Hurry up, there's no time to lose, you have to speed up and WAIT already.
31 days until I get to hand in my notice. As per my last post, yes, I'm still quitting. Why am I still waiting to give in my notice? Well, when I was looking up the award rates for the casual dude who was starting back in late January, I discovered some very interesting stuff. See, he wanted to know his award rates, rather than just the stated rate during the interview. This was a good thing for him, as it resulted in him getting more money (ie, the legal rate) as opposed to the minimum wage (which only counts if you're not covered by an award, which we are). This was also a good thing for me. I discovered two interesting things in fact. The first I won't go into, but the second was about long service leave. Apparently I'm entitled to 8 weeks long service leave after 10 yrs, but if I leave after 7 yrs then I'm entitled to a pro rata payout of that long service. Almost six weeks pay for free? Yeah, that's worth waiting until May to hand in my notice then work another four weeks after that.
Meantime, I'm left waiting. I'm waiting for the "quitting date" to arrive, I'm waiting for the wedding day to arrive, I'm waiting until my whole life shift gears rather suddenly in June with so many things changing at once. And so my whole life currently is in a holding pattern, just flying around and around in the same old circles, getting more and more frustrated while waiting for the time when I can finally land. Meantime, everything is batshitcrazy insane breakneck pace. All these things need organising, and all these things need re-examining and re-working out and all these things needs to be dealt with and argh argh argh. I've got so many worries and energy drains: Health, Money, Work, Life, Wedding, Honeymoon. And yet, even though I'm doing all this, somehow my life is still standing still, watching the "quitting clock" tick down day by day agonsingly slow, the "wedding clock" tick by incredibly fast, and the "my whole life suddenly changes and I can relax" clock drag even slower than the quitting clock.
How is my life changing? Well, I'm getting married. Now, on the surface, that doesn't really seem like a huge change. Paperwork gets signed, and we continue our relationship. Sure, but what about the big huge event that I've been planning for years suddenly being done and over? BOOM, suddenly it's over, suddenly there's nothing to focus my attention on, nothing constantly demanding my time and thoughts, nothing to plan for. Suddenly I'll feel FREE, but also empty and lost. Suddenly at about the same time, I won't be trundling off to work 5 1/2 days a week, I'll be left to command my own time, left with nothing to force me out of bed and keep slogging away at life, be free from the demands of customers, the irritations of the same old tropes repeating themselves in front of me year after year, free to eventually choose a new something, with new and different celebrations and challenges. Suddenly the world will be calling me by a different surname. Suddenly I'll have massive amounts of time on my hands. Suddenly I won't have money coming in regularly, whatever I manage to save up before then is all I'll have until I tackle the future again. Suddenly I'll have to pennypinch in even tighter ways. Suddenly my health will have the time and space it needs to hopefully improve.
All this happening at once, coming coming coming, but not yet here still, not yet here still, wait just a bit longer again again again, but it's almost here, almost here, so close and so far. So much to get done before then, running against time, against sheer ability to keep going without dropping, so that I can make it to the green pasture finally, eventually, sometime that's so close I can taste it in the air but not close my teeth on it. And fears, fears that I won't be able to handle the sudden shift, that I'll feel so empty that I'll collapse in on myself, fears that I'll self-destruct and not get back up again to look for new income, fears that my mind will rebel against going back to the grind of regular work and my plan of taking at least July to rest before looking will backfire and I'll just keep resting and resting, unable to face it. My mind currently can't handle the thought of something new, but I know I will be fine after a rest, after a break. But what if I'm wrong? What if money dribbles out of my fingers like it currently is doing, dribbling out on my health, on this pill, on that powder, on the chiropracter, but fast, so fast. What if I'm not able to find new work, what if noone wants me, or nothing better is out there, what if I'm stuck, without money, without choices, with money becoming a irritant between me and Zig and wearing away at our relationship like it did 10 years ago?
All these fears are obviously false, and yet the huge illusions are built from tiny kernels of truth and so they have just enough power to niggle away in the background, in the peripheral on my concious mind where I almost don't even notice them because I'm much too focused on all the other craziness that needs to be dealt with right now.
And life keeps happening. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Meantime, I'm left waiting. I'm waiting for the "quitting date" to arrive, I'm waiting for the wedding day to arrive, I'm waiting until my whole life shift gears rather suddenly in June with so many things changing at once. And so my whole life currently is in a holding pattern, just flying around and around in the same old circles, getting more and more frustrated while waiting for the time when I can finally land. Meantime, everything is batshitcrazy insane breakneck pace. All these things need organising, and all these things need re-examining and re-working out and all these things needs to be dealt with and argh argh argh. I've got so many worries and energy drains: Health, Money, Work, Life, Wedding, Honeymoon. And yet, even though I'm doing all this, somehow my life is still standing still, watching the "quitting clock" tick down day by day agonsingly slow, the "wedding clock" tick by incredibly fast, and the "my whole life suddenly changes and I can relax" clock drag even slower than the quitting clock.
How is my life changing? Well, I'm getting married. Now, on the surface, that doesn't really seem like a huge change. Paperwork gets signed, and we continue our relationship. Sure, but what about the big huge event that I've been planning for years suddenly being done and over? BOOM, suddenly it's over, suddenly there's nothing to focus my attention on, nothing constantly demanding my time and thoughts, nothing to plan for. Suddenly I'll feel FREE, but also empty and lost. Suddenly at about the same time, I won't be trundling off to work 5 1/2 days a week, I'll be left to command my own time, left with nothing to force me out of bed and keep slogging away at life, be free from the demands of customers, the irritations of the same old tropes repeating themselves in front of me year after year, free to eventually choose a new something, with new and different celebrations and challenges. Suddenly the world will be calling me by a different surname. Suddenly I'll have massive amounts of time on my hands. Suddenly I won't have money coming in regularly, whatever I manage to save up before then is all I'll have until I tackle the future again. Suddenly I'll have to pennypinch in even tighter ways. Suddenly my health will have the time and space it needs to hopefully improve.
All this happening at once, coming coming coming, but not yet here still, not yet here still, wait just a bit longer again again again, but it's almost here, almost here, so close and so far. So much to get done before then, running against time, against sheer ability to keep going without dropping, so that I can make it to the green pasture finally, eventually, sometime that's so close I can taste it in the air but not close my teeth on it. And fears, fears that I won't be able to handle the sudden shift, that I'll feel so empty that I'll collapse in on myself, fears that I'll self-destruct and not get back up again to look for new income, fears that my mind will rebel against going back to the grind of regular work and my plan of taking at least July to rest before looking will backfire and I'll just keep resting and resting, unable to face it. My mind currently can't handle the thought of something new, but I know I will be fine after a rest, after a break. But what if I'm wrong? What if money dribbles out of my fingers like it currently is doing, dribbling out on my health, on this pill, on that powder, on the chiropracter, but fast, so fast. What if I'm not able to find new work, what if noone wants me, or nothing better is out there, what if I'm stuck, without money, without choices, with money becoming a irritant between me and Zig and wearing away at our relationship like it did 10 years ago?
All these fears are obviously false, and yet the huge illusions are built from tiny kernels of truth and so they have just enough power to niggle away in the background, in the peripheral on my concious mind where I almost don't even notice them because I'm much too focused on all the other craziness that needs to be dealt with right now.
And life keeps happening. Tick. Tick. Tick.