Summer Downpour

I broke down on Thursday.

Joe had flown out to Kuwait the night before, and I hadn't slept well because of it.

We had a 6 hour meeting at work. The meeting was productive overall, but I started getting a headache midway through. Towards the end, we had discussion about a potential new position, one I would be very interested in. For about 10 minutes, I felt excited about the possibility of this position becoming a reality. Then I was reminded that, at least for now, nothing will change.

I started to get depressed, and once again I had that old familiar internal dialog -- what am I doing here? What do I really want?

After the meeting was over, my head pounded, and I was in desperate need of some alone time. But our new departmental strategy is that everyone works together in a shared workspace.

I couldn't handle it.

I left and went outside for about 30 minutes. I watched the bees and butterflies dancing around the lavender bushes, and I cried.

When I came back, my help was solicited in building our new workstations. I didn't want anything to do with it, but I did it anyway. When things didn't immediately work the way they should, I lost my patience.

With a terrible headache and now the beginnings of a sore throat, I left the office to go home. In the car I started crying again.

Ordinarily when I had a bad day like this, I would call or text Joey, and he would give me the right combination of sympathy and ass kicking to get me through it. But he's gone now. I have no way to contact him, and even if I did, I don't want him worrying about me, especially not because of something as stupid as work. He's got more important things to focus on now.

I felt so alone and so frustrated. I cried for hours, even as I tried to pull myself up and take care of household chores. I just lost it. I finally went to bed early.

The next morning, my throat and sinuses were swollen. I could hardly swallow. I called in sick to work. I spent about an hour tooling around on the computer, and then I started to get sleepy. I ended up sleeping on the couch for most of the day.

Joey had tried to call, and I missed it because I was sleeping. I accidentally deleted his message, but tried to go back and save it before hanging up. But... damn the bad cell signal in my apartment... the call got dropped just before I pressed the button to save it. It was gone.

Thankfully he called again that night. He made it to Kuwait, and I got her hear all about it. But I didn't tell him about my Thursday. I just told him I was sick and I'd been sleeping all day. I don't want him to worry.

I spent the rest of the weekend thinking. How am I going to handle work on Monday? How am I going to handle it for the next 6 months during this group experiment of ours? Am I really committed to this? What if I'm not? Am I obligated to tell somebody about it? What if my attitude jeopardizes the success of the project?

I still don't know how I feel, or what I should do. I did come to the realization that having my own office, especially one with a window, has become one of the highlights of my job, and giving it up so I can sit in a group environment with people who constantly piss me off is a very serious challenge, one that will probably take months to adjust to. Besides all the other things that will be tough to deal with, the loss of my personal space is huge. I knew it would be hard, but I didn't realize how hard until I watched the group workspace come together during the last week.

I'll just have to take it one day at a time, like everything else. Tomorrow is a new day.

This afternoon it started raining, for the first time in weeks. It smells and sounds and feels so wonderful outside right now. It's amazing how a good rain can make me feel refreshed all over. I know I'm crazy, but sometimes I wish it would keep raining all summer. :)

Oh! This weekend is the anniversary of the weekend when Joey and I met each other.

Serendipity.