sad…where my house seemed to want to spew me out…where i have felt so completely not myself.

but yes.  i do remember.  and it was that time not so many years ago, when i tossed the 9-5 in pure self-preservation and ran for my pillow.  yes.  there are millions of people who face horrific days and nights that make me sound like an incredibly spoiled and insensitive bitch.  but i am only called to live my own reality.

a counselor has offered to teach me techniques for better sleep and to lessen panic attacks.  although kind, it seems like patching up the wounded and sending them right back into battle.  i want to find a foxhole and stay put.

be careful what you wish for, is what TUT's advice is, because it will come to pass.

i wish you good thoughts, magical words to speak your wishes into truth…and a compass to seek the best course.