Dear Blog,

I’ve been a productive, taxpaying member of society for two weeks. As I anticipated, I haven’t found as much time for you as I would have liked. I’ve only scribbled on you twice in as many weeks. I find this entirely unacceptable as, most likely, do you. Although, maybe you’re enjoying the break. Maybe you like not having me around as much. It’s alright if you do, I just wish you communicated more though. Our relationship seems very one-sided.

I got my first paycheck yesterday. In addition to having a larger digit there than the one to which I’ve become accustomed while being unemployed, there were also numbers in the tax columns. This means that I won’t have a huge tax bill looming over me next year like I do this year. I didn’t opt to have taxes taken out of unemployment since it was a pittance to begin with. If I had taxes taken out, it would have left me with nothing. I’m making much more now, even with the taxes ripped out of it, than I did on unemployment. It’s a nice feeling. It’s good to be productive again and get paid for it.

So far, I like the job. It’s a lot more responsibility than I had. I’m an Art Director now instead of a lowly little Graphic Designer production monkey. That means I’m in charge of everything, including another Graphic Designer. I have to talk to vendors and a lot of different people, which isn’t really my strong suit, but most of it can be done through email, which makes it easier. It’s a lot to take in. Yesterday, I felt entirely overwhelmed. I didn’t feel like I accomplished much all day; I started about a million things and didn’t finish any of them, but progress was made. My deadline is next Friday. I’m not entirely sold on the concept of being “in charge”, but I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it. I have to work on stress getting the better of me in the meantime.

I don’t do especially well with change, which is odd since I’ve gone through so much of it in my lifespan. If I think about it logically, I’m not the type of person to collect all my belongings and move across the country to an unknown city, but that’s just what I’ve done… twice. On two separate occasions, I have uprooted myself from everything familiar and ventured forth to carve out a new life for myself in an unknown city. When I think about it those terms and when I think about how sedentary I’m generally inclined to be, it’s really amazing that I’ve moved clear across the country once, let alone twice. So, while change tends to give me great anxiety, I’m certainly capable of accomplishing a lot of it. I suppose, instead of saying I don’t do well with change, I should say it causes me untold amounts of stress, but I always overcome it. That’s what I do. I am the koi under the thick sheet of winter ice in the pond; I may be less active than when the water is flowing freely, but I always survive. I adapt.

In some ways, I miss our mornings together. I miss waking up, grabbing a cup of coffee and my laptop, and spitting out words for you to digest, but that’s the only thing I miss about being unemployed. After I’d written here, I still had a whole day of nothing to look forward to. Filling hours, days and weeks of nothing was taking its toll on me. With the state of the world today, I’m very lucky to have a job at all. So, while I’m not writing here as much as I would like, that’s the price I pay for being a productive member of society. It’s the price I pay for having a purpose and a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Besides, we still have the weekends.