Psychoanalyze This

As you can see, I spent a little time yesterday sprucing up the joint. Don't be surprised if in a few weeks or a few months, depending on what rolls my way, I change the look again. During the few years that I had a bedroom all to myself (which, in retrospect, wasn't that long--three, three and a half years is all between when I stopped sharing a bedroom with the little sister and started sharing a bedroom with the guy who is now the husband), I was constantly changing it. One month the bed would be against the east wall, the next month along the north wall, the month after that in the smack dab middle of the room. If I could have gotten away with it, I probably would have been painting the walls quite a bit. But, alas, that was not to be.

While I was busying changing the template, adding some side column tidbits, editing some entries and whatnot, I got an email from the third recruiter this week to evidently track me down through Monster.com. Unlike the first two who were looking to fill a technical writer/instructional designer position at Dell (a job I'm not qualified to do since I lack any kind of real technical training, and a job there's no way in hell I'd take on because I saw what the IDs I edited went through when dealing with service program managers, trainers, purse string holders and other pains in the rump), this third recruiter sought me out to perhaps fill a technical editor position at a firm to be named later. I'll admit to you right away that it's always for me a bit of an ego stroke to be contacted by recruiters because they think I might just have the skills to fill a job rather than me contacting them. Flattered as I was, I eagerly and quickly responded, sending along my resume and some writing samples with a skills statement the husband kindly helped me massage into fine form.

Within moments of sending off the response to the recruiter, I found myself in something of a state. I don't really want this job, I realized. Hell, I don't really want any job. I...I like being unemployed. The FSM help me, but I like having the opportunity to take care of my home and preparing meals and not feeling rushed when I'm at the gym.

Articulating these feelings into an internal monologue was quite a bit of a...well, it wasn't exactly a breakthrough, and it wasn't exactly a revelation either, but there was quite a bit of truth in that effort that made me realize that I wasn't thinking these thoughts out of sheer laziness and sloth. I mean, hell, who wouldn't like just sitting on her or his duff with no real responsibility? Me, that's who. At least not too long ago that was me. Not too long ago, I needed to be outside of my home, doing something productive, primarily for a salary. But with the changes I've made and the transitions I've gone through in the past six months, I....

Well, hell, here's my counterargument: I am being lazy because I'm giving into my old fears. Fears that I'll end up in a job with no flexibility. A job that cuts me off from the rest of the world from 9 AM until 6 PM. A job that's so stressful that I put on 20 pounds. A job that I end up losing in six months, nine months, 18 months due to budget cuts or lack of funding. These fears I accumulated after taking my walk of shame at Dell and getting the hell outta Hell (i.e., the job I briefly had after Dell) and losing one of the sweetest gigs ever (the job I just recently lost). And for as much as I like to think I was rolling with the changes, these fears have clung to me like kudzu.

Since things can't be A versus B with me, here's argument C: I'm just wound up because of the 5K; it's the real reason I'm nervous. Don't be so quick to scoff. Being the high-strung person that I am, I can recognize my little behavior patterns, and I recognize that as the run has drawn closer, I've gotten a lot more anxious. I've succumbed to a bit of nervous eating. I've barked more than I've spoken, especially yesterday. I worked myself up into a right good tizzy this morning over setting out breakfast and cleaning up the kitchen from last night's pizza, all before 7 AM. So, yeah, I'd say there's a damn good possibility my anxiety over the job is just misplaced anxiety over the run.

(This is the point where you and I have a good laugh because, heh, all my years of yoga and spiritual study have done nothing to really help me quell my inner poodle. But who the hell ever said these things I've done should somehow make me capable of banishing anxiety? Of never experiencing tension or fear? Huh? Why the hell should I expect these things of myself just because I've spent several hours on a foam mat and on a kapok cushion?)

What this all probably boils down to precisely is my anxiety about--get this--finding parking for the 5K and making sure that the kiddo doesn't have a whiny, pissy little fit while I'm off running. I'm running my first 5K--which, in my book, is a damned miracle--and yet I'm anxious about my kid having a good time and cooperating so he and the husband can be there to see me cross the finish line. I'm being a bad Buddhist: I'm harboring expectations. I have this glowing little fantasy about crossing the finish line with the husband and kid there cheering me on, the husband armed with the camera to capture that moment of finish in all its digital imaging gory--uh, glory. I haven't fully articulated that glowing little fantasy to the husband (in my bad Buddhist fashion, I expect him to anticipate capturing my big moment in digital imaging glory), and I know damn good and well that if I'm running a race that starts at 6 PM--suppertime for the residents of Chez Boeckman-Walker--the kid's not going to be terribly cooperative, especially since he's doing something that isn't all about him.

Gads, I feel the tizzy stirring within me again. I really should go pop a chill pill.

Getting back to my original quandry of to work or not to work, I can make myself feel a little less guilty by explaining away my desire not to work as simply misplaced anxiety about the run. However, I doubt I'll be all excited about pursuing a possible position that puts me back in the wage slave grind come Sunday morning (or Monday morning, depending on how things go this evening). I do believe that I've transitioned from the person who desperately needed to be outside of her home because said home represented a lot of fears and anxieties and guilts she couldn't face to a person who enjoys being at home because she's faced and learned to deal with the fears and anxieties and guilts that place once represented yet at the same time has embraced or taken on a new set of fears, guilts and anxieties that working outside the home represents.

I seriously need to get out of my head. Say, I've got some celery in the crisper. There's nothing like chopping vegetables to get myself out of my head.