Saying hi to the secret thought

I can tell I’m having a rough day when I sit down at my desk and make the following inventory:

1. Dream ruined
2. Faith in humanity shattered yet again
3. Idols fallen
4. Sense of self shaken
5. Despair mounting
6. Allies dropping like flies

Of course, I hadn’t eaten lunch yet. And when I had the leftover eggplant parmesan in my belly I felt considerably less despairing. And I remembered that I’m about to go on a trip out of town. I’ve kind of been stressing about it a lot.

One thing that has made it particularly hard is that my typical travel-stress is colliding with workplace-stress (isn’t that always the way?) and while some of the workplace-stress is related to actual dramatic events and terrible emails, some of it is just plain old missing folks.

In the past year, I’ve lost two really good friends at work; both left to go to wonderful new jobs and we’re still in touch but it’s just different when you can’t walk down the hall to say hi. And other people have left, are leaving, or are about to leave. I’m running out of friendly faces to turn to in times of stress.

And amidst all the crazy whirly brain-tornado of today, I had this tiny, quiet, secret thought:

Maybe it’s time to find a new job.

The very idea makes me feel miserable and weird and very, very tired but it’s clearly something I need to think about.

Just wanted to post and say hi to this thought. Because ignoring it certainly isn’t getting me anywhere.

Hi there, secret thought.

I hear what you’re saying.

I promise not to squash you.

I promise to investigate this with an open heart.

It feels tremendously liberating to even write this down. Liberating and terrifying, of course. It’s one of those things that I feel like I’ve been avoiding for such a very long time.

And here it is. Time to think about it for real.

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