So don’t doubt, that onwards and upwards gonna find me better days

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Post title from “Seasons of Change” by Half Moon Run

Wednesday morning I got the confirmation that my third reference came in and all of my new hire stuff was sent to HR! No explanation from either the reference or the admin lady of why they took so long to respond but oh well. It’s not important.

I guess the way it works at this employer is HR gets the final say in who is hired. So my immediate future bosses/coworkers picked me, but HR is the one who okays the pick and sends out the written offer. The admin lady warned me it could take awhile, so I’m back to playing the waiting game. I’m much less anxious though because everything that was my responsibility is done. I’m glad I got the notice before I finished my 8 day stretch at work, because now I’m off, awake during the day, and can relax without constantly stressing and checking my email.

I’m officially done with night shift forever. I had to stay late at work today for training (which is silly since I won’t be there much longer) and now I’m off for 6 days and then I will be on day shift! It will feel bizarre being at my work during the day time, but now I can finally start fixing my sleep schedule and hopefully reverse my pre-diabetes that I am 100% convinced being on night shift gave me.

When I finally start my new job, it will be such a big adjustment. I’m looking forward to having a work schedule that never changes so that I can schedule my life outside of work and hopefully be more productive. It’s going to be hard juggling work, trying to stick to an exercise routine, and cooking dinner after work! I’ve never been good at cooking dinner after work because the tiredness always wins out, but now I have a kid and this is something I desperately want and need to do so that he can eat at least one semi-healthy meal and we can hopefully increase his exposure to vegetables. My husband is a great dad but he is not the most talented cook and I know he’s been struggling trying to feed our kid stuff other than fast food and junk food.

It’s also going to be an adjustment only having 2 days off. I used to wait to do all my productive stuff like cleaning on my 6 days off, so that I didn’t have to do anything on the days I was working, and now I’m going to have to figure out how to spread everything out across the week, since 2 days off is not really enough time to clean the whole house and do everything else I need to do.

I’m worried I’m going to start this new job with all these grand notions of how I’m going to be productive and exercise and clean and then just fall right back into the bad habits I had when I had a 9-5 job before. It will especially be an adjustment becoming responsible for dropping our baby off in the morning at my parents’ before work. Right now my husband does that. All I want to get out of this new job as far as schedule goes is to stick to an exercise routine, cook dinner every weeknight, and regularly clean the house. With my current job’s work schedule I can’t do any of that stuff. I used to be able to do all that stuff before I had a kid, so I’m just wondering how hard it will be now. Oh and I can’t forget that my school starts back this upcoming Monday. I’m really worried about how I will do it all.

You can soak your bread in water, you can soak your bread in wine

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Post title from “Waiting” by Cake

And I’ve heard zero from the admin lady who is handling the references. I finally broke down and emailed her today to ask how everything was going since I hadn’t heard from her. Last week she was really good about responding to me in a timely manner, and this week, nothing.

I know rationally, she probably just took the days off from work. It was cinco de Mayo this weekend, plus it’s summer when people take a lot of time off normally anyways. She could be sick and have taken multiple days off work. It’s also very possible that my reference took the day off from work for whatever reason and that’s why she didn’t respond to my email. Like that is overwhelmingly the most rational and most likely explanation for all this. But my anxiety will not be quelled by rationality. I have to keep fighting with my brain not to obsessively think that they’ve somehow changed their mind about me and are ignoring me. That is an absolutely insane thought and just not how this stuff works.

Being on night shift makes this situation both worse and better for me. It makes it worse because when someone emails me, it means I don’t see it until 5 pm when I wake up for work, and they’ve already left for the day, so I have to wait a whole day to get a response. But it makes it better for me because being asleep during the day keeps me from obsessively checking my email for a response.

I just want to officially be able to tell everyone I got a new job and to know my start date.

But at least after tonight’s shift and one tomorrow, I will finally be done with night shift. My current job is putting me back on days. I can’t decide if I’m looking forward to it. I mean, I am looking forward to being back on a normal sleep schedule. It will be nice not to lose one of my off days to trying to flip my sleep schedule from nights to days. My brain is absolutely fried from how poorly I’ve slept and how little sleep I’ve gotten since I’ve been on night shift. But I don’t like the person I’m scheduled with on days, and I’m honestly not looking forward to being around the bosses all the time. I won’t be able to read or do homework because they insist that even though our job has a lot of built-in downtime (think similar to how a security guard has downtime) that we have to “look” productive (not actually be productive) because it “looks bad”. (To who??)

Don’t even get me started on all the stupid rules they come up with. It’s really just one supervisor; I’ve complained about him before. He’s the main one I’m not looking forward to having to interact with again on days. I’m really bad at hiding my dislike of people so it’s going to be extra taxing to have to be around him and pretend to like him.

Plus day shifts suck because you get tons of calls from the public. Night shift is nice in that at least most people are asleep so they’re not calling in emergencies. It’s not a hard part of my job, it’s just aggravating.

Unrelated, I started trying to keep a gratitude journal. And I am so out of practice! It’s fairly easy to come up with things that I’m grateful for, but I also try to list good things that happened to me during the day and it was so hard to think of anything! I like keeping a gratitude journal. I’ve noticed in the past when I’ve done it, it really has improved my outlook, it’s just so hard to stick with. But clearly I need the help. I guess I have been focusing on the negative for so long, especially because of all the struggles with my job, my brain has trouble recognizing anything positive anymore.

I know that depression and anxiety are very much medical conditions that often need medication to be treated successfully (and I am on medication). But I really think, especially for myself, they are lifestyle and outlook diseases. If I’m not exercising, or eating healthy, or going outdoors regularly, then my depression and anxiety are going to be worse. If I’m always focusing on the negative and complaining, my depression and anxiety get worse.

I’m really trying to get better—to be more open and friendly and happy. I honestly think I fail most days. But I hope if I just keep trying, eventually something will stick. Eventually I’ll get better.

And hoping you heard, I’m waiting on the words

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Post title from “Waiting on Words” by the Black Keys

Basically what happened is my new hire “packet” got hung up waiting on a third reference. When we first talked about references, I misunderstood what they wanted. I thought they wanted references OR employment verification from my last 3 employers. What they really meant was they wanted 3 references from previous, ideally your most recent, supervisors.

Well one of my previous jobs legally doesn’t allow supervisors to give references; they only do employment verification. It’s sucks because I actually loved my supervisor at that job and wish I could use her as a reference. And i was laid off from another job, and the company basically doesn’t exist anymore, so it’s really hard to track anyone down from there. I got a reference from my current supervisor and from the restaurant I worked at (the one I was initially worried about!) but I still need a third.

The admin lady reached out to my supervisor from Pennsylvania without telling me. If she would have told me, I would’ve told her not to bother, because that lady has ghosted me ever since I moved. I honestly think she never liked me and has been avoiding me. Because I tried to reach her 3 years ago as a reference for a job and heard nothing back either. (And before I moved she had verbally told me she would be a reference for me).

Because the admin lady was waiting on a response from this person, I didn’t hear anything back from her about needing a third reference until Friday afternoon. And with me being on Night Shift, I didn’t see her email until like 4:45 pm that afternoon. So I hurriedly reached out to a supervisor from the job I was laid off from. 3 years ago she was a reference for me, and I had her contact information from then, but I have no idea if it’s accurate. I passed it on to the admin lady who went ahead and reached out to her, but obviously with it being so late on Friday, I won’t hear anything back until Monday at the earliest.

I’m really stressed about it. I know she would give me a positive reference, I just don’t know if any of her contact info is right. When I was laid off from that job, a magazine publisher, the magazine closed down but a few markets from the magazine stayed open and she continued working on those markets. Well now every market from that magazine is closed. Her LinkedIn still shows her working at the same company, and I found her name on a current issue of a different magazine published by the same company, so I’m pretty sure she still works there, but the email address I have is the @closed-down-magazine.com email address that I’m not sure works anymore (my email to her didn’t bounce back but that doesn’t necessarily mean the email address works). I still have her office phone number, but it’s possible that changed too.

I know I’m way over stressing myself out about this. Like it’s not that big of a deal. If she doesn’t respond, the admin lady said I can get a reference from a different supervisor at my current job.

But my brain won’t stop spiraling. My anxious brain is convinced that this delay somehow means they’ll change their mind about hiring me. I know that’s an absolutely ludicrous thought, but I can’t get it out of my head. My husband keeps talking about how excited he is about my new job and I’m constantly like, I don’t have the job yet don’t get excited. I’m busting to tell people the news but I feel like I can’t until I have the written offer.

I literally HATE having to get references. It’s the main reason why I hate job hunting. I’m a good worker and people are always willing to be references for me, but I am awful at networking and even more awful at staying in contact with people after I leave the job. It just feels so shameful and embarrassing to have to reach out to someone you haven’t spoken to in 3 years and be like “hey remember me, can you do me a favor even though I forgot about you?”

I’m also just anxious to get the written offer so I can finally know my start date. I’m so ready to leave my current job. I really want to know how much longer I’ll be stuck here haha.

I’m really saying a prayer, putting it out into the universe, however you want to phrase it, that Monday I’ll wake up to an email that says “we got your 3rd reference, everything is good to go, here’s your written offer.” I know it will happen and I fully expect to have a written offer by the end of this upcoming week, but I think if I have to actually wait that long I will explode.

It seems to me that you’re set free, It seems to be the only possibility

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Post title from “Scenes from a Midnight Movie” by Blood Cultures

So this week, I had a second round interview for the lateral transfer job. I was also supposed to have an interview with the federal government job, but I canceled it, and with good reason. The job was at a prison and a 40 minute drive from my house. I canceled the job purely because the commute was so long (and I felt confident I was going to get at least one of the two other jobs I interviewed for), but after canceling the interview I started reading reviews of the job and the prison and it made me even more glad I canceled. Every single review listed “dangerous” as a con. Reviews of other federal prisons also said regardless of your job, you may be required to step in as a correctional officer, and it wouldn’t have surprised me if the prison I was interviewing at worked the same way. Maybe I am naive, but I thought since I was interviewing for an admin position, that I would be very safe at work, even though it was a medium security prison, but I guess I was wrong. One review literally listed “getting home safely” as a pro of the job. Like what??

My second round interview with the lateral transfer job went well. It went well enough that I was feeling conflicted about what job I would pick if I were to be offered both. The team seemed like it was a very cohesive team and a supportive environment. I found out today I didn’t get the job, which I’m okay with because the job honestly sounded like it would be stressful. The second round interviewer was the manager of the department, and he said there is always work to do because they’re short staffed. It’s very detail oriented work that was deadline driven and i just don’t know if I want to go back to that type of environment. And let’s not forget the job would’ve also been a pay cut.

I honestly wonder if I didn’t get the job because I was blocked, like all my coworkers said I would be. I didn’t ask when they called because honestly, would they have told the truth? And it doesn’t really matter to me either. I’m sure when I talk to my coworkers that’s what they’ll say happened. And I can’t blame them. The trend continues of no one having transferred out of my department in years and years. But it’s also entirely possible they just had better candidates. I didn’t prepare for those interviews so some of my responses may have been lackluster. I think a big negative against me was when he asked where I see myself in 3 or 5 years, I didn’t really have an answer. I don’t think that far ahead in the future and I don’t really have any aspirations. My only goal for the future right now is to find a job I like enough to where I won’t be looking for a new one anytime soon. I have no desire to compete in the rat race or move up the corporate ladder. But I know interviewers don’t like to hear that kind of answer.

One thing I am nervous about, is in the interview, he asked what was an example of the worst team I’d been on, and I straight up said my current position. He said everything in the interview was confidential, but I don’t really believe that. But really, it doesn’t matter. If it got back to my current bosses that I said that, I would confidentially take responsibility for it and tell it to their faces. Because it’s true. I’m tired of working at a job where everyone does the bare minimum, constantly complains about how much it sucks, and where everyone seems to always hate each other and can’t work together or communicate properly.

But I also was not sad I didn’t get the job because I’d already accepted an offer for the other state government job I interviewed for! While I was waffling a bit on which job I really wanted, when the admin lady called to offer me the job at the end of the day Monday, I accepted right away, there was no doubt in my mind. It’s just a contingent job offer right now, so I can’t put my two weeks notice in yet, but I’m hoping I’ll have a written offer and start date by the end of the week. It’s been an extremely involved interviewing process. First an online 3 person panel interview, then an in-person 3 person panel interview (with 2 different people from the first round interview), and now that I’ve been offered a job, they are also doing a background check, a 10 year driving history check, a transcript check, and a reference check of (ideally) my 3 most recent jobs. For the driving history check, they even wanted me to submit a driving history from one of the previous states I lived in, even though I never owned a car or actually drove there, all because I held a license there. I’m hoping they’re okay with a non-certified copy of that driving report since the certified copy costs $44!

The only thing that may slow the process down is my reference checks. I informed my current supervisor what was going on, so he knows to expect their call, and my previous employer only does employment verification, not actual references, so all that’s easy. But my previous employer before that is a restaurant, and the owner notoriously avoids calls. We were always told to say he wasn’t in, even if he was sitting right across from us. Plus I only worked there for 3 months 3 years ago so I wonder if the owner will even remember me. If they can’t get in touch with him, then it goes to my next previous employer, who laid me off and doesn’t exactly exist anymore. I do still have some contact information from my supervisors there, but it’s been about 4 years since I’ve spoken to them, so I would have to track at least one of them down and get their updated contact information and permission to be a reference. I’m really hoping the restaurant owner just cooperates so I can move on. I won’t truly feel I can relax until I have the official written job offer.

But as it stands right now, I am getting ready to start my last 8 day stretch of nights that I will ever work again. There’s one thing for certain, and it’s that I’ll never take a job that requires night shift again. After this 8 day stretch is over, I go back to days at my current job, so I’ll have a week or two of that before my last day (assuming I am able to put my 2 weeks notice in by the end of this week). While I’m not looking forward to the longer commute of this new job, I am so looking forward to having weekends, evenings, and holidays off with no fear of unexpected overtime and no 12 hour shifts.

It’s going to be a big adjustment, just as far as getting used to working a 5 days a week, 9 to 5 type job, as well as being outside year round. I have to invest in some actual work pants now because there’s no way I’m wearing the cheap, hot, tight Target jeans I wear to work currently in the middle of summer for an 8 hour shift outdoors. I’m also going to have to stock up on sunscreen and adjust to not really having a fridge or microwave for lunch, since I’ll be out in the field all day. But I am excited for the change and to try something out of my comfort zone.

I’m not religious in the sense that I don’t believe in a sentient creator god, but my mom is and she said she was praying for me to only get offered one job that would be the best fit for me. I was also secretly hoping that would happen because I didn’t want to go through the stress of trying to pick one, and the awkwardness of telling the other job no. And that’s exactly what happened! I only got offered one job. It kind of seems like an answered prayer right? It seems kind of like this was meant to happen right? I don’t know but it sure is a relief.

Put your faith in something special, Lose yourself in new prescriptions

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Post title from “An Easy Belief” by Paper Rival

The craziest thing happened to me on Monday. I was trying to get to bed on time because I had to work a 12 hour shift that night, but my husband was taking forever to get ready for day while I watched our son. I was fussing at him because normally I like to be in bed by 9 am and it was already 9:30 and I hadn’t even started getting ready for bed. And then I get a phone call. I don’t answer it because I’m trying to get ready for bed, and they leave a message. I see on the caller ID my employers name so I immediately call back and it turns out one of the “lateral transfer” jobs is applied to with my employer was calling me back for an interview!

I couldn’t believe it. My department has a reputation for blocking people from transferring to different departments (it’s technically an open secret that they do this—our bosses would never confirm it though), so I was shocked to be getting a call at all. I think it might be because this job was recommended to me by my husband’s supervisor, who knows someone in the finance department. I think some strings may have been pulled but I won’t ever know for certain.

Immediately after I got off the phone with them to schedule an interview, I got another phone call from the federal government about a job I applied to! I couldn’t believe it again: 2 phone calls within minutes of each other asking me for an interview!

Now I don’t think I want this federal job. It pays really well and would have good benefits of course since it’s federal, but the job is at a prison that’s a 40 minute drive away from my house. I didn’t realize it was that far away when I applied. They have to do a background check and credit check before they will even interview me, and I told them to go ahead with it because you never know, I might not get these other jobs I’m interviewing for, but I’m still really doubtful I want the job.

I told my husband there must be a reason I didn’t go to bed on time today! By the time I finished the second call, it was 10 am and I never stay up that late on days I work a 12 hour shift. But if I had gone to bed on time I would’ve missed these calls! This verges on magical thinking, but I really feel like I finally got these responses to applications because I let go of applying. I stopped applying to jobs several weeks ago and kind of made my peace with whatever happens will happen. I also went shopping for interview clothes last week and I feel like those two things were signals to the universe that I was ready to receive a new job now. Okay, that is magical thinking. I have been leaning hard into the law of attraction stuff lately. But I have noticed that pattern throughout my life. Whenever I want something really bad, I don’t receive it until I completely let go of the wanting.

And I really do feel like there is some validity to the law of attraction. You see the same principles echoed throughout all the worlds major religions. “Let go and let god” “ask and you shall receive” “put your faith in god” etc. I don’t believe in god in the Christian since of the word but I do think faith can be a powerful thing. I know the atheists of the world and the logical side of myself say the law of attraction isn’t real, it’s just the brain being really good at pattern recognition and selection bias. But I do believe there are things science can’t explain and the fact that the law of attraction is promoted in some way going back thousands of years makes me open to the idea of it. I don’t 100% believe in it because if you take it to it’s logical conclusion then all wars and death and bad things that happen in the world happen because people didn’t believe strongly enough to prevent them and that’s obviously BS. But believing in it to some extent really helps me because it helps me maintain a more positive outlook on life.

I didn’t mean to go on a tangent about that, but I’ve had those ideas bouncing around in my head for a few weeks now and just needed to get them out. Back to the job stuff though, I had the interview for the lateral transfer job this morning and I’m not sure how it went. I got off work at 7 am, did my makeup, put on a dress and heels, and then my interviewers were both wearing jeans and the interview itself only took like 10 minutes! They told me all the interviews they’ve done took 10 minutes but I don’t know if they were just telling me that to make me feel better. I mean I feel like I presented myself well and was friendly and had good answers, but maybe I should’ve tried harder to talk about myself. A lot of the questions they asked weren’t very open ended, more yes or no type questions. I’m not sure if they had so little to ask because I’m a shoo-in since I’m already employed with the same employer or if maybe they had so little to ask because I didn’t talk enough.

Now I’m really hoping I get offered this job but I still feel like it’s possible my current department could block me from leaving. I don’t know what to expect because no one has laterally transferred out of this job since I’ve been here. The interviewer also made an off hand comment about this being a “first-round interview” and I regret not asking her to clarify. I don’t know if there will be multiple rounds of interviews for this job or if she meant it in a more informal way, like first round before we offer the job or something.

I have my second round interview with the state job tomorrow. This interview I’m nervous about! The first round interview was hard and I have no idea what to expect. Now I can’t explain it, but I feel very strongly I’m going to be offered this job. I don’t know why I feel like this, but almost every time I’ve had some sort of unshakeable feeling like this, I’ve been right. What I think may happen is that I will be offered both this job and the lateral transfer job and I will have to make a choice.

If I do have to make a choice I’m really torn on what I would choose. The lateral transfer job would be a pay cut, but the commute it very close—10 minutes one way from my house, and about 5 minutes from my parents’ house—so it would be really convenient. I also wouldn’t have to give up my retirement. (I’m only 25% vested in my employers retirement match right now; I don’t become 100% vested until I’ve been there for 5 years. (and did I mention it’s an 8% match? It’s a crazy good benefit.)) But it would be a boring office job. I’m not sure if it would be very stimulating or intellectually interesting. The state job would be a much longer commute (35 minutes one way) but it does sound fun to me and interesting. It would be a big change for me but I don’t think I would be bored doing it. It also pays a little bit more than what I make now with a potential raise after I get certified. I think it has good retirement benefits but I’m not sure. The commute it so far, and the fact that I would be doing a lot of driving as well as being outside year round is kind of a negative though.

I think the biggest issue is commute time. Would I rather have a job that is closer but pays less and is probably more boring, or would I rather have a job that is farther but pays a little better and is more interesting? I truthfully don’t know. I think I will know better once I drive to the interview tomorrow and see how far it actually is. My gut tells me that a shorter commute time is better. It equates to more free time outside of work. And I truly do hate driving a lot. But man, I’ve had boring office jobs before and they can be kind of soul crushing.

Of course I’m getting ahead of myself. I might not get offered one or even both of the jobs. In which case I worried for nothing. We’ll see. It’s all very nerve wracking and exciting. I’m glad I finally got some responses to my job applications because it’s really boosted my mood and made me feel more confident about myself. Like I have options now, I don’t have to be desperate.

I’m a workhorse when I am able, More like a warhorse caught in the stable

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Post title from “Workhorse” by All Them Witches

I find myself writing less lately. I want to write every day or nearly every day but I find I just don’t have the time or energy. It feels like I’m constantly behind in my day-to-day duties so I can’t justify taking an hour or so to write a blog post about nothing. The semester is coming to an end though, so my school work has calmed down a bit, which has given me some breathing room in my free time. I’ve also been trying really hard to be more productive in small ways, which has helped boost my mood and lessened my stress a little.

The time I had off this past week did not go as planned. I was so excited to see my sister and her children, especially because this was going to be the only birthday party we did for my son, and at the last minute we were not able to go. Earlier in the week my mom had watched our son and she had pink eye. And on Friday, the day before the party, my son woke up from his nap with a swollen eye and some discharge. We had to assume it was pink eye since he’d been around my mom. But we immediately got him to urgent care and on antibiotics. But that wasn’t good enough for my sister (really her husband) and they said they didn’t want us to come over (they were spending the night at our parents’ house which is why we couldn’t do something separate from them).

I was super angry about it and cried most of Friday night about it. I honestly still think it was unnecessary. My sister (who is a teacher) said at her school, kids are required to be on antibiotics for 24 hours before they can come back to school. By the time of the party, my son would’ve been on antibiotics for 12 hours and he wasn’t showing symptoms, so they way I see it, we were prevented from going to our son’s own party by a matter of 12 hours. We got him on antibiotics so quickly after he started showing symptoms that I don’t think he was ever contagious (if it was pink eye at all, which we also can’t be sure of since he has allergies as well).

I don’t want to sound callous. I understand their reasoning. They have 3 kids and if 1 kid got pink eye they would probably all get it. My sister’s husband works from home while caring for the kids so he would’ve had to deal with it the most and he was the one most opposed to us coming. But it’s just hard for me. I’ve had pink eye before and to me it is not a big deal. Yes it sucks because your eye swells up and is itchy, but then you take eye drops for 5 days and it goes away. It’s more of a nuisance in my opinion than a “sickness”.

It worked out okay. We took our son to the zoo instead and did a make-up party with my parents after they left. I just hate it because I want our son to have a chance to interact with his cousins as well as just children in general. And my son is likely the only child I will ever have; he’s only turning 2 once and yes, he won’t remember it, but I will, and this year his birthday sucked. I was working Night Shift on his actual birthday so my husband took him out to celebrate by himself. We were going to have a party for him with our friends but the only weekend I had free coincided with a huge tourist event in our town, meaning all of the locals would be gone, and then he didn’t even get to have his joint birthday party with his cousins. (Oh, and while we were at the zoo, I found out my credit card number had been stolen—it seriously feels like we can’t win sometimes.)

It makes me sad. He’s only 2 and I feel like I’ve missed out so much on his life because of my stupid job. He’s gone this weekend visiting his grandparents in the next state over so I won’t see him at all for 3 full days due to my work schedule. Next weekend my husbands dad is taking him to visit his great granddad who was diagnosed with cancer and may die soon.

Yes, that’s another thing that happened within the last week. My husband paternal granddad was diagnosed with cancer in his lymph nodes that has spread to his kidneys and pancreas if I remember we correctly. Sure a miracle could happen, but realistically he’s probably not going to live very long.

Because of the timing of that, my husband had to cancel a shift he picked up with his second job. He works as needed but they’ve been threatening to fire him because he works too few shifts, but he literally is never available because of my work schedule. Now I don’t know what’s going to happen with that, but he’s trying to decide if he should go with his dad to visit this dying grandpa or stay home with me since I’m off. He’s not particularly close to that grandpa. He feels it’s the “right thing to do” to go visit this grandpa, but he doesn’t want to because he knows it would mean caring for our son by himself (this is the same side of the family I’ve complained about before, who never help him with anything when he comes to visit). I asked him, if he didn’t go, and this grandpa died before he could see him again, would he regret it? And he said no. But even with that in mind he still hasn’t decided what to do.

Moving on from the bad things, the one good thing that has happened is that I got asked to come in for the second round interview with that state job I’m very interested in. I’m excited but terrified because I have no idea what to expect. I’ve never had to do multiple rounds of interviews before and I can’t find any concrete answers about what will be discussed in the interview. Will it be more situational questions or more getting to know you questions? I have no idea how to prepare and I really want this job!

I still struggle with guilt over leaving my current job. But tonight I came into work and everyone was complaining about how bad this job is, and I realized I am making the right choice. Change is really scary and it’s hard to give up such a secure job, even if it is awful in many other ways. I’m especially nervous because this job with the state, if I get it, would be really be out of my wheelhouse. I would be driving all over the state visiting different sites, and I never imagined myself having a job where driving is such a big part of it. I still have to get through the interview though so we’ll see.

I’m also nervous about the interview because my only interview outfit is very formal (think lawyers office vs blue collar job). I went shopping for clothes and could not find anything that fit and was affordable other than this very formal looking pencil skirt. I know it’s better to be over-dressed versus under-dressed but I feel so uncomfortable in formal clothes; I feel like it will just make my nerves even worse. Oh yeah, and how can I forget that I have to go to this interview after getting off work at 7 am? Originally they wanted to schedule it for 1 pm, and I managed to get it pushed back to 3:30 pm, so I will be able to sleep a little, but I’m still going to be very tired. I hope I can still do my best.

In light of my credit card being stolen, I’ve been going through all my accounts and changing passwords to make them way stronger. I used WordPress heavily throughout high school and college and I logged into my old account and found a blog just like this one from my freshman-sophomore year of college! I’ve been too afraid to read it, but when I finally get the courage I’m really curious what it will say, and what memories it will bring back (there’s like almost 100 entries I think). I also found a lot of empty blogs—ones I created but then never used—that I’m thinking of using again because some of them were cool concepts. I found one that seemed like it would’ve been about positive affirmations, but then I never wrote anything, and I think it would be cool to write about that since I’m using positive affirmations again. There was one about my attempt at minimalism, one about houseplants, my old yoga blog from when I was a yoga teacher, my ballet blog from when I danced in high school, one about vegan food, even one showing off entertaining spam emails I got at work.

I just love blogging haha.

We live with their ghosts

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Post title from “Calloused Mouth” by the Acacia Strain

I haven’t written in a while and I guess that’s probably a good thing because it means I have been feeling less depressed. I can’t remember if I wrote about it on here, but about a month ago I applied to a state job that I actually really wanted. They reached out for an interview and I had the interview this morning! If I’m selected, I will move on to a second round interview and then after that they will make their decision on who to hire.

I’m really excited that they asked me to interview. I actually prepared for this interview, which is something I’ve never done before. From reviews online, I saw they were going to ask a lot of situation questions, so I looked up a bunch of common interview questions and actually wrote out my answers. I’m so glad I did! As predicted, they asked me almost all situation questions. The interview was online but it was still really intimidating because it was a panel of 3 people, who asked me a total of 13 questions. If I hadn’t prepared like I did, I would’ve been so lost!

I think I did well on my interview but of course it definitely wasn’t perfect. There are things I can think of that I wished I’d said differently. But hopefully it was good enough to get me to the second round, which is an in-person interview. I always feel like I do better in person than I do over the phone or online.

It sounds silly but I almost feel like I’m destined to get this job. Like I can see the trajectory of my life if I get this job. While it’s a longer commute, it’s also a slight pay bump and it would help me move more into the compliance aspect of my job, plus no overnight shifts! To calm my nerves, I keep telling myself that whatever happens was meant to be. I will obviously be crushed if I don’t get this job, but I’m just telling myself if that happens, it’s because there’s something better out there for me.

I did have another job also reach out to me for an interview but I turned it down because based on reviews, it seemed like a glorified call center job and it would’ve also been a pay cut. I’ve pretty much decided I don’t want to take a pay cut. I’d rather stay at my current job even though I’m unhappy and actually find something better than take a pay cut for a job I wouldn’t even like.

After I was contacted to interview for the state job I also stopping applying to other jobs. I had set a goal for myself to apply to one job a day and I think it was stressing me out more than I realized. Just constantly looking at jobs that all suck and I have no interest in was really making me depressed. It’s nice to have a break.

I’m also in a good mood right now because I’m almost done with my 8 days straight of work so I’ll have a little break. We’ll be celebrating my son and his cousin’s (my niece) birthday with my family while I’m off and I’m looking forward to seeing my sister and her kids since we don’t see them often. The only thing I’m dreading is my dad because last time we had a family get together he commented on how my clothing was “inappropriate” (he thought my shorts were too short). It really made me mad but I didn’t confront him. He always makes these comments out of ear shot of my husband and I think it’s because he knows my husband would confront him. He’s been doing crap like that my whole life and I’m tired of it. I’m an adult with a husband and a child; he has no business trying to dictate what I wear. Neither my sister nor I have a good relationship with him and at this point we only visit our parents to visit our mom.

Last year I had the opportunity to hang out with my sister without our parents being present for the first time ever since we both became adults. We literally stayed up till like 3 or 4 AM talking about our parents and our childhood. It was really reassuring to realize I wasn’t crazy. I struggled with depression and self harm when I was a kid to the point of becoming suicidal. I always hated my parents and really struggled when I first moved back to my hometown to move past all that and have a good relationship with them. And I always wondered “Am I crazy? Why do I dislike my parents so much?” because on paper I had a very good middle class upbringing. My parents weren’t “bad.” I really struggled with this too because I had a lot of friends growing up who did have bad parents: they were absent, addicts, or abusive. So talking with my sister was really validating because now I know I’m not crazy now. My dad was a bully and my mom enabled him by being the good submissive Christian wife. My parents were okay parents I guess, but they were absolutely terrible parents as far as what I really needed as a kid. My sister told me that my mom expressed regret that she didn’t stand up for us more when we were kids, and she has started to stand up for herself a little now that they’re retired, but of course, that doesn’t do much to undo the harm from the past.

I would really like to learn how to heal my inner child. I guess I should rephrase that—over the years I have learned about ways to heal that I think would work, styles of meditation and journaling—but I wish I was brave enough to pursue them. I have a lot of fear around confronting my childhood because it is so painful for me. And with the hustle and bustle of everyday adult life and raising a child, it’s hard to want to do something emotionally painful. It’s easy to keep ignoring it, but I know it’s still there.

And I hope you find it, What you’re looking for

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Post title from “Lonely War” by Crash Kings

I downloaded Bumble for Friends because of how isolated I’ve been feeling recently and I feel like it is not directed at people like me. I am so terrified to swipe right on somebody. Like I want friends but I see these profiles and I get absolute analysis paralysis wondering if we would be a good fit as friends and wondering if they would actually like me. Someone super-liked my profile and I had to just close the app because I couldn’t make a decision on whether to swipe right or left.

I haven’t had close friends since I moved back home. I’ve really struggled to maintain any relationships at all. Most of the friends I have now are wives/girlfriends of my husband’s friends, and I like hanging out with them but I really don’t feel like I have anything in common with them. I had really close friends in college but lost all of them due to the abusive relationship I was in. I managed to make a really close friend after moving to a different city after college (who helped me leave that abusive relationship) but then she moved away for a new job and I moved back home and we grew apart and don’t talk anymore. I have one friend from high school that I still have a friendship with but we’re not close by any means. I don’t remember what it’s like to have a best friend.

I was thinking today that I literally don’t know what you do when you “hang out” with someone now. The only time I hang out with people is when my husband sets up plans with his friends and I tag along. I don’t remember what it’s like to hang out with people without him present, which is a problem. I love my husband dearly but sometimes you just need to vent about your partner and I have no one I can do that with!

When I told my husband I downloaded Bumble, he was like “why would you want to find friends on there when you already have people who want to hang out with you?” And he always says stuff like that. Always tells me how much people like me and want to hang out with me. But no one ever reaches out to me to hang out. And I know it goes both ways. I also don’t reach out to people, but I just feel like if people liked me as much as he said they do I would have closer friends?? That I would’ve found someone I clicked with and became close to?? Even the most introverted people I know have friends but I literally have no one.

And I told my husband I downloaded the app because I wanted to try and make friends without his help. Everyone I’m friends with now knows him and everyone is from the same little music scene that my husband is in and other than liking the same genre of music (not even the same bands) I don’t have anything in common with these people! I just feel like if I make friends away from him and outside of our music scene I will have a much better chance at developing a close connection.

I know I’m not unlikeable because I’ve had plenty of friends in the past but I struggle with my mental health so much that maintaining friendships as an adult has felt impossible. If I’m going through a depressive episode or if I’m just straight up exhausted (as I often am) I don’t have the mental energy to try and reach out to people and talk to them or make plans. Especially in the cases of people my husband has set me up with where it kind of feels like a struggle to think of things to talk about. But I want friends. I don’t want to wind up like my dad who is an actual hermit and hates people and has 0 friends. That sounds like an absolutely miserable existence! And unfortunately for me, I got my personality from him, so every day I have to make a conscious effort to not be like him.

But I do struggle with my confidence and wondering if people actually like me or just pretend to like me (I know that sounds kind of absurd). I was bullied in middle school and high school and my best “friend” I had had since elementary school was more like a frenemy (friend enemy) who broke off our friendship by telling me “I should kill myself because no one likes me.” So needless to say I have some trauma around friendships. And the abusive relationship I was in messed me up bad too. Because he isolated me from the friends I had at the time and ruined any shred of self confidence I had by constantly insulting my interests and hobbies and making me feel stupid. So to this day it’s hard to imagine that anyone would genuinely be interested in my interests or want to spend time with me without having some ulterior motive.

And I just don’t know what’s happened to me in the last few years. I feel like I’ve become so closed off to everyone. I’ve always struggled with my mental health but I don’t remember it being so scary to try and make friends. Before I moved back home, I ran a meetup group and met literal strangers to try and broaden my friend circle. The call center job I had before my current job, I went out of my way to try and be friendly to people and make conversation. I don’t know where that person went. Did having a kid really mess me up that bad? Because that seems to be the dividing line. I started that call center job trying really hard to be friendly with people, determined that this time would be different, then we all got sent to work from home because of covid (I literally started that job 2 weeks before covid hit), and then my mental health became the worst it has been since I was a kid, so I changed jobs to my current job where I work with almost all men who are 40+ years old, and also immediately got pregnant. And then I had my kid and suffered with postpartum depression for a year and a half before I finally got on meds, which brings us almost up to current times, where the endless night shift has also been tanking my mental health.

After typing it all out, I don’t think it was my kid, I think it was my job. I started my current job to escape my call center job and suddenly I was working shift work, never available for social events, working around old men (in the past I’ve at least made friends at my job who were my own age), and not realizing how bad it was affecting me because at least it wasn’t a call center. And I’ve always been a person who was okay with not really having many friends, but I guess somewhere along the way I convinced myself I was okay with having ZERO friends as a coping mechanism, which just further isolated me and made me feel worse.

I can’t be myself and I can’t be nobody else

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Post title from “Wonderful” by Rob Thomas

I put my cart in front of my horse. After that interview went so well (I thought), the part time job I was stressing about rejected me. They didn’t even wait for me to do my second round interview! Truthfully I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that I wasn’t available for the second interview until April 1, and they wanted to fill the position quickly, so they probably went with someone who could start right away.

While I am a little disappointed, I am also relieved. It feels like a sign. Like something saying “that wasn’t right for you; something better is coming.” As much as I would’ve liked to work part time, there were still a lot of cons to that job and I feel relief over not having to make a decision. I’m glad the decision was made for me.

I has kind of stolen the wind from my sails though. I was trying to find jobs to apply to today and I felt discouraged looking at all of them. They all sound awful or I feel unqualified for them. I’m going to keep applying regardless (I set myself a goal of applying to one job a day). It will happen eventually. It has to right? In the meantime I know I should be grateful that I’m at least hunting for a job while I have stable, well-paying employment and I’m not having to deal with the stress of being unemployed and having no income.

I downloaded an app a few days ago of positive affirmations that also allows me to display them on my phone’s lock screen. I’m trying to find ways to improve my mood so I don’t feel so depressed all the time. I like it so far. It is nice to open my phone and the first thing I see is a positive, uplifting message. I also collected a bunch of the affirmations to turn into “prayers.” I think I’m going to try “praying” them every day and see if it helps my mood. I know affirmations are kind of getting into woo-woo new-age territory but I have always liked the idea of them and I believe they help to an extent. Who knows maybe I will even add in some “prayers” for jobs as well.

And I think I might try to incorporate them into meditation as well. I really really need to start meditating regularly. At this point in my life it feels like my last hope to try and “fix” myself. I put fix in quotes because I know I’m not broken, but I need to change, for the sake of my health and the people around me. I hate being considered the “downer,” I hate being known as the “grumpy one.” I hate it I hate it I hate it. I want to be like the people I’ve met who just seem to radiate light and positivity and happiness. I don’t know how they do it (and they all live in other states so I can’t ask them at this point) but I want to be like them.

Exercise does seem to be helping with my mood also. Last night I was feeling so horribly depressed and I couldn’t even articulate why. I just felt hopeless and miserable. I came home after work and exercised and I felt so much better and happier. I’ve stuck with my exercise schedule I set for myself so far (it’s only been a week!) and I’m going to keep working on it. It’s really hard to stay consistent with my insanely weird work schedule, but I’ve got to push through and stick with it. I worry if I don’t the void will truly swallow me whole. Exercise is one of the only things that’s worked consistently over the years to help stave off my depression and anxiety. (I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it before, but I have been struggling with depression since I was 13.)

I also have an arts and crafts project I’ve started that I find really soothing to work on. I subscribe to the New Yorker and I have been cutting out the poems and short stories that I like and saving them instead of hoarding magazines I’m never going to read again. I was just keeping them in a folder but I decided to start putting them all into a binder, gluing them down onto cardstock and decorating the margins with doodles. There’s something so soothing about cutting things out of magazine and gluing and doodling. It’s something I can focus on 100% and I get absorbed into it and any sort of stress I’m experiencing fades into the background.

I don’t know. I feel so lost most the time. There’s a huge disconnect between the person I am and the person I want to be and I don’t know how to bridge the gap. I’ve tried talk therapy, antidepressants, religion to an extent, yoga, meditation. I don’t know how to become the person I want to become. How do I become unburdened? I want to feel light, instead I constantly feel heavy, weighed down by the very nature of existence. Depression feels like this monkey I carry around on my back constantly, or maybe a shadow that threatens to swallow me whole if I stop moving and stop being vigilant. That’s why I keep coming back to meditation as the answer and its also the reason why I can never stick with it. Sit still too long and the bad stuff catches up to you. But you have to let it catch up to you before you can deal with it and process it. I feel the small wounded child that lives inside of me constantly pushing back against the world. She has never felt safe, she has never felt loved, she has never felt secure. It doesn’t matter that I’m married with a husband who loves me and I own my own home and have a stable job and a wonderful child and all the other markers of a “successful” life, those things never reach the little girl inside of me. She is still alone and closed off and sad and hurting.

All the ways they had to make
me smile and then they go and break me–
Wait, I think I feel like hell,
though I can’t be myself
And I can’t be nobody else, but if I could
would you love me then?

-“Wonderful” by Rob Thomas

Continuing in misery is something we do mostly out of fear

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Post title from “If This Is What Passes for Living” by Street Sects

I have been spending a lot of time trying to stay caught up on homework and I haven’t had time to write, even though I’ve wanted to. I have also been extremely exhausted working nights this go round which means I haven’t had any free time at home because I’m trying to get enough sleep.

I ordered some trees from a nursery that is a few hours away from us and they finally came a few days ago. That was something that was contributing to my bad mood and anxiety. I was excited about the trees but it took so long to get them ordered and delivered (the nursery is owned by an older couple who only take mail order!) that I was anxious the whole time worrying that something would go wrong and I wouldn’t actually get my plants. The good news is I did get my plants, but the bad news is they only had 3 out of 6 trees I wanted actually in stock available to ship. Luckily, they are the 3 tree species that seem to be the hardest to find for sale, so I am okay with that. I sacrificed sleep to get them planted the same day they arrived before I went to work and I’m very excited to watch them grow over the summer.

About 2 days ago I had a job interview and it has sent me into absolute turmoil. The job is an office manager position that actually pays slightly better than my current job BUT its only 30 hours a week and its located about a 30-45 minute drive from my house. If it was full time and that far away, or if it was part time but closer to my house, I wouldn’t feel conflicted about whether to take the job, but since it has those 2 big cons I don’t know what to do.

And to clarify, I haven’t actually been offered the job yet. I had a first round interview with an HR person, and now I’ve been invited to do a second round interview with the person in charge of the actual location. But the way the HR lady talked made it sound like they really wanted to hire me and that I was basically a shoo-in.

I really would prefer a full time job but the HR lady said there was no hope that the job would ever become full time. And because the job is only 30 hours a week, I would be taking a pay cut even though the hourly pay is better. Part of me wants to be part time like that, because it would give me more time with my family and a better work-life balance, but I’m very scared about taking a pay cut. Supposedly the job does come with benefits, but I don’t know how much they cost, and that it the big kicker that decides how much of a pay cut it is. With 0 benefits and just taxes coming out, its actually not a pay cut at all. But benefits like health insurance and a 401k could potentially knock my take home pay down by $500 a month – that’s a big drop! Eventually I would get on my husband’s health insurance, so it would be a temporary drop, but it wouldn’t apply until next year, which is still 9 months away. 9 months is a long time to be making $500 less. I also don’t know if the job offers PTO which could be a deal breaker honestly. I forgot to ask about all these things in the initial interview.

In addition to the drop in pay, I worry about the toll the longer commute would take on my car. My car is from 2009. It is in very good condition with only 48,000 miles but still, I would go from having a 7 mile commute one way to a 26 mile commute one way. That would mean a huge increase in gas costs and car maintenance.

I guess the only reason I’m even seriously considering the job is because 1) it’s the first positive response I’ve gotten after almost 2 months of applying to jobs daily and 2) it would be really good experience to put on my resume. Not only would it allow me to put the “office manager” role on my resume and potentially open the way for more administrative jobs, but it would also allow me to get experience in social media marketing, since that is a large component of the job, and hopefully open the way for marketing jobs, which would be a natural transition from my previous experience in publishing.

But I have realized, as much as I hate my job right now, I’m terrified to leave it. I’m terrified of giving up the good benefits, the security of knowing my job is essential and I’ll never be laid off or fired, the security of making $20/hr with guaranteed cost of living raises each year. But I also know my job is not sustainable. I will always be required to work night shift. Unless someone kicks the bucket or retires early and I somehow get promoted to a supervisor position, I will always have to work night shift in some capacity and I can’t do it. 10 years from now when I’m 40, I can’t be working night shift. I know my body and my health won’t be able to handle it because it can barely handle it now. And I find myself constantly wondering what sort of things am I going to miss out on in my child’s life because I was stuck working swing shifts? I want to be home every night to cook dinner for my family and to put my child to bed.

I really don’t know what to do. My husband is not really helpful because at first he was like “no way, you don’t want that job,” but now he’s like “maybe it would be nice to have you home more and only work part time.” And he constantly just says “it’s what you want to do, I’ll support your decision,” which is a nice sentiment but I really just want some outside direction. I would like to talk to him about it more but we have barely seen each other since I had the interview because of my work schedule.

I’m trying not to stress myself out too much. I know they interviewed other candidates. Maybe other people were invited to a second round interview as well. Maybe they won’t actually offer me the job. Then I would have worried for nothing. But I feel like I need to know what to do before I go into the interview. I don’t want to mislead them or waste anybody’s time (including mine).

I think one thing I have a problem with regarding job searching is I feel like no matter what decision I choose, I’m going to disappoint someone. I worry a lot about pleasing others or not letting other people down. Like our admin lady at my current job loves my kid. My husband will bring him to visit me at work sometimes when I’m on days and she always get so excited to see him. But now I’ve been on nights for so long, she hasn’t seen him in like 8 months, and if I quit and get a new job before I go back to days, I feel guilty because she will be sad that she didn’t get to see him. I feel guilty because my supervisor (not the bad one) will be sad to see me go. I feel guilty leaving because when I was pregnant everybody pitched in to write me a card and give me some money for the baby and I feel like I’m betraying them in some weird way (also side note this is why I hate gifts because they make me feel like I owe the gift giver something).

It’s stupid to think like that because other people don’t matter in the scheme of things. What matters is me and my life and my family. I know I’ll never be happy if I’m constantly trying to please other people. But I’m stuck in a what-if loop and feel paralyzed by the idea of change.

Last night, while I lay thinking here,
some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
and pranced and partied all night long
and sang their same old Whatif song:
Whatif I’m dumb in school?
Whatif they’ve closed the swimming pool?
Whatif I get beat up?
Whatif there’s poison in my cup?
Whatif I start to cry?
Whatif I get sick and die?
Whatif I flunk that test?
Whatif green hair grows on my chest?
Whatif nobody likes me?
Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?
Whatif I don’t grow taller?
Whatif my head starts getting smaller?
Whatif the fish won’t bite?
Whatif the wind tears up my kite?
Whatif they start a war?
Whatif my parents get divorced?
Whatif the bus is late?
Whatif my teeth don’t grow in straight?
Whatif I tear my pants?
Whatif I never learn to dance?
Everything seems well, and then
the nighttime Whatifs strike again!

-Shel Silverstein