It's Getting a Bit Harder

I must admit, it's getting harder. Some nights, I'm awake til 2 then up again at 7. The other morning, I woke too early and dragged myself to my TV. I tossed a pillow into the middle of the couch and lay there with my legs hanging over the arm rest. Oliver came in, hopped up on the other side of the pillow, resting his chin on his side of the pillow after giving me a swift lick on the forehead.

He's a bit anxious these days and I can understand.There is little schedule going on in our home lately. The other day, Eliza was over collecting up some free stuff and Oliver stood there between us, looking from me to her, from me to her, as if to say "Mom, she's taking our stuff!"

Eliza and her fiance Kenny were kind enough to host a little Ping-Pong inspired gathering Friday night. I had a total blast and of course, was thoughtful on the drive home.

I'm struggling with my move date, too. If I leave when I initially planned, there will be a full two weeks between my last day at work and my moving back north. That's a lot of free time. Too much, I think. As much as I want to spend time with my friends, it may be a bit too hard sitting around longer than it takes for me to pack-up my stuff. I mean how slow is too slow when removing a band-aide?

There's the whole job hunt situation too. I'm doing none of that right now. I feel like I want to be "present" during my remaining time at The Post. I still work for The Post. That's still my job. I also feel like a little downtime won't kill me. That said, I doubt I'll find myself a job within a few weeks and from a remote location anyway.

It's as if I want to just be here when I'm here, even though I'm doing all sorts of things - researching laptops, getting a cell phone, donating to Goodwill (and my friends) in preparation for my leaving. Perhaps there's a little bit of feeling like I will be ready to move in another direction and get a new job/career once I'm in another location.

Anyway, there's definitely a sense of everybody wanting to be around each other a little bit more. Kind of like how at Christmas time, if people aren't totally stressed out, they're a little nicer to each other.

It's nice. But then you walk away from the conversation in the photo department, or the ping pong match, or the dinner and a movie, and I feel sad. Terrified because I have no idea what's going to come my way or what's going to happen to me, and worried about my friends and coworkers. I wonder what will happen to them, too.