Feeling Raw.
I've had to resort to clonazepam a few times in the past few months. Normally I only take it at night to prevent tooth-grinding. But it is an anti-anxiety drug, and I used it for that purpose. My doctor tentatively said she might give me a trial of xanax, a similar drug, but quicker-acting, to take to get me through the toughest times.
So the most obvious and acute thing I'm working through right now is the grief and loss I feel at my boss (my post-doc mentor) quitting and leaving town. But it also represents a more long-standing crossroads of uncertainty I have been at since deciding NOT to take the UMichigan job late last summer. (And btw, I still stand by my decision that I truly believe it was the right decision, and the fine print details and change they made midway through the process made it the wrong job for me even though I had wanted it to be right for me. There was too much uncertainty for too little reward going in. But now the biggest and most worrisome unknown is that I still don't know what will happen to me on the employment front come June 30th. My post-doc position (at least as I currently know it) will end June 30th, and so far I still haven't heard back about a position I interviewed for internally two months ago. (And that's a different story. I want and need that offer so there's no gap in employmnet. I need the salary and benefits. But there's also a part of me that dreads getting it and continuing to work in this setting when there's no future for me here and where there's a flat hierarchy with no possibility and also a trend towards micromanagement thanks to a new administrator who was hired and started this past winter.
I am also at a crossroads because of other personal things that could happen in my life and which are related to those close to me. Simply put, a lot of things may change in the next approx year or two, and that could shape where the universe wants to put me, and where I want to find myself, provided I do indeed land on two feet, and upright.
There's too much to tell you, I don't even know where to start. Well, my mentor's last day was April 13th. Technically her last day was the 15th, but that was a Sunday. The fact I cried in her office the day her new contract at her new job arrived (on the Ides of March) gave away how I really felt. And there was no hiding it. She knows, and because we've kind of become friends in these months leading up to her departure, there's no way it would be any other way. But we never really talked explicitly about it and I never wore my heart on my sleeve. But she's perceptive and sensitive, and between us we never really had to explain. She "gets" me. So when I said I was "stressed out", I think she knew that this was code for "I'm sad you're leaving" .And I think she also knew it encompassed all of the change her departure represents, and all of the negativity of the workplace, were all part of it.
Her last day rolled around and she intuitively seemed to know that I needed to spend that time with her. I had been dreading it. So she gently brought me to her office after concluding meetings, for that afternoon. I sat transferring some files to her, and we didn't say much, really. Around 4pm, she said it was time to call it a day. She had actually cleaned out her office in late February due to a number of factors, because she knew she was done with this place. So there were no real loose ends to tie up when she walked out the door. She left everything else remaining in the office for me to have, including a special stone set that is a constant reminder of her deep sprituality and fascination with the divine.(Did I mention that she's a reiki master? I learned that through our drunken conversation the night she took me out with her to celebrate her successful dissertation defense. She got drunk and she got me drunk and there was great conversation as alcohol often begets. Truth serum. But i'm not sure how much each of us remembers. What I can tell you was that it was fun.
Anyway...my mentor's office was already cleaned out, so there was nothing to pack up on her last day. Instead, I walked with her to turn in her employee badge, etc., and then I walked with her out of the building. Again, we didn't say much. I didn't really show much emotion, though in my heart I was hurting,but I just couldn't cry or go there, emotionally. I think it's fitting, though, that as her post-doc I was the one to walk down the corridor and out the doors one last time with her. When we got outside, the April sunshine was brilliant, and we parted ways. It totally wasn't a goodbye, but instead, a see you later type of thing, because she alluded to getting together later that week, and said "I'll be seeing you", and turned to walk down the steps. As we parted ways, I turned and looked at her walking off into the distance, her newly highlighted hair radiantly blowing in the light breeze, and it was like a bird flying free, and even if this has been hard, it made me happy to see her so light and free and happy after 11 unhappy years in this pathologically toxic workplace, where her brilliance was never appreciated, and they never rewarded her, and only dangled a carrot in front of her a few times. So yeah.
I have a few more things to add to this, but am tired. More tomorrow. Remind me to tell you about her exit interview, the celebration dinner we had before she left town, and what I hope is a new chapter of continued professional collaboration, and what I hope is a friendship that can be maintained.
What is helping to keep me sane, (aside from drugs), is also a book on Buddhism, which a friend of mine (a former diaryland buddy turned quilt mom/book blogger) mailed me to borrow to help me put things into perspective. I'm trying hard to put everything into perspsective and I just hope that in the end of all of this, I come out happier, stronger, and that I land upright. Ok to be continued/concluded later....
