I don’t want to write much today as I’ve got other writing projects to write for. Suffice to say that I made more mistakes at work and felt more incompetent. I honestly don’t feel that this is the right job for me; the problem is that I don’t know what I should be doing instead, both in terms of what would be right for me and what is available for my skill and experience levels, near enough to where I live and where I can work part-time and have Yom Tov (Jewish festivals) off. I do feel that if they don’t renew my contract, it will be a mercy killing. However, my colleague who was ill last term is still off sick (I don’t like to ask what the problem is), so we are understaffed again and I suspect this makes it more likely that my contract will be renewed. Which I guess is good, ish. It would buy me more time, anyway, and push off the day when I have to move back in with my parents for financial reasons.
I do feel that I’m only getting through the days at the moment thanks to my friends. I don’t have many friends in London who I can see or talk to (a couple of friends/acquaintances at shul who I don’t really talk to about personal things and one or two other distant friends), but I have a few friends who I can email or text which gets me through the day. Some of them have issues, which means that I have to be there for them sometimes, which stops the whole relationship becoming one-sided and a burden to them, I hope. I just hope I say the right things. Sometimes I worry that I’m not good at friendships.
I went to bed late last night because I was struggling to do everything that needed to be done, but then I couldn’t sleep because I was tense and anxious. I got about four hours sleep in the end. Fortunately, my boss asked me to take a half-hour lunch tomorrow to cover the short-staffed issue desk, which means I get to come in to work half an hour later in the morning as compensation, which means I get a precious thirty minutes more sleep tonight (hopefully. If I don’t end up going to bed late tonight too, because I’m feeling anxious and might email friends about the anxiety…). Other than that, I’m glad I discovered coffee, because I don’t know how I would get through the mornings without it. I wish I liked the taste more, though; I drink it like medicine.
I started work on writing a science fiction story, the one I said I wanted to write, but couldn’t. I decided to try anyway. I don’t want to say too much about it, because I might not finish it, if I run out of time, energy, patience, confidence, inspiration… a whole bunch of things. I have a lot of unfinished projects, most of which never even got started, victims of my low self-esteem. We’ll see. It’s supposed to be a non-sensationalist story with a religious theme (no bug-eyed monsters or time machines). In the past, I would have hammered the religious theme home; I’m hoping not to this time.
I’m still having anxiety, not just about my job. The stupid thing, as I think I’ve mentioned before, is that some of my anxieties cancel each other out. I shouldn’t worry about losing my job and having to stay in my job feeling I do it badly. Only one of those can happen! But I worry about both. Anyway, there’s a lot of anxiety around about a lot of things that I can do very little about, and about which I can do nothing at all for the foreseeable future. I hate this kind of situation, when something lurks on the horizon and I can’t do anything but sit and plutz (literally to explode, metaphorically to be anxious and agitated). It reminds me of the Jewish joke about the man who sent a telegram (this is a long time ago) to his family that said, “Start worrying. Details to follow.” On which note, I bid you goodnight.
