Full Heart Friday

The email came on a break from the all-day training seminar that closed out my first week at my fantastic new job: my essay, Imperfection, is up on Ruminate Magazine‘s blog, The Waking. I felt a flash of nerves, then clicked on the link and re-read it, and felt – not so much pride as a grateful sense of satisfaction. There, I did it. My work has been published. Again.

I spent the rest of the break telling all the amazingly welcoming, kind, fun, brilliant and interesting coworkers who checked in with me to see how I was doing how welcoming, kind, fun, brilliant and interesting they are.  It was an amazing first week, and before the end of it I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this was the best workplace I’ve ever been invited to be a part of, and the best job I had ever been lucky enough to be offered and to accept.

And on top of all that, I got a pingback from a blog I follow, “Confessions of Middle Aged Woman” who gave my post, “Hired” some props, in a happy, slightly freaked-out post of her own, along the same lines.  So I’ve had a kind of “it doesn’t get better than this” kind of week. Had to stop at the grocery store on the way home, and I noticed myself thinking, “here I am, an employed person squeezing in a trip to the store after a great week at work.” For a long time I’d been envious of those nicely dressed people, obviously tired and preoccupied, who were stopping to do a quick errand before they could get home and unwind. Not really something to be jealous of, unless you’ve been out of that world for quite a while when you really needed to be in it. And you know that being back in it will be good for you, and for your family. That felt good.

Sure, there were a few bumps – arrangements for Angelic Daughter aren’t sufficiently settled, but we’re muddling through, and just when I was at my wit’s end about it, a few other possibilities arose.

I’m exhilarated, exhausted and excited, all at once. Still trying to establish a new routine, but it’s getting done. One thing I know I’ll have to do is abandon my “800 Words” game, at least for a while, because I’ll have to squeeze blogging in to an hour or so after dinner on Fridays or Saturdays – might have to write a week’s worth and schedule them to post, because between getting up at 5:30 a.m. and prepping everything and hitting the road by 6:40, I won’t have a lot of time. I’ve been averaging about 4 hours of sleep a night this week, not sure why. Just waking up at 3 or 3:30 and unable to get back to zzzzzzzz.

Things will settle, I’m sure. Handy brother came on short notice to help out today. Prearranged unpaid absence to wait for the new downstairs bathroom vanity countertop, and rescheduled, routine if unpleasant medical testing will be got out of the way next week, and then it’s full on until the holidays.

Early this morning on my new commute, the full (or nearly still full) moon was still well up in the morning sky, after putting on a lovely glow the past few nights. I find moonilght soothing, and the un-set moon in the morning sky reassuring.  Faith got me through to this point, and I’m counting on it to get me to the day when our new normal becomes – normal.

I’m going to go have “music time” with angelic daughter and then drag myself upstairs to wind down, for the start of the first weekend that really feels like a weekend, where tasks and errands need to get done in two days, instead of just whenever in a long line of days after days. A weekend that will be for what it is supposed to be for, resting, spending time with family and then preparing for Monday, when I will get that exhilarating feeling of going back to work for my first full week on the fabulous new job.

Oh, and if you read my essay, don’t worry about me – one thing I know about this job is that is isn’t going to make me feel anxious. Or if it does, I have strategies to handle that. Compartments. Gratitude. Support.

Well, there I did it anyway – almost up to 800 words.  Looking forward to my new schedule and my new routine, I remain,

Your grateful, excited, exhausted, not going to drag it out just to get all the way to 800 words,

Ridiculouswoman

Featured image by stux on Pixabay