The alarm sounds promptly at 5:40, and I promptly hit “dismiss”. Ten minutes later the cycle repeats. 5:40, 50, 6:00, and even 6:10. I lay in bed, in a world between dreams and reality, nestled in the warm sheets and blankets. Sometimes I sleep until 6:30, other times I grab my phone and check my email and social media. In the comfort of bed even the worst emails seem ok.
Then I rush around the house – do I wear this or that? Didn’t I just wear this? Why am I taking so long to find an outfit, and who was the unorganized genius that didn’t put laundry away? Oh wait that’s me. What to take for lunch? Who forgot to buy actual food and plan ahead? Me, again. Reheat the coffee I brewed yesterday. Add lots of creamer. Rush out the door.
Get to work and immediately feel stupid. I don’t deserve this job. I’m lucky to have it, and it’s true I applied for it and was hired into it. Someone somewhere saw something in me, but what that is I don’t know or understand. All I feel is stupidity. All I see are mistakes, and coworkers that have created a nickname for me (which I’ve tried to play off as my rebel alter ego) so that when they say “oh that Regina” I assume they’re talking about something I fucked up. I live in constant fear of losing my job. Stick me in front of a computer for design and I feel in my element. I can pick up on programming pretty quickly. I can look at lines of code and understand what it’s saying. But remembering what to do when and where in my current job is apparently ridiculously difficult for me. It gets to me, this feeling of stupidity. It beats me down mentally. It works on me all day long. It makes me feel broken and worthless. I find myself second guessing everything. I feel plain stupid and like I’m one mistake away from being unemployed even when no one has given me any cause to believe so. I used to cry at my desk because I hated my old job so much. Now I cry in the bathroom because I hate how my job makes me feel.
At the end of the day it’s a relief to be back on the road home. That first step though the door to the house is like I’m shedding a former life. I’m back where I’m comfortable. I’m back where I feel smart and intelligent. I’m back where people don’t make me feel inferior.
Exhausted, I crash on the couch and knit if I’m not too tired. Dinner is an afterthought. Sometimes I clean, but chances are good that my house is a mess. I’m trying to repair the damage in preparation for the next work day. I’d love to be the kind of person who has it all together. The kind of person who can work a job and still come home and live the next 5 hours of the day to fullest.
But some most days it’s just enough to survive.
