I'm breaking in, shaping up, then checking out on the prison bus
I feel like I'm waking up. Holding on valiantly to my pillow, while barely peeking on this unfurling world.
Somewhere between the grim twilight of the still lingering dreams and furious willfulness not to wake-up to this terrible unending string of empty, aching days and the faint rays of sunshine, where you can tell your mind is turning over toward clarity and thoughts. That second right before your eyelashes flicker, and your eyes open, but where sound is a little clearer, and you're rubbing your face into the pillow, stubbornly pushing toward the heavy clouds of sleep still. Half awake, and half asleep. Half aware, and half somewhere far away.
Today I'll have had my job for a month, and it's turned out to be a really good job, with a really good paycheck. It was monthly employee taco breakfasts, birthday celebrations, employee of the month celebrations, baby celebrations. I am getting paid higher than ever before, and I've been promised a raise if I get the job in January. I've been given a real name badge and a professional polo, all of which you aren't supposed to get until you are official.
People like to make jokes about wanting "real longevity" out of me, or my boss tells me that she "Expects me at next year's fall softball game" (since I'm in Chicago this weekend during it) and I hold really, really still. Not ready to breathe. Not ready entirely. to be awake. To hope beyond a single second. I spent years hoping at USAA. I know I'm already hoping now, but it's a painful thing, and I don't want to be worrying about it now, when I know I'll be stressing about it in December.
I have a really awesome group of three people I eat lunch with. Lunch friends, when did those happen? I got adopted by some people during my first week, because of the blackout that me interviewing in the pitch dark and then they happened and then they stuck. Which doesn't suck, a lot? (Even if I miss reading through my lunch breaks, too?) And I have lunches with my mother on Monday's now, and I'm scheduling upcoming ones with other friends I've lost touch with.
It's really good, and it keeps me doing really good things. I've balanced my check book five different ways making budgets. I'm paying half of my house, and we lowered the bills of the house. I paid off all the end of the Dragon*Con '13 card. I paid off all the '13 usage of the VS card. My current plan has my main card paid off in five months, and my first smallest loan 2 after that (and my second smallest after that at a year and half to two years, depending on what happens when my two juggernaut loans wake back up, too).
None of which touches my set aside emergency fund, or the saving $50-$100 a week in savings, or the $100 a month I'm allowed to spend on me, or any of the Christmas money. Hello, Taurus-Dragon hoarder, yes, I can see we'll be going back to this.
All sorts of things just slot into place everywhere. I've gone back to brushing my teeth and taking vitamins after lunch, because they are waiting at my desk for me after I return. I continue to have a green smoothie for lunch every morning, and to pack my lunch for work, aside from the lunches out with my mom somewhere new and nearby. I get to listen to my music everyday, and, like normal, I continue to finish jobs they think should take me weeks in about four days.
And my temp company continues to be amazing itself. They sent me a bag of candy for Halloween, and they had a Halloween party last Friday, that I went to on my lunch break, with a nacho and caramel apple bar. Where I got to hear that one of the many pronoun-she's, without a name, which could be my direct trainer or boss, apparently is currently in love with me and thinks I mess really well with their department. Tiny up things all over that.
So....vaguely waking up, puttering at waking up, I wouldn't mind having this for a few years, or many, there are movement opportunities several people previously in my position have taken over the years, but thinking about it before I've signed my name on a dotted line anywhere still makes my stomach turn over like it's going to be sick after the fallow and pure nothingness of this year, while I was trying so hard.
So, things are good. But don't mind me if I just cling to the wall a little while longer, until I actually know it's real and good, okay?
[This entry was originally posted at http://wanderlustlover.dreamwidth.org/2253637.html. Comment on either at your leisure.]
Somewhere between the grim twilight of the still lingering dreams and furious willfulness not to wake-up to this terrible unending string of empty, aching days and the faint rays of sunshine, where you can tell your mind is turning over toward clarity and thoughts. That second right before your eyelashes flicker, and your eyes open, but where sound is a little clearer, and you're rubbing your face into the pillow, stubbornly pushing toward the heavy clouds of sleep still. Half awake, and half asleep. Half aware, and half somewhere far away.
Today I'll have had my job for a month, and it's turned out to be a really good job, with a really good paycheck. It was monthly employee taco breakfasts, birthday celebrations, employee of the month celebrations, baby celebrations. I am getting paid higher than ever before, and I've been promised a raise if I get the job in January. I've been given a real name badge and a professional polo, all of which you aren't supposed to get until you are official.
People like to make jokes about wanting "real longevity" out of me, or my boss tells me that she "Expects me at next year's fall softball game" (since I'm in Chicago this weekend during it) and I hold really, really still. Not ready to breathe. Not ready entirely. to be awake. To hope beyond a single second. I spent years hoping at USAA. I know I'm already hoping now, but it's a painful thing, and I don't want to be worrying about it now, when I know I'll be stressing about it in December.
I have a really awesome group of three people I eat lunch with. Lunch friends, when did those happen? I got adopted by some people during my first week, because of the blackout that me interviewing in the pitch dark and then they happened and then they stuck. Which doesn't suck, a lot? (Even if I miss reading through my lunch breaks, too?) And I have lunches with my mother on Monday's now, and I'm scheduling upcoming ones with other friends I've lost touch with.
It's really good, and it keeps me doing really good things. I've balanced my check book five different ways making budgets. I'm paying half of my house, and we lowered the bills of the house. I paid off all the end of the Dragon*Con '13 card. I paid off all the '13 usage of the VS card. My current plan has my main card paid off in five months, and my first smallest loan 2 after that (and my second smallest after that at a year and half to two years, depending on what happens when my two juggernaut loans wake back up, too).
None of which touches my set aside emergency fund, or the saving $50-$100 a week in savings, or the $100 a month I'm allowed to spend on me, or any of the Christmas money. Hello, Taurus-Dragon hoarder, yes, I can see we'll be going back to this.
All sorts of things just slot into place everywhere. I've gone back to brushing my teeth and taking vitamins after lunch, because they are waiting at my desk for me after I return. I continue to have a green smoothie for lunch every morning, and to pack my lunch for work, aside from the lunches out with my mom somewhere new and nearby. I get to listen to my music everyday, and, like normal, I continue to finish jobs they think should take me weeks in about four days.
And my temp company continues to be amazing itself. They sent me a bag of candy for Halloween, and they had a Halloween party last Friday, that I went to on my lunch break, with a nacho and caramel apple bar. Where I got to hear that one of the many pronoun-she's, without a name, which could be my direct trainer or boss, apparently is currently in love with me and thinks I mess really well with their department. Tiny up things all over that.
So....vaguely waking up, puttering at waking up, I wouldn't mind having this for a few years, or many, there are movement opportunities several people previously in my position have taken over the years, but thinking about it before I've signed my name on a dotted line anywhere still makes my stomach turn over like it's going to be sick after the fallow and pure nothingness of this year, while I was trying so hard.
So, things are good. But don't mind me if I just cling to the wall a little while longer, until I actually know it's real and good, okay?
[This entry was originally posted at http://wanderlustlover.dreamwidth.org/2253637.html. Comment on either at your leisure.]