The floom is lifting....

It dawned on me last Wednesday 1 August 2012 that I was in a deep deep fog.  Literally and metaphorically and really really! 

I was driving down the highway on my way to visit  a smaller office that I am supposed to be managing as well while I am here on secondment in the countryside.  I go there once a fortnight.  Two hours up and two hours back.  In one day and at my age it's a stretch.

Last Wednesday was to be my last trip up there since this wednesday is my last day out here and I go back home to my regular home and regular job in the city.

So it was strange to me that after 2 months doing this I should hit the highway on this one day and plunge straight into this morass of early morning fog.

I snapped this pic from the car as I slowed to 40kph from 110kph.  It's not obvious from the pic but I couldn't see much at all as it swirled around me.  I confess I was scared. Not used to driving in fog.

Every few seconds a humungous truck would come roaring out of the floom (that's my contracted work for fucking gloom - sorry to the expletive sensitive amongst you).  It rattled me. I slowed to 30kph. It went on forever it seemed.  Where the hell was the sun? It was 7.30 already.  I was almost in tears.

Everything had gone wrong that morning.  I was not supposed to be making this trip alone - I was supposed to have one of my staff with me so we could share the driving.  But her little son was sick overnight and I let her stay home - yes I let her, I could have insisted she come and she would have.  I had been awake since 4.30am for some reason.  Completely unable to sleep.  So I was tired. And now I was in a white hell.

I kept going, heart in my throat.  I zeroed in on the little white centre lines and started counting them.  Whenever bright lights broke through the floom I held my breath and concentrated on staying on my side of the road.  When the lights passed with a whoosh I let out my breath and tried to get my heart rate back.

Now don't think I am normally such a baby.  I'm not.  But this floom was more than morning mist.  It was in my head too.  And it has been for several months now.  My martyrdom stopped working for me.  My energy sapped and my delusions popped.  Suddenly I am at the scary end of my working life, I nearly lost my husband and my kids are adults.

The scary end of working life is that part when your bosses are wondering how long it is before you snap or breakdown. The scary end is also that part when you are thinking exactly the same thing.  It's scary because you have been doing it so long and wishing you were anywhere else that you did not pave the way for the 'anywhere else'.  Now, it's here.  End of working life looming....house too big and too many stairs... kids old enough not to need me anymore and OMG suddenly I don't know what I am supposed to do.

So I run away to the country to work.  And I end up in the floom.

10 minutes later I emerge and I have made a decision.  Several actually.

I decided:

1. I am too old for this shit
2. I have to sell my house
3.I have to get a different job.

In that moment I wanted to turn around and go home.  I didn't.  I only had 6 working days to go at this secondment and I had to see it through.  So I went to the other office - did my thing and came back.  On Friday I went home to my own house and spent the weekend doing things for my daughter and some gardening.  I hadn't even been outside for weeks. Monday morning I drove back up here for the last 3 days. I finish on Wednesday and then I have 2 days off.

Today my daughter turned 30.  She told the world that I am her 'miracle worker'. She told the world that she loves me.  My son tells me he misses me and my hubby is sulking till I finish this wretched secondment and come home.

My path is clear now.  The future awaits.  It's gonna be a bit scary and a bit stressful to make so many changes in my life.  But, with the decisions made, the burden and the floom begins to lift.

As I sit here in my pretty little apartment, paid for by my employer, enjoying the last 3 days of the solitude that I so yearned for I begin to feel a little bit of excitement.  I am glad I took this secondment and I am glad that it will be over soon.  I needed to prove something by doing it and I did.  I proved that I can do it, but now I am satisfied that I no longer want or need to. It has been a tough lesson.

Kimmy - thank you for the constant messages of love and friendship.
Kat - thank you, I missed me too.
Al - thanks for the wordplay.