Invested...

I just realized that my boyfriend is as flexible as I am. It's like a weight has lifted.

Chatting with a friend of mine online after I got my first work email after two weeks off, I was seething. I told her I really don't think my boss grasps the concept of my health being a priority on account of it failing right now. We decided I have to set aside four hours a day and that that be the only time I am available. I will not check emails or be reachable outside those hours.

My guy had been trying to get me to make myself a schedule for me, to get me to finish my hours quickly and less painfully each week, but I guess I resented that idea because the way things have been working out is that I end up working a full time job as far as availability goes and yet, at the end of the week, the concrete hours I put in don't match up. I don't charge for the bits and pieces and for the simple disturbance in my life. The looming gloom is just this weird reality with this job, even if I don't feel like I put in my twenty hours.

And then I said to my friend, "I kind of hope I get the flu," and she was all, "Noooo, you don't need that," but I do, I said. "I need to teach myself a lesson."

And then, picturing myself lying there like a flu-ridden cadaver, I said, "Some things just aren't worth the emotions."

And then I flashed back to my semi-cubicle job, where I'd detached completely from the work, much to the chagrin of my bosses. That's what I need to do. I need to not be emotionally invested. I liked my boss in my old job and I did my job well, but I also did it quickly and matter-of-factly and at the end of the day, I got into my car and I severed all the ties. And if I couldn't sever them, if something had happened that emotionally damaged me that day (i.e. blatant and disgusting sexual harassment), I wouldn't go in the next day. Plain and simple.

It's just not worth the emotional investment. Not even a little bit.

Right now, my health is it. It is all I need and it is much harder to find than a job, even in this economy. So no, no more. No more full time job on half time pay. No full time responsibility with part time benefits.  No full time availability without adequate compensation and proportionate time off.

No.

We need boundaries here. I need boundaries. Hardcore, rigid shit.

No more looming.

And back to my first point, when I was alone, this house was my security blanket. I'd quit everything, sell this house and use the proceeds to move to the middle of nowhere in a tiny shack that costs next to nothing. And I guess my fallback plan of stressfreeness disappeared when I got this guy but it doesn't have to. He'd do it. Right? He'd flee to the middle of nowhere where cost of living was next to nothing. We don't need all this. We just need us. And some doggies. And maybe a car. That's it. And an internet connection.

Done and done.

I'm going to do other things to take my mind off shit.