Post #3278: Transitory

Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start.

I haven’t posted here in awhile and that’s really due to several factors, including (but not limited to): work stress, another writing project, covid, more work stress, family aging transition stuff, post-covid exhaustion, throwing a 50th birthday party for my partner, quitting my work assignment, and starting a new job in another organization.

In other words, a lot has been flying around over here, and it hasn’t all quite landed in a way that I’m satisfied yet. It’s made it hard to write, let alone get all chatty about my life.

But I suppose the main news is that I’ve taken a 2-month assignment with my union as a way of escaping a very stressful job situation in which I felt I could not succeed. The assignment has me in Victoria three days a week, so I’ll be staying in my trailer on my brother’s property while I decide if this is really what I want to do with my life, or whether I should just go back to my pre-assignment job which is still open for me and allows me to work from home full time.

I would feel stupid about all of this if the decision to leave my last job didn’t feel so imperative. After only eight months, I had hit a full-on burnout/anxiety wall and couldn’t imagine what that feeling of constant pressure was doing to my heart (let alone my mind). And while I could have returned to my old unit straight away, I felt strongly that I did not want to give one more ounce of myself to an organization I was so disappointed by (my latest work crisis was driven by poor leadership which lead to improper tasking and unrealistic expectations, not to mention toxic internal dynamics), at least not if I could take a breather somewhere else for awhile.

This is not to say the new job won’t be busy, or that this organization is without issues, but at least they will be different issues than the ones I’ve been dealing with. (Retirement would be my preferred option, but I’m still a few years away from that.)

Two days in, and things are moving along. This week I am fixing up my trailer a bit (cozy new electric fireplace pictured above) and am trialing different options for gym workouts in the vicinity of my new office. I am not one who loves new routines, but I’m taking this as an opportunity to get off my tiny island and see friends a bit more – maybe even go out to a decent restaurant or two. On the work front, this is really just an orientation week, but already I can see what I’ll be working on the next little while and there will be plenty to do.

I don’t know where this move will take me next, there is definitely a chance I’ll end up back in my old job later this summer, but there is just as good of a shot that I won’t. This is not at all what I expected would happen at this stage of my life, but here I am and it feels weird but not bad weird… which is really all I’m looking for at the moment.