Can We All Just Calm Down for a Second?

I'm really happy right now.  I've been feeling good for a couple weeks. Good enough, in fact, that my brain is trying to find ways to sabotage my happiness, because it knows that for every happy moment I steal, there's hell to pay later.  The devil gets his due.

SHUT UP, BRAIN and let me be happy.  So that's something I'm working on.  (I'm now going to update y'all on my life now, but the real meat of the post is farther down, in case you want to skip it.  Or whatever.  I don't tell you what to do.)

I'm really enjoying my job.  It's only-just-above-minimum-wage at Starbucks, but I'm getting 2 raises in the coming months (one for being there 6 months and one because everybody at Starbucks is getting a raise in January - people are rumbling about raising the minimum wage, so I imagine they're trying to get ahead of that so it's not such a blow when it does happen.  Good for them.  Good for me).  I think that some of the enjoyment comes from just being an employee again - I know exactly what is expected of me at all times, there are no ambiguous social situations to navigate, and I don't have to be in charge of anyone.  It's much less stressful.  

My last job pretty much required a codependent attitude in order to survive.  I was basically on-call every day - if they needed help, I was the only person who could come in.  It's kind of nice to be so desperately needed, but you can never really relax when you know that a call could come in at any hour and you'd be needed - and you can't really say no.  Part of this is because we were such a small unit that we couldn't really afford to hire any more people, part of it was some issues with "upper management."  But seriously - I'm not an EMT, I was working in a college cafeteria.  Ain't nobody got time to cut years off their life with the stress from that bull.  Beyond that, I feel like there was so much time there when I wasn't sure what was expected of me moment to moment, and we didn't get regular reviews, so it was hard to tell if you were doing good, bad, or indifferent.  You were fine until suddenly everything you did was terrible, then you'd get ignored for another 5 months.  It was weird, and stressful, again, to never know when the hammer would come down.  So between that and being "on-call," just every minute of on and off time was filled with anxiety.  Yuck.

Starbucks is working out great so far.  I can ask for days off!  I work with only nice people (who can ever say that?  Me!  Right now!)  I am good at this stuff.  I can relax when I'm home - be home at home and work at work.  Plus, free lattes ;)  And tips!  And healthcare!  

But anyway, the point of this post right now is to talk about my "biological clock" and how it needs to shut itself right the hell up.  (Not a Sparrow Falls...you might not want to proceed).

One of the great fears among a life of great fears...

"One of the great fears among a life of great fears, perhaps the last great fear is the fear of being no longer useful. We find a role in life, and we do that role to the best of our ability for as long as that ability is there. But all of us — even me, dear listeners — will someday hit a point where we no longer are able to do that thing that we define ourselves by doing. And more than the fear of injury, more than the fear of death, this is the fear that looms. The loss of self. The self that is self we imagined we were our whole lives. But we were never that self, not really. We were only a series of selves, living one role and then leaving it for another. And all the time convincing ourselves that there was no change. That we were always the same person, living the same life. One arc to a finish, not the stutter-stop improvisation that is our actual lives.
Worry less about the person you once were. Or the person you dream you someday will be. Worry about the person you are now. Or don’t even worry! Just be that person. Be the best version of that person you can be. Be a better version than any of the other versions in any of the many parallel universes. Check regularly online to see the rankings."
--Cecil Baldwin, Welcome to Nightvale

That's all for today, just that quote. Because I found, when I listened to this episode, that I needed it. Here it is, in case I need it again. Here it is, in case you need it, now and again.