worker bee.

I’ve been funky and introspective lately. A little unmoored. After all that excitement in April of the trip and offering my own job proposal/promotion, and getting flat results from it, the job at least, it’s felt like I’m back at square one again. Back at the crossroads where it’s my turn to figure out what I’m doing with my life. What I should do, what I want to do, what I can do.

And it feels disheartening—I guess that’s pretty entirely how I feel. A little flat, a little steam-less. My friend told me yesterday this too shall pass; even though that makes small comfort when you’re “in it,” she is of course right. But once again, folks are suggesting ideas for what I should do next, and nothing seems right.

Do I stay at the job I have with a salary and responsibilities that don’t reflect what I can offer? Do I stay here because it’s stable, because my boss said he’s willing to offset some of the costs for a non-profit management certificate course? Do I stay because it’s “easy”?

Though, is it? Is it easy to feel so small in the work you do? Is it easy to know you can do more but stay put? Is it easy to accept the minutae and banality of office clerkness? NO. Of fucking course not.

This is not the easier road, but it is currently the one I’m standing on, and the one that is providing me a livelihood. And when I come to consider it, it’s a decent, if on the meager side, livelihood. Do I stay because other people have it worse off, and struggle harder? Haven’t I learned the foolishness of martyrdom?

It’s not like I’m not trying. I’ve sent out two resumes, one rejected. And assume I’ll send out more. But my heart is not in this. I guess I’m just disappointed at the moment – having put a lot of energy into offering my job some ways to increase their success and my own, and was told, "Not now, and probably not for at least a year, if then." Do I hang on for that??

I need more clarity from my job about what that really means. I want more clarity around if this is just going to be me languishing for another year—and also, if I am owed that annual cost of living increase that my coworkers receive. And if that bit is worth it anyway?

I pulled the 4 of Cups this morning, the card of self-absorption, apathy. They really nail me sometimes.

Introspection can be a healthy habit, when it’s accompanied with outward action. But when it’s just mental masturbating, or emotional, then it’s not really effective.

It’s hard to pull yourself out of the mire though. But, as my friend said, this too shall pass. More will be revealed, the cloud will shift from in front of the sun, and I will know what to do next.

Much of it starts with asking the real and hard questions to my boss. If this is really worth my while to stay, to build toward what I offered them, then I really need to know that in more than empty promises of someday. That doesn’t work for me.

Is that too much to ask? I don’t know, because I haven’t yet.

I was brave enough to ask for what I want; having been told, “Not now, maybe someday,” am I brave enough to ask for what I need? It's not like I have other offers rolling in.

But, the answers to my own questions and to my boss’s will help determine whether it's time to seek those offers or not, and I can stop feeling quagmired again.

Life is way too short to languish in “maybes” that you can get a clearer answer to.