Truthiness

I was MIA a lot of the last couple weeks. Part of it was just being busy. Part of it was not having anything of interest to say. Part of it was that I was out of town, going camping in Garner State Park with Matt's family.

Camping selfie!

But to be honest, most of my mental space over the last few weeks has been taken up by preparing to start a new job.

I haven't worked in an actual office in more than two and a half years. But last week, I woke up and got dressed to go to work at a place in which my cat cannot be considered a co-worker. (She's not thrilled that I've abandoned her during the daytime.)

I am no longer self-employed full-time. In June, Matt and I finally determined that my running my own business just wasn't working anymore. It wasn't a single conversation we had in a state of panic; rather, I'd been struggling with my (in)ability to deal with the stress for a long time. I was asking every month if "this is it" when it came to my business, the month where it no longer made sense for us to keep at it. Matt saw that I wasn't happy anymore. A friend commented one day that I looked like I was disappearing. I was spending more time looking for work than actually doing the work I loved. Matt and I spent so much time talking about his job search that my world had become centered around it, and I was constantly freaking out because there was just too much about my life that I couldn't control.

So when I received an offer for a full-time job? I took it. And I cried a little when I told my family that I couldn't deal with being self-employed anymore. I was heartbroken at the idea of not working for myself anymore.

But since we're being all truthful and stuff, I am so relieved that I don't have to work for myself anymore.

I'm excited to have something to wake up for in the morning again. For someone else to deal with the logistics of how to run a business. I'm excited to have a reason to get dressed up and leave the house and be around other people. About doing something that makes me feel good about myself again. I'm excited to focus for real on something other than Matt, instead of just telling people I'm tired of talking about him and then not being able to talk of anything else.

I'm excited for breakfast taco Fridays and a steady paycheck. I'm excited because, despite this job being totally unrelated to marketing or advertising, on my second day I got to spend the afternoon working on a design project. I'm excited that I'm working with people who understand that we all have gifts and skills that we can contribute.

I'm okay. More than okay. I'm putting down roots. There's a very real chance that I will have to rip them up again, if and when Matt finds a job somewhere else. But this is the most solid and sturdy I've felt in a long time. I needed that more than I knew.

And I'm ready to bloom.