8a, New Job, Day 4

 Hello!

Another seemingly cool morning here in the south in August.

I should walk, but I'm not going to.

I tried to do an air splits last night, and I'm sorry to say my legs don't stretch very far anymore. I am actually a tightly wound individual that spends her days hunched over her laptop.

I woke up in a fit today around 3 or 4a. I had this dream that I was walking with a child... sometimes I thought it was one of my twin cousins but when I woke up I wasn't sure. Because it was clearly a child and my twin cousins are now in their 20s. I was holding their hand and at one point when we were cowering, I felt like I they were small enough for me to cradle them.

Anyway, in the dream, for whatever reason we were walking after dark, like really late to pick up something from, I guess, some sort of market.  And as we kept turning dark corner after dark corner, I was trying to figure out why we couldn't wait till morning but I never got a response.

Then we turned down one road and some ruffians told us not to come down that way because there would be a gun fight. Then we "heard" (really like sensed) like gunfire and people getting into it behind us. I remember a car next to a curb because we thought about hiding there.  But I just remember feeling like there was no where to turn. There was like a "war zone" ahead and behind us and around us.

So finally, I randomly hid next to a red brick building in an alley and cradled this boy child. But really we were out in the open because these "gang members" would run by us. But somehow they were only focused on shooting each other and not us. But we were definitely still at risk of any stray gunfire.  I didn't hear sound really in the dream but I just knew people were shooting each other.

As always it felt very real. I felt scared.

I'm trying to think of why I even dreamt something like that. My aunt had casually mentioned the storming on The Capitol last night but we didn't spend much time talking about it.  I haven't watched any true crime shows in the last week or so.  It's been like Love Island and stuff on TLC the last couple of days. 

I don't know; it was quite odd. 

What's been going well

- Plenty of opportunities yesterday to verbally dive into negative memories of old Job but didn't take the bait

- waited 2 days to respond nicely to email regarding old job (still pending)

- noticed the level of anxiety in a few emails regarding old job from old external teammates (it's weird) and did not feed into it

- was able to have a nice moment with New Boss because I remembered a little about a drug class she's taking

- took a lunch yesterday

- gathered trash, will prob take to dump tomorrow

- hanging in there!

- didn't turn on ipad

- didn't have many more broken record conversations playing in my head about Old Job (pretty big win)

- logged off at 3p

Working on it

- Still checked email multiple times after 5p (really waiting on Old Boss response for guidance)

- checked email at 8a today

- checked email waiting on response from Old Boss to know how to proceed

- ruminated way too long at an opportunity I saw as a missed opportunity to contribute to a (meaningless) conversation

What's making me anxious

- weird jabs from Old Roommate

- Old roommate sent email to my New Boss expressing interest

- Old Roommate sent email to my New Boss expressing interest using the same email template I used (whoops!)

- afraid New Boss might ask me if I know Old Roommate and I'm not sure what to say

- unsure about response to emails about Old Job

- unnecessary urgency in the couple emails about Old Job

In money news, my aunt invited me to hang with her at a conference at end of Sept. in Florida. I got a little excited and thought about going. But with COVID and the possibility of airport travel, I eventually nixed the idea. She mentioned my new locale is quite inconvenient after I mentioned not living near any major airports anymore and since I'm sensitive to jabs these days I thought about it. Meh, I think when I thought about traveling when I lived here, I remembered my life for what it was. In the previous five years, I'd visited no friends. One year, I'd taken a few international trips in a concentrated amount of time. And even living near an international airport, I still ended up driving to DC for one of my trips and that was quite inconvenient. I don't remember my family being particularly helpful. Although they did let me stay overnight. 

So yeah, people can knock my life choices, but some of my big choices were carefully chosen. I live near a regional airport that is one flight away from the next biggest airport. Given my infrequent air travel, that is worth the trade for my reduced housing cost (~$900/mon).

And I don't know if I mentioned it yesterday, but this same aunt was giving me grief when I mentioned that early retirement is totally for me because of work politics, for one. She seemed almost offended, like what would you even do if you retired. To me the question was so ridiculous, I was both caught off guard and defensive. Like - what? Because  I have nothing to do- I should work?? This is what I mean sometimes when you get bad advice. You hear me complain about work and think that if I made enough money to not work, I would subject myself to that? 

That's just illogical. You can't reason with silly people. 

While I haven't heard those specific words, I've gotten a pretty similar response from millennials that I've introduced FIRE to. There's just such opposition to it that it's unfathomable to me. Once I learned FIRE was a possibility, I didn't question it was the right thing for me. The only thing I doubted was whether it was possible for me based on my salary. This is why I'm so grateful when other bloggers share their salary and their expenses and savings. It has literally been life altering. 

The only thing left to figure out is what I'll do after. Somehow I'm not too worried. As long as I have enough money, I don't see going back to work being at the top of the list of things to do.

Anyway, enough about that. My workday is about to start!