Scared

Sorry - I wasn't going to come here and bother you good people again.  But the truth is, I've got nowhere else to go where there might be people who will understand.

I start my new job tomorrow.  And I'm scared.  Not just the usual night-before jitters that I always get before starting a new job.  No - really scared.  It's eight weeks now since I was last at my old job, as many of you will know.  I went sick that day with a horrible anxiety attack - and I didn't go back.  I worked my ticket.  While I was off, I had my interview for this new job, and got it.  It was such a relief just to give notice and know that at least I didn't have to face that woman again.  For all of that, though, the job was perfect for me in so many other ways.  The part-time hours were right, the pay was enough.  It fit the bill.  And it just seemed to drop in my lap right when I most needed it, after my time caring for mum, then the months of coming to terms with her passing.  I felt blessed.  But it went wrong, and that's all there is to it.  And so to now.

The new job will be more demanding in a lot of ways.  It's a far bigger organisation, it's full-time hours again (albeit term-time only, so longer holidays), and there's a huge amount to learn.  They've already got me on the online courses, and there's over thirty of them - many of them long courses.  I hate online learning, too.  It doesn't work for me.  But there it is.

That's incidental, though.  The main thing is... this time off has made me realise just how exhausted I was.  How much I needed a break.  Since Christmas, when I stopped drinking and started to sleep better, I've been managing 10 hours a night, then still feeling the need for afternoon naps.  And by nine in the evening, I'm exhausted again.  Through doing very little except keep house, do shopping, read and watch films.  I know 'doing nothng' can be tiring.  But it's more than that.  It's as if I've finally been catching up with what I need.  And now it's all going to change again - and change up, too.

I know I have a tendency to think the worst, and it's all unknown... and that, by the end of the week, I may feel a lot better.  But the thing I really feel is... it has to work this time.  This is the last time.  I'm sixty in May.  Just a number, but it feels significant.  Maybe I've made a mistake in changing jobs so quickly, not giving myself proper time.  But I panicked.  And I just felt it was what I had to do.

If this doesn't work out, if it proves too much, if it's too soon... I'll burn out.  I think that may be actually what I'm experiencing already, with all the sleeping and exhaustion.  These last 3 years have been some of my most challenging.  The end of a damaging relationship and the fallout from that.  Then mum's illness and death.  Then the problems in my last job, and what that led to.

I just hope this is the right thing I'm doing.  I hope.

But scared is what I am.