I think its a good idea for me to start journaling again. I need a place to let out the questions and anxieties and ideas that cross my mind. A place holder, like I used to have.
I’m starting a new job day after tomorrow and it requires some big adjustments in my thinking. It’s a steep drop in salary and responsibility — the kind of job a 20-year-old might luck in to, or a recent college grad who has to start paying back their student loans and so takes something even though it has nothing to do with their degree. It’s a “no experience necessary” kind of job, and it pays roughly one-third of my previous salary.
And then there’s the fact that I haven’t worked at all in nearly a year. I have enjoyed my freedom — really drunk it in. I guess you could say I plan to miss that freedom, because my feelings about going back to work anywhere go way beyond expecting to miss the unstructured openness I’ve had this past year.
And what an important year it has been for me, personally. I know it’s caused a chain reaction of enormously emotional decisions for my parents, and I know it’s been very hard on my marriage. But what I needed a year ago and what I have gained during these past months has been so important, so absolutely necessary, that it eclipses even those side effects, to me.
And there’s been a coulda-shoulda-woulda aspect to the past few years, too. And that’s important because it is leaps and bounds beyond the simple, self-disgust I felt before I started down this road. Coulda-shoulda-woulda implies that I’ve learned something upon reflection, and learning something is like taking a token to some future toll booth and sticking it in my pocket… and moving on down the road. At least, that’s what it implies this time.
Even though it had really been coming on for years, I was surprised to find myself where I was at when I left IBM. A drinking problem. Severe anxiety. Hypomania. Depression. Hypochondria. Unable to concentrate and unwilling to move on at work. I don’t think I ever really wanted to leave IBM — it was just that I felt so ashamed of being in that state; and I was financially unable to take a leave of absence. When I left it wasn’t with the determination to do something else for a living — any action I took in that direction was more about believing I’d lost all the strength I used to have. No, hen I left it was to untangle myself. And I knew it would take a lot of time — though I didn’t know how much.
The truth is that I took this time again David’s wishes and without his encouragement or support. I understand how he’s felt about all of it. The financial worries. the disorientation, because my career and salary were such an integral part of who I was. I tried to communicate where I was at and what I needed to do, but I was unable to help him see things from my perspective.
Essentially, when I left IBM I saw my goal: simply getting untangled and being myself again. But I had no idea what I would need to do to get there. I didn’t see La Hacienda. I didn’t see getting back on medication. I didn’t see being OK with being alone, or OK with controlling expenses, or OK with eating at home all the time. And I wasn’t sure I would reach my goal, since I didn’t know what road to take to get here.
Bipolar symptoms aside (at least I buy in to what they are, now), I know I did reach my goal. I am me again.
I wish I could step back in to my old PM role at IBM. I miss it sometimes.
I think this new job could be a lot of fun. The company represents the cutting edge of beautiful, useful, reliable technological design and the people that work there have the reputation of being hip, highly educated, and underemployed (often by choice). I can make a place for myself there, make new friends, have a reason to resurrect my old fashion sense. And I’ll be helping people every day.
I worry about accomplishing the feat of conforming to a strictly controlled schedule (I’ve never done that, often to my own professional detriment), and I worry about being overwhelmed by the change in professional and financial altitude.
But I can think of it in a different way, and here’s what I mean: we got a new dog 2 weeks ago. I was so scared of her the first night that I wanted to return her, but then I decided to take on the challenge of being her benevolent leader, her protector. For the first few days, every walk was a wrestling match, until we finally started understanding what each of us needed from each other. Now I have begun to teach her to stop at each road we come to, each curb we have to step down from.
And that’s what this new job is like. It’s not so much like stepping off a professional cliff. It’s like stepping off a curb, crossing a street, and at some point, stepping back up again.
Like many Americans today, I am starting over again professionally. I’m making what I made nearly 15 years ago. And throughout these past 15 years I have stumbled my way up a rickety ladder. This is my chance to cash in on all the coulda-shoudla-woulda’s of my career.
A fresh start in a fresh state of mind.
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