And Now, Time For An Update

Not that I really feel like making an entry right now, but lunenoire is still sleeping, and blckwngdorcl is still in bed (but mostly awake), and I'm the only one fully awake. I've caught up on all my email/LJ stuff, and now I'm just waiting for everyone to be up, so we can decide what to do about breakfast/brunch/food in general, and I can start working on the house.

A couple of things to update. A decision, and what happened on Wednesday, and maybe some other stuff.

( Cut for length )

Exhaustion, and its Aftermath

So, I started working at Sona last October. About the same time, I got a client through ParaQuad that I saw (at the time) 7 nights a week. At that time, blckwngdorcl was working at FedEx, and we had just one car between us. So, after about a month of going back and forth from his job, to my jobs, etc., and comparing pay, and gas, and whatnot, we figured out that we were netting $16/week from his paycheck. This seemed silly to us. The bus didn't go to our jobs, so no option there.

So, thus began blckwngdorcl staying at home. The house wasn't being cleaned consistently by anyone at that time (we did our best), so it made sense for him to take over that duty. I wrote out explicit instructions, had him follow me to see how I did it, and then I followed him, to make sure he was doing it right. Thus was born the Harmony HouseFrau.

This worked pretty well for a while. The house was clean, I came home to a happy husband who was always there, and life was good in that respect.

In the meantime, my Core classes, along with the required therapy, started in earnest, and somewhere along the way, my client no longer required my services, and dropped ParaQuad. However, we enjoyed each others' company a great deal, and it was decided that I would stay on there, privately, for a few nights a week. In the meantime, he recommended a friend of his, who would be interested in a similar situation. It was agreed that I'd spend 3 nights a week at my original client's house, and 2 nights at his friend's house. So, this has been the case since, ummm... about January, I think. Around April, one of the Saturday nurses at Sona left for the summer (she shows horses), so they were short on Saturdays. A quick fix of me working that month of Saturdays has become me working every Saturday since then, except for classes and birthdays/special ocassions, all of which happen infrequently.

So, with few exceptions, since April, my schedule has been as follows:

Sunday: Sleep in! Brunch with "family". Work with client (first client, to be called D from now on) from 10:00pm - 1:00am)

Monday: Work at Sona 8:45am - 6:00pm. Drive immediately to client (second client, to be called B from now one) and work there 7:00pm-10:00pm

Tuesday: Work at Sona 8:45am - 8:00pm. Kill time until 9:30pm when I have to leave to work with D, until about 1:00am

Wednesday: Allegedly, my day off. The ONLY day I have no work-related obligations. However, this is therapy day, 11:00am. After therapy, all the errands I have no time for at any other time get done. This usually involves driving all over Atlanta metro, and takes a lot of time, gas, etc.. blckwngdorcl goes with me for all this, so it's become our "date" day. There were good and bad points to this. The good points were spending time with him. The bad points were, since I usually collapsed into bed when I got home all the other nights of the week, any issues I had since the previous Wednesday came up. Wednesdays typically involved an emotional discussion on the drive to therapy, followed by therapy and other types of resolution, followed by a day of dealing with financial and other obligations. In fact, it's only been VERY recently that we've tried very hard to have FUN on those days, or just RELAX. So... not much of a day off.

Thursday: Work at Sona 8:45am - 8:00pm. Kill time until 9:30pm when I have to leave to work with D, until about 1:00am

Friday: Work at Sona 8:45am - 6:00pm. Drive immediately to B's and work there 7:00pm-10:00pm

Saturday: Work at Sona 8:45am - 4:00pm. Come home exhausted, maybe get some things done, maybe do something leisurely, collapse exhausted into bed.

Now, keep in mind that all this is best-case scenario. I typically don't get out of work at the times specified, because we run late, or we need to do closing duties, or I've been asked to stay over for a myriad of reasons. The more typical Monday/Friday scenario is that I don't get to B's until 8pm, and I don't leave there until midnight. So, typically, since January, Sunday-Friday I've gotten about 5 hours of sleep per night or less. When April hit, that became the case 6 of 7 nights per week. Usually on Saturday mornings I was wishing someone would slit my throat so I didn't have to go to work that day. So, it's now, what, July-almost-August? So, I've been doing this for about 4 months, and really, with a few exceptions, for almost a year.

It's just gotten to be too much.

Financially speaking, we thought we were doing OK at first. As time went on, however, it was clear that wasn't the case. We talked about blckwngdorcl getting a job, and there was much controversy about that. Bottom line was, I knew him getting a job would likely mean no more Wednesdays together, no more clean house, and no more happy husband. There were transportation issues. Most of all, there were issues surrounding his reluctance to do so, for both practical and psychological reasons. So, nothing really moved forward with that, which made me feel more and more overwhelmed, and more and more resentful. When lunenoire moved into Harmony, in theory, our rent went down, but that didn't really happen, 'cause I was trying to use the excess to pay back some of the money that we owed simplysakka and wyzard_vyrnahnn. By then, however, we were so far under that I think we only managed to do that for one month, which, in the scheme of things, I'm not planning on even counting as having gone towards the debt. I didn't want to involve lunenoire in our finances, 'cause I didn't want our debt and financial problems to become his. Partially, this was altruistic. Partially, it was practical. I wanted to have SOMEONE in the triad to have good credit, and he was the only one who had it.

Then, of course, came the move, which turned into fiasco after fiasco. It was a financial and physical strain on everyone involved. Others have moved before. I don't really need to tell anyone what a huge pain in the ass it is. Plus, in retrospect, there were a lot of things that could have been done better and differently, and there's nothing worse than having enough insight to KNOW you've done something stupidly, and see how detrimental it's been, and have to live with the consequences of that. *sigh*

In the meantime, the rest of my life goes on, as described above.

I'm tired.

So.

Periodically, I get the message from the Universe that, if I don't change certain aspects of my lifestyle, Bad Things will happen. I always figured it had mostly to do with diet/exercise. (Which, regardless, DO need some major improvements.) But one night, I was on my way to B's, and was just getting a clear message that I shouldn't continue that job. On a practical level, of all my jobs, it returns the least amount of financial gain for the most amount of work. (I make $18.75/hour at Sona; about $13.00/hour with D, and about $10.00/hour with B.) It's the most taxing, physically and mentally, of my jobs.

Now, don't get me wrong. B and his wife are wonderful people. I have no complaints about how I've been treated, the work I'm asked to do, or anything else like that. In fact, I don't have that at any of my jobs. I don't think I could have gotten this far if I hadn't loved my work. But, the energy has clearly been such that I shouldn't be there.

So, after much tearful soul-searching, a few Tarot readings, and a talk with D, I finally broke the news to B that I'd be resigning from there.

They took it very well, much better than I expected. I told them I'd continue my schedule through the end of August, to allow them to find someone to replace me. I even made a vague gesture to do PRN work there in the future, if they needed me.

In the meantime, at Sona, lots of things are changing. According to the posted schedule for August, that should be the last month they're going to need people to fill in on Saturdays. I'm crossing my fingers on that one. It'd be nice to work only 40 hours/week for a change.

On a financial level, of course, this scares the hell out of me. We were barely making ends meet before, and now I want to give up some money, just 'cause I'm tired? Sounds kinda lame to me. But, at the same time, I know I NEED this, have needed it for a long time, and I feel terrified and courageous at the same time for making this step. I'm hoping it's not a false bravado to cover up what could be simply laziness and stupidity on my part. The overwhelming message I got from the Universe when I figured out what I needed to do is "Trust me", so that's what I'm going to do.

blckwngdorcl still doesn't have a job, but the issues preventing him from looking, both psychological and practical (we didn't want him to look while we were trying to find a new place to live, and in the process of moving/unpacking/etc.), have all been dealt with enough that he can start looking again. I feel confident that the energy is right, now, and that he'll be able to find something quickly. I'm scared, but I'm trying to trust in that. lunenoire still has his job, and the possibility of a raise next month, so that might help.

So, as of September, I should have free nights again. I'm looking forward to connecting with a bunch of you again, when I'm not so exhausted. Finances may take a while to straighten out again, but we'll deal with that as it comes. I look forward to coming back to tc_borderpagans again. If lunenoire and blckwngdorcl could change their date night, maybe one or both of them could come with. *sigh* I'd like all those things.

Things are looking up. Somehow, I know this is all going to be OK. That only makes me marginally less scared, but it's a touchstone I can fall back on.