Yesterday was a day which made me feel unaligned with myself. I tried it and didn’t like it that much. It scared me for the months to come.

Note 1: the onions in the picture are huge! One was like over 600g!

Note 2: Self pep talk included!

As I’ve explained before, I’ve recently accepted the offer of one of my clients and things are getting slowly in place, for my new role. This offer scared me for good reasons and yesterday was a sort of rehearsal for how things are going to be.

What happened yesterday?

Nothing extraordinary really. Much less than in many people’s daily life. It still felt a whole lot to me.

In short: I drove my partner to work as we only have one car and yesterday wasn’t a day where he could cycle. Came back home, did some cleaning, showered, got ready and headed to an introduction meeting, in relation to my new role. Came back home after the meeting, had lunch, prepared some chocolate cremes for my partner, had a power nap (I don’t like power naps! I like real naps!).

It was already time to go to the office of my other client. Handled my work, helped with some other things. Rushed out to head to the supermarket, dropped off the grocery at home. Had 15mn, so I started some dinner prep (pealing onions and stuff!). Went to get my partner from the office. Got home, did 35mn of stretching while interrupting my routine, to stir up what was cooking. Showered, had diner, and finally I got to sit on the sofa. Checked the news a little, my favorites sites, watched a bit of Netflix but didn’t chill…

Being independent has been great most of the time. Yesterday was everything I disliked. Going from one office to the other. Loosing way too much time driving despite the super thin summer traffic. Most importantly, I had 0 time to be and feel.

Yeah?! So what?!

I know, I know. There was nothing super stressful about such a day!

It was just everything I dislike. And it was just an introduction of what is coming, in terms of organisation.

I wanted to prove to myself that I could handle it all. Hence the little bit of cleaning and cooking in the middle of it. And the rushed stretching session when I got back. Just to prove to myself, that I would still be able to exercise when this becomes my almost daily routine.

Today, I’m down. I don’t have to go anywhere and I should feel glad. Instead, I’m worried.
I thought I had made peace with the universe plans. I thought I was ok with all of what’s coming. Today I doubt.

Things were said

It’s not just yesterday’s schedule that got me worried. It is also words spoken and thing implied.

During the introduction meeting, things were said that made me foresee a future that isn’t aligned with myself. Words like flexibility, availability, last minute, solution minded… were used… several times. They threw me back to when I was a corporate slave.

I nodded anyway. I knew. I repeated what I said previously to other team members: “My life is pretty dull anyway, so no problem, I’m here to help“.

My mind wandered at times, when things like ‘being on stand-by, late at night‘ were said. I wondered how I could manage considering I’m not a night owl! If I would be packing while waiting. If I would be painting or drawing. I thought of Minty.

My heart broke a little, when I heard ‘it’s not a good idea to take vacation at Christmas‘. I wanted to scream that this Christmas might be the last one I have with my dad. I nodded instead.

It drained me but I kept going.

Let’s stay hopeful!

I knew, when accepting this offer, that it was going to be disruptive. That it isn’t free money. There is work required!

Clearly I had ups and downs about this and struggled a lot. I thought the struggles were over. Unfortunately, yesterday showed me it wasn’t entirely.

It’s probably ok. It will most likely be like this for a bit more time while I get acclimated.

However, there is part of it that probably won’t go away completely. First, I realized that worried me most from yesterday is not so much the workload, it is to loose control over my schedule.

The pandemic had already done a bit of that because of my partner working from home. I got used to it eventually. Now this… it just feels a bit much.

Self pep talk incoming!

But no! I will not give in to fear. Instead, I will stay hopeful and say yes to a new schedule!

There is no reason for me to be worried… not yet anyway! There is nothing useful about getting all worked up now.

One of the reasons I calmed down a bit, is that there are several types of people when it comes to presenting their business and roles.

There are the ones who downplay the workload required, for example to get you on board and negotiate your fees. And on the other end of the spectrum, there are the ones who consider everything urgent, important and life depends on what they do, right this minute… with every position imaginable in between.

A role can be presented in a myriad of ways, by different people and I was left unsure of what was the exact attitude of the person I had in front of me. She was far more stressed than the one who had presented me the offer for sure, with maybe a greater need to prove herself.

In any case, here we are. We have a deal, contracts are being signed and things are getting in place. Only time will tell how the relationship moves forward and evolves. I’ve been doing this for a while now and there is no reason I can’t handle this next phase. A phase of additional changes and challenges, but still a phase I had been seeking.

Self pep talk ends here!