My training for Securitas started, today. I
woke well before my 04:00 alarm and slept fitfully until it finally went off,
only to jump out of bed and finish getting ready for my first day a good hour
before the time to leave, because I’d realized it would be better to drive with
the bags of uniform items I needed to return upon my arrival. I took a quick
nap before leaving, but it ruined me….
It
is so interesting—refreshing, relieving, and revealing—to have a new job,
especially one that can become a great career for me, depending on my choices.
This morning reminded me of basic training in that we were fitted for uniforms
and made to sit through some PowerPoint and even take a test. I love the sense
of militarism, for lack of a better word, that I get from the position.
Moreover, I love that I come home to my husband and child at the end of every
day. I also learned that I definitely need to be getting to bed by 20:00 in
order to get sufficient sleep for the day.
I
could barely keep my eyes open as I drove to Securitas in Bellevue. The ride
wasn’t terrible, but my ability to stay awake was and I’m still surprised I
made it without crashing. It wasn’t until lunch at 12:30 that I went to a gas
station and purchased two NOS energy drinks, which helped immediately and
banished the sleep from my eyes and mind, like magic. If only I’d had them this
morning, I might’ve passed the test 10/10: 100%, but I did pass, at least.
So,
now, I am a married, working mother who is also a full-time online student. I
have reached a turning point in my life wherein I can decide who I want to be,
moving forward. I’ve decided.
I
want to be a woman who is capable of managing her time like a Time Master—or Time
Lord, if you will. This weekend was the beginning; I made time for family and friends.
This is something I can continue to do, especially with my new job, and I can
use the money I make to take my family on trips to see our far-away friends,
like Lauren, who graduates from college in June and has no one to attend but
the promise of Randy, Persephone, and me. I intend to fly us across the country
to visit my friend David, my friend Seth, and my friend Skyler, to name a few,
and I plan on organizing road trips to Oregon to see my dog-loving friend,
Nick, and to Canada to visit our Canadian friends. All this, I can do, as long
as I can continue to fight my bipolar disorder, which remains unofficially
diagnosed by my psychiatrist, who has prescribed me bipolar medication but may
or may not have documented the illness as a diagnosis for me.
It
is a daily struggle to deal with depression. Assuming that I do, in fact, have
bipolar—which will likely be determined by the effectiveness of the drugs my
doctor has given me—it becomes a struggle as it has never been, before. I
mentioned previously, in another entry, that my manic episodes have felt, in
the past, like happiness. That is
true, but I have realized other behaviors that stem from mania and tend to be
non-issues during depressive spells and those behaviors all have to do with
impulsiveness. Impulsive spending is my worst manic habit and I fear its return
because, even in the depths of this year-and-a-half-long depressive spell that
I feel I may be climbing out of now, I’ve become a much more responsible
person, particularly concerning money.
My
fear is that I’ll become manic and spend the money I have, leaving nothing in
savings and possibly leaving us with so little at any given time that we would
struggle to pay for something important. After everything that has happened and
everything I’ve learned since my daughter was born and even beforehand, I do not want my finances to get out of
hand again. My fear is that I’ll make a great amount of money over two weeks
and use the entire amount for a weekend trip to Vancouver, B.C. or Rogue River,
OR, which would make for a great trip but possibly leave us without the money
for food or gasoline or bus fare. Realizing these fears makes me grateful for
bipolar medication and I look forward to the drug’s integration with my system.
In the meantime, I am doing what I
can to take life one day at a time. It’s the biggest challenge I have to face—even
bigger than raising Persephone—because I have to slow down and look at my immediate
next action, rather than the next hundred actions I have to take to achieve a
goal. I honestly believe that goal-setting is unrealistic for me at this time,
if only because I then feel obligated to do multiple things at once, which is a
breach of my capacity for responsibility, which I am working on growing.
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