it's gettin dark in here!

First the dark:

I am a few feet away from a mental health crisis, I think. 
I don't actually know, and that stuff isn't quantifiable that way.  But I have the red flags of wanting to run from my life and not being able to, of wanting to just go awol and knowing that if I do people will crash.  wakign up in the night thinking about the Things I Should Have Done.

I tried to think through the 'so what if i do need time off for a mental health break' and it's like ok from work you gotta get a dr's note and your time might not be paid but you might have a job at the end at least. 

but on the self-care side, of the Trying To Fight It side, therapist says burnout is prevented with rest, so I did some of that this weekend. Including naps, tv, reading and legos.  ALSO to deal with some of this shoulder/hip/back pain I joined the gym and went in on sunday for stretching & weights & treadmill (gentle, gentle stuff) and then monday brought the kids swimming. 

It was both joyful and chaotic, and it was almost not to be. And they are sick today so i maybe shouldn't have but they're the kind of 'send them to school anyway and let your soul absorb the whines' kind of sick that's mostly a runny nose and general yuck kind of thing where nurses and principals have kind of different takes on it and parents can't win.

Now the lighter:

to literally fight the dark, I'll be setting out christmas lights soon, but we have some trees & a deer and not the house-lining lights or clips or anything.  I can handle plugging in some things.  I also got some window, battery-powered-on-a-timer snowflake lights for the above-the-garage. They look a LITTLE dumb but they exist.

Also meg & i set up a winter village in the breezeway where my fairy garden usually lives. It's adequate. It's outdoors even.

Also I had a realization that was kind of calming.  My work has tended to be places that were going through metamorphoses. I've really only had these 5 employers, which is a lot but also not. (regional chamber, little chamber, workforce nonprofit, museum, and school.). All of them were going from One Thing to Another, and some of them knew it and some didn't.  A few places, i really felt like I was glue holding stuff together.  Maybe that's my 'thing.'  And maybe when it's over I have no more energy.

(no subject)

I want to expand on this:
"My work has tended to be places that were going through metamorphoses. I've really only had these 5 employers, which is a lot but also not. (regional chamber, little chamber, workforce nonprofit, museum, and school.). All of them were going from One Thing to Another, and some of them knew it and some didn't."

• Regional Chamber of Commerce- Health insurance massive changes, shifting the value prop, plus 2 office moves.
• Little Chamber - director retiring after 25 years and ALSO a secret undertaking to merge with our neighboring organization; I was brought in after that was decided
• Workforce Nonprofit - the DOL released a new type of apprenticeships that are easier for employers to participate in and are regulated by the workforce sector. So, that plus 'the org was growing and needed more than one person to run it' and needed to act like a 501c3 and have Governance and Structure, I oversaw that.
• museum: covid, relevance, new director, new education direction.
• school: besides admin & supt turnover, some impressive drama about how our schools are organized, plus state funding drama, plus whatever the F is happening rn and will be happen during the Next Administration.