Anxiety is too light a word to describe my feelings the last few weeks. Pure, unadulterated Angst, with a capital A, is perhaps a tad closer. After 23 years of working the same job I went against the cardinal rule my father ingrained into each of his three children as we reached working age, and quit my job without having another lined up. No two-week’s notice, just a fast and vicious sword-play of words, then something clicked in my head and I couldn’t take it anymore; reading the same kind of documents every day, doing the same tasks, working for a mercurial man I had some respect for, but apparently not enough. I had my Popeye Moment: “That’s all I can stands, but I can’t stands no more!” I fear I may have a problem with authority figures…me and everybody else, right?
After my first week of decompression, emotions ran the gamut from arms flung wide, skirts a-twirling atop the mountainside to opening my eyes in the morning, realizing I quit my job and jolting awake like I was being hit in the chest by a bicycle-pump sized needle full of adrenaline. Our income is halved, and after working for a small company for so long, I simply cannot see myself suiting-up this soft middle-aged body and heading for a corporate job. My self-esteem was shot after only one week. What will it be like in another week, and another, and most likely another? My husband is supportive, but his sleep is also fitful, (we wake in a tangle of sweat-damped sheets anchored down by our talented surfing cat) and since he does the bills he knows where we are financially better than I, and how very little we can go on without a double income. He tells me to breathe easy, we’re better off than he thought, that we can manage a while longer if we are very frugal. Day Two I text him that I am Ms. Frugality 2015. I will change my middle name to Frugal (which is infinitely more interesting than my real one of Ann—no offense to any Ann’s out there, or my parents). I’m going to get Frugal Rules tattooed on my money-spending (I mean saving) hands – in a dramatic Gothic font, for free by my cousin the tattoo artist, because I’m just that thrifty. But being frugal doesn’t make the car payment on Sookie, my 50th birthday present dream car Mini Cooper Clubman in Chile red. Just a couple weeks of being unemployed after over 30 solid years of working, ecstatic at my bravery/stupidity at leaving my job in such a dramatic manner, and reality is nipping at my rough, dry heels. Tomorrow will be here before I know it.
After my first week of decompression, emotions ran the gamut from arms flung wide, skirts a-twirling atop the mountainside to opening my eyes in the morning, realizing I quit my job and jolting awake like I was being hit in the chest by a bicycle-pump sized needle full of adrenaline. Our income is halved, and after working for a small company for so long, I simply cannot see myself suiting-up this soft middle-aged body and heading for a corporate job. My self-esteem was shot after only one week. What will it be like in another week, and another, and most likely another? My husband is supportive, but his sleep is also fitful, (we wake in a tangle of sweat-damped sheets anchored down by our talented surfing cat) and since he does the bills he knows where we are financially better than I, and how very little we can go on without a double income. He tells me to breathe easy, we’re better off than he thought, that we can manage a while longer if we are very frugal. Day Two I text him that I am Ms. Frugality 2015. I will change my middle name to Frugal (which is infinitely more interesting than my real one of Ann—no offense to any Ann’s out there, or my parents). I’m going to get Frugal Rules tattooed on my money-spending (I mean saving) hands – in a dramatic Gothic font, for free by my cousin the tattoo artist, because I’m just that thrifty. But being frugal doesn’t make the car payment on Sookie, my 50th birthday present dream car Mini Cooper Clubman in Chile red. Just a couple weeks of being unemployed after over 30 solid years of working, ecstatic at my bravery/stupidity at leaving my job in such a dramatic manner, and reality is nipping at my rough, dry heels. Tomorrow will be here before I know it.