Bok Bok Bok

Hello out there in anxiety-land! I cannot sleep. I am getting ready to potentially move and I start my new job next week. So I thought I would write an anxiety-ridden diatribe.

Location, location, location. I am going to be paying way more than I want to for an apartment so I can stay in the North End of Boise. My kiddo, who has just developed a social circle a few years after my separation/divorce, needs to maintain said social circle by attending the nearby junior high. She said she could move further away since she would be moving anyway, but having just met her friends, I’m going to say that would only serve to further traumatize her.

So what about food? Thank God mom lives right down the street. We are going to have way less spending money and what we do have is going to clothes and food for the girl. It’ll be good for me to stop drinking entirely and have to eat like a bird anyway, I have about 50 lbs. I could stand to lose. So that will be good in a way.

I am trying to talk myself into this situation whereas anxiety is attempting to talk me out of it. Anxiety says, quite clearly, “don’t.” Don’t you dare try to make it, somewhat on your own. And then there are choices. Am I making the right one? Can I get a cheaper unit anywhere else that’s livable? Do the unusually high deposits I will be paying at the other place negate what I will be saving per month in rent?

Decisions, decisions.

And I haven’t even started my new job and I’m already contemplating getting another one to continue to make ends meet. Some online gig. I have a lead on one that pays $12 an hour but it’s difficult to navigate after so many years out of college. Did I have the grades and the brains to edit college papers? Sure, but time seems to have eroded my capabilities. Maybe I’m just exhausted from not sleeping this week. Maybe it will look better if I take a deep breath and quit putting so much pressure on myself.

One step at a time.

So I’m calling some places at 9am and going to a leasing office at 10am. I will have my financials in hand and whatever else they need, my signature scrawled in my blood in hieroglyphics or whatever it takes to get a 13-month lease these days. I’m doing this for my daughter and a bit for me. Independence is a good thing, right?

Breathe, breathe. Edit your math, you can do this. The numbers don’t lie but you’ll have to budget. It will be alright, you have a bit of a safety net right now and some great friends who are already helping you through this. Oy. Calm down.

I took my meds, I took a melatonin, I cannot for the life of me sleep. And I have to be up at 6 anyway so…yeah.

Anxiety sucks but I’m hoping this will normalize my life and my parenting. Gotta leave the nest. I am a 40-year-old bird afraid of leaving the nest. Overgrown bird. Big Bird, if you will, but without the hue or cheery disposition.

Big chicken.

A riddle for you. Why did Mozart get rid of all of his chickens?

Because when he fed the chickens, they all kept saying, “Bach, Bach, Bach.”