Fri 8th May - Drive to Birmingham with my fandom girls and the cast of Supernatural for a weekend of insane convention epicness.
Sunday 10th May - Leave Bham and drive to London to Kings College to start my new job training. Am staying in the mature student halls of residence! Shared bathroom and kitchen should be an experience after years of living alone! Also, cramming my brain with a brand new way of working!
Kings have been amazingly generous and given me Friday the 15th of May off so I can travel back to Bham for yet another weekend of convention epicness with the cast of Arrow, The Flash, Gotham and yet more of my fandom girls.
Sunday 17th May - Drive back to London for a full week at Kings.
Friday 22nd May (after work) - Seeing as it's a Bank Holiday weekend, I'm going to drive to Borehamwood, Herts, to spend the night there so I can catch up with my most adored cousin and very dear friend, Sian on the Saturday. Then I'm going to drive home that evening.
That's 16 days away from home, which I believe is the longest I have been away since I moved back to Cornwall in 2000!
The last month or so has been fairly tense in a lot of ways. I had 3 interviews for the job. I was pretty sure that I had it all the way through but it turns out that one of the other candidates had been rejected after the third interview.
On the third interview we had been told that they couldn't envision us starting before May 26th. Then the next day I had it confirmed that there was a definite offer on the table and the contract would be sent out. The only difference would be that they wanted me to start on the 11th May and that there would be 2 weeks training in London instead of one, which I hadn't know previously.
That's in 9 days! There may have been a little bit of a panic about how I was going to manage my hectic schedule. Ok, there was a lot of panic! Hi, Anxiety Brain!
But it occurred to me whilst chatting with a friend that I had been wishing, for some time, for an adventure. A big adventure.
And this is it. An adventure that's going to include quite serious amounts of stress and the euphoric high of seeing dear friends and loved ones.
Originally I had the two weeks of con time booked as holiday so I had adequate recovery time between cons.
Cons are when I push myself to wring every moment of joy out of the weekend and I end up exhausted but exhilarated.
But this is the reality of life. Sometimes things are put in your path to challenge you. As much as I sometimes let my anxiety hold me back, with this, I can't. Getting back to work is something I need at this point. I need the stability, routine, regular pay check and to be amongst people again.
My cons are my sanity. The counterbalance to the daily grind of life. Being amongst an awesome bunch of nerds and geeks lets me be free to truly be who I am. After doing a fair few cons now, I also have an extended group of friends who I only get to see at these events. I adore spending time with these people, SO much.
It's also the one weekend a year where I get to spend 3 days with my best friend. Priceless girly time, not only to have fun but to really catch up without the pressures of family life for her. <3 I love our trips so much!
I am so self aware at this point, that I know all the stress and worry will last until I get in the car on the Friday morning and start driving. After that, I'm in it and can only take it a day at a time.
I want to take this opportunity to talk about medication. I agree to a certain extent that our country can be seen as 'over medicated'. However, there are times when it's imperative to me to have some pills. I discussed this with my doctor yesterday and I explained the situation with the new job and the travelling. He agreed with me that my rare prescriptions for diazepam and sleeping pills will be psychologically helpful. A preventative, if you will. If I have them, then I'm not going to be worried about not having them.
At this point, all my ducks are in a row. I've prepped as much as possible and am now feeling considerably more settled as a result.
Next week will be about shopping, packing and making sure Sophie's stuff is all in order for my parents to take care of her.
To quote the great Robin Williams as Peter Pan in Hook: "To live would be an awfully great adventure."
That's the plan. :)
Optimistically yours,
Anxiety Girl xoxo
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