Slight Spiral

 I made it to about 8p and now I'm feeling all sorts of feelings about going back to work tomorrow. After a week off, even with checking my email regularly, I do feel a little removed from work.

So much so that going back is making me feel a little dread. In this moment, if I never saw my boss again, I would be okay. 

I'd miss her and still want to know what was up, but I'd get over it I think. 

Wow. 

Remember her first long weekend away, I had some serious separation anxiety. What a difference a year makes. 

I don't think these are normal feelings. 

I like reading Purple's blog because we share some of the same feelings. 

There are definitely moments in the last year where I thought - maybe this is a job I would stay in past FIRE. Today I feel - NOT!

Tomorrow, I don't feel like giving 100%. I'm out of 100% to give. 

I reconnected with an old college friend on Saturday and it went better than expected. My cousin that I still have mixed feelings about was also a distraction on Saturday as well. 

I started to do work in the morning because I had nothing else to do- but after the social distraction I completely lost focus. 

But now I want them to focus all their attention on me. Naturally, that's unreasonable, but wouldn't that be nice.

From one obsession to the next. 

I stalked my boss's calendar for the next couple of weeks. I see she has a Q2 check-in with My Buddy and I felt paranoid and jealous. 

Things I'm anxious about this week

- Prepping for launch of a new product

- A call calibration with vendor that I have to lead

- The Wednesday session where we try to define roles and responsibilities

- Vendor requests

- Just overall - what the heck is my job

Things that would make me happy:

- Getting an offer from the medical writing role + a pay bump to $135k base + it being an awesome job

Too much?

I'm thinking of ending the mortgage forbearance. It's been a much bigger weight on my mind than I anticipated. I think being this close to FIRE 500 I don't want greed or anything else to jeopardize my success. So I don't know if it's an actual moral dilemma or just fear of jinxing myself? 

I've been trying to jump start stuff - doctor's appointment, new personality, social life- since stuff is trying to get back to normal... but I think I should just carry on with plan to give this year to COVID. 

So many dead bugs in this house!

And Raid 100% gives me a headache and a neck tingle. 

So I bought some $8 essential oils bug spray (and a chemical-ly one as a back up that wasn't Raid brand). 

Although I didn't fully disconnect this week, I guess I gained some perspective.

- This is a good-paying job.

- I can def do better about my version of "coasting."

- Having social distractions will definitely help curb my "overachieving" and minding my own business. 

- Our vendor truly annoys me. 

More like grievances:

- I think our vendor could do a better job of learning our business.

- I need them to take more ownership of process than they do.

- I need them to be better.

- I think I can get away with doing less, I just need to get to where I can feel better about it. 

- Sometimes I think I could be the awesome manager my manager would want, but I think she needs to let go. I have a better idea of how I could manage the vendor, but I don't know if I want to. How does that fit with my coasting plans? I'm still not sure if I want to be AD, but part of me kind of thinks it would be cool to be in charge. I'm so curious to know if my manager thinks I'm anywhere close to that? Outside of all her employees being so great, I wonder what she thinks my real strengths are? 

- Outside of achieving FIRE, where do I really see myself in 5 years if I'm still at this job or company? Should I even dream that far? I'll say it again and again, the call center life was really easier. I didn't have to think about career growth. That shift life certainly had its perks. 

- Still need balance on - what I should do vs what I can do vs what I want to do.