Birthday! Yoga! Terrifying Life Decisions!

Life has been all kinds of crazy lately.  It’s gotten to the stage where I have SO MUCH to write about that I didn’t even know where to start.  The net result was that I haven’t written at all.  Which makes me sad.  And I don’t like to be sad!  So, without further ado, here’s what I’ve been up to:

Birthday

I celebrated my 28th in style… with great friends, $200 worth of fancypants cheese and antipasto, and ROLLER DERBY.  Nothing says “Happy Birthday” like watching super-awesome (super-hot) chicks go fast and beat each other up, amirite?

Yoga

I’ve been averaging two classes a week.  Okay… maybe it’s closer to one class a week.  You guys, it’s just so hard to fit classes in around my busy schedule of sitting on the couch!  I did go to Lynn Whitlow’s seminar all day last Saturday, which was flat out amazeballs.  I honestly do not have enough good things to say about this woman.  If you have the chance to go to ANY of her master classes/workshops/seminars/retreats, I highly highly highly recommend it.

Also… just for fun, yesterday I tried a class at Barre Body as one of Lululemon’s freebie community offerings.  It was part yoga, part ballet poses and part Jane Fonda-esque aerobics and it would have been a great workout if I could have just stopped giggling.  Sadly, while I was fine during the class… today my shoulders/arms and abs are once again ON FIRE.  Bloody planks.

Work

Um, okay.  This is where most of the craziness has been coming from.  I enjoy the work I do and I love working with the vast majority of my colleagues.  Unfortunately, there are a few people in the office who make it… interesting.  As in, sexually harassed/bullied/I’m-going-to-hide-in-the-toilets-and-cry-for-an-hour interesting.  I was constantly taking sick days because I was so distraught about going to work that I’d make myself physically ill.  That mind/body overlap is an interesting thing.

I’d tried applying for other jobs with little success.  I was so desperately stressed and unhappy that I’d go into interviews anxious and tense; my interactions just so unbelievably stilted and awkward.  Unsurprisingly, I never got so much as a callback.  Which resulted in even more more stress and unhappiness, combined with self-doubt and despair.  It was a truly horrible cycle and one I had no idea how to break.

Although that’s not quite true.  Because I had at least one idea.  But it was scary and illogical and to me, with my ubiquitous checklists and budgets and timelines, the safe but miserable will always win over the scary and unknown.

Except, apparently, for last week, when I woke up shivering and feverish and – yet again – called in sick.  When I felt the relief wash over me, knowing that I wouldn’t be forced to go to work that day… all too quickly followed by a wave of dread when I realised that I’d be back at my desk tomorrow.  When I realised that it was my birthday and I was spending it curled up under the blankets, blinking back tears and trying desperately to avoid thinking about the following day.

“Fuck it,” I thought.  “I’ll quit.”

And I did.

• Time elapsed unsuccessfully applying for jobs (all jobs, any jobs!) whilst miserably employed:
  Eight months
• Time elapsed between giving notice and being offered the perfect job:
  Four days

Whaddaya know.  Sometimes those insane, illogical, TERRIFYING choices?  They work out just fine.