Today’s a bad one in my 30’s

Since last Tuesday I’ve been pretty good at taking it one day at a time. I’ve been watching what I eat, trying to get more active, and have cut back on the alcohol – a bit. I still drink everyday but I’m actually only having 1-3 drinks as opposed to lying about it or justifying filling a wine glass to the brim as ‘it’s technically just 1 glass’. I’ve been out to the beach, and visiting with friends, and healthily caring for myself mentally. This morning I was just telling my mom how good I felt and how I felt that I was rebuilding some of my resilience to deal with stress.

And then I got a call with more bad news from home and I find myself sitting here with no idea what to do. Do I book the next flight out? Do I wait and hope for the best? It’s one of the many difficulties about living far away from home. Ultimately my entire life boils down to this simple equation: does the value outweigh the cost? And everytime I feel like I’m making a stride in the right direction, there’s another road block that sends me right back to where I was. My goodness this is one hell of a battle to get out of my spiral!

I would like to start by saying family will always outweigh anything in my books, but the question is not that cut and dry. If I go there, then I can help out while my dad is in hospital and my stepmom is sick and my mom is recovering from her surgery… but dad’s in hospital so doesn’t need any help that a nurse can’t offer. Mom’s at home and on the mend with a doting husband caring for her (yes, she found the dream!) so again I can’t offer much assistance. And my stepmom is the one who desperately needs help, but her own daughter lives about 150kms away while I find myself literally across the world… so how do I justify going to help out when no one actually needs my help?

Then there’s the mental health aspect of it. It would be great to see my parents and for them both to see me… but they would want to entertain me or go out or cook for me, etc which I wouldn’t allow… and that would cause them no end of grief internally that they are the helpless ones while I’m caring for them. They’re both in their 50’s and being so sick is new – especially to my dad, so while he loves catering and hosting and cooking for everyone else, he’s impossible to sit still and let others care for him. He’s really struggling, today especially, with all that’s going on, but keeps telling me not to worry and so I haven’t told him that I’d like to come home if even just to see him when he gets out of hospital. Mentally I’m not sure if it would do more harm than good for them, so while I know it’s what I want and what would help me through this time, I’m still not sure it’s the right decision.

Add on to all the other factors: the season. It’s nearing Christmas meaning flights are more expensive, and the weather is currently awful where I’m from apparently. That mix of snow and then rain has caused a wet cold mess of a winter so far… which leads to potential flight changes, etc. adding to the potential concerns of how many days off I would need to get home.

Days off… I have none to take as paid annual leave so everything would be taken as unpaid leave. I would need about 3-3.5 weeks to stay just past Christmas (because why go all the way there to leave 2 days before all the family events), so that’s 3 weeks of pay that I would miss, on top of a very expensive flight (holidays + last minute = ridiculous cost!). I just don’t know if I can afford that if not absolutely necessary. Even if I budget as best as possible, I’m still looking at an $8,000 expense.

So does the value of this trip outweigh the costs? I’m not sure and that’s why I’m so conflicted. I’m barely holding it together here and while I try to find a cheaper alternative, I have to admit that I don’t see one. 😦 So an $8,000 bill at the end of all of this is a hefty price tag if dad recovers in the next couple days – which we are all optimistically hoping for. But what if he doesn’t? What if I miss my last chance to see him all because I was trying to save money? It doesn’t sound like it’s immediately life-threatening, but that could change over night and I won’t have time to get there. I just don’t want to wait until it’s too late. But again, the stress of that financial burden would be a lot for me to handle when I’m so emotionally fragile to begin with.

My anxiety is so overrun with the what-ifs of every possible scenario that I have no idea how to even begin to tackle it. I literally just want to go home to bed, and it’s only 2:30 in the afternoon. I feel like a deer caught in headlights and completely incapable of moving. This decision has far surpassed any I feel capable of making at this point.

Work obsessed in my 30’s

Last night I went out with a few friends to a local pub for food and drinks. I met one of them, Tyson, early to catch up 1-1 before the others got there. We were talking and I saw his eyes glaze over and then all of a sudden he said ‘here you go bringing work to drinks again’ and it left me a bit dumbfounded. We’ve always talked a lot about our respective careers, mainly because we’re both ambitious and were in contract positions. He was offered permanency about two months ago, but I’m still contract and so my conversations are usually working out all the little ‘hints’ of whether my contract will be extended or not. Naturally, that’s what I was doing last night because I’d gotten a few ‘big hints’ about my future in the department – namely, someone at my level is going on maternity leave soon – so I was going through these things and using Tyson as my sounding board, as I always do. I was surprised to hear him so annoyed at me because I was talking about work! Maybe it was because now that he’s permanent he’s no longer as interested with the intricacies as I am? Or maybe I’m actually obsessed and talk way too much about work! I told him that I hadn’t realised I do it and he responded with ‘it’s all you talk about and honestly, it doesn’t even sound like you like your job’ which was another surprise: I love my job! At least I thought I did.

I think on my quest to attain permanency I’ve forgotten what I really enjoy about it. I’ve gotten used to it here. I know the people, I know the work, there’s always something new and challenging coming up – which I love… but perhaps that’s what I love and not the job itself? I haven’t stopped to think about it since I started here really. This job is so perfectly suited to my skills that I just naturally thought I loved it, but realistically, I don’t know what it is I love about it now that I was called out by Tyson. I love that I’m in a position to make a difference across the entire state, but recently I started looking into how much of a difference this office actually makes and, it turns out, it’s not much of one – which has been a depressing battle of mine since I figured that out, and it’s made me less excited to come to work every day. So, I tried to break it down into aspects of my job that I will either like or dislike:

• nature of the work : like.
• content of the projects : like.
• background of the projects : dislike.
• people at work : dislike (with very few exceptions).
• office dynamics : dislike.
• loyalty of managers to me : none, so, dislike.
• efficiency of the Office : dislike.
• managerial style : loved until my boss left and was replaced inadequately so, dislike.
• job security : none, so, dislike.

The list could continue should I continue to delve into it, but as I go, I get more and more depressed about it. I really thought that I love what I do and now I think I may be wrong. I love researching and investigating and holding people accountable and being able to affect change, which are all things that led me down this path, but the background of anything I work on stems from child deaths, and I have to read into each one of them. It’s awful, sad and ultimately depressing. I have always been able to do it knowing that if I can affect change by writing my report and save even one child’s life, then it’s worth the struggle I deal with on a daily basis in reading about all these children for whom it’s too late to save. Recently (a few months ago) I realised that the reports I work on, thus far, haven’t affected change though, and that’s significantly more depressing. And forget the accountability aspect: it’s a joke! If something is not done that we’ve recommended, there’s no repercussions at all. It makes me wonder why I’m doing this at all. I hope that maybe there’s a difference to someone. Maybe the stats would have increased had it not been for the reports, and a brief analysis indicates that this is likely, but it’s awful to see the same numbers, or even rising numbers in some instances, across a range of issues that are ultimately preventable deaths.

Now I’m just starting to get into a rant about work and I realise maybe Tyson was right. Maybe I do bring my work home with me far more than I should. I guess it’s unrealistic to expect to read about a child’s death (and usually I have to read and research multiple) and then at 5:00 just leave it all at the door on the way out without any adverse effects on my mental health. I thought I was doing alright with the balance, but perhaps I was leaning too hard on my friend as a sounding board to get through the particularly rough days. I’d never go into details and I’d usually just end up complaining about my colleagues or a deadline or something, but still. If I take the nature of my work out of the equation for a moment and even look at job security in itself, the outcome is not much better. As I am on contract here, I can’t plan anything too far into the future and I never feel secure in my work. I won’t buy a house because I don’t want such an investment in the instance that I am not renewed. I feel like moving forward in my life is currently on hold. I’ve been here for two years now and watched several people made permanent in other teams, but for me, there’s no permanency because I’m in a requirement-based position. It’s frustrating to give heart and soul to a job and not have any loyalty shown to me. In two years, how has there not been a business case approved to make me permanent? I’m consistently told that I’m working higher than what’s expected of my level and that my work is very well done. I’m commended for my enthusiasm and I was even told last week that I’m ‘integral’ to the success of the project I’m currently working on. That’s my manager’s word, not mine, so how is it possible that I have not been made permanent?

I like to think that I’m making a difference and I like to think that my manager will continue to have my back in at least renewing my contract, but at the end of the day, who knows. I take pride in a job well done and I figured that the feeling of being drained at the end of the day (or midday on some occassions), and always wanting to indulge in more wine than I should after work, was ultimately a result of my work ethic and that it was just something that comes with a career; but maybe not. I had no idea how much ‘work’ I was actually taking home with me every evening until last night’s conversation with Tyson. It was a rude awakening and something I need to now seriously consider.