Basic daily life shit

I don't want to change jobs. I keep going back and forth, but it doesn't feel like the right move at this time in my life. Changing jobs requires the following things I do not want: being more timely/organized, no flexibility in my schedule, no calling out anymore, no smoking weed, no deciding what days I goof off and don't, and everyone looking to me for answers. In order to make more money, I would need to take on more responsibility in the workplace. And I would also be on a real radar for the first time in life. I don't think I would be ok. 

If this week is any indication of my functioning, I can't handle a new job anyway... I have purged 3 times, twice at work, and ordered out and cried and cried and cried, spent money, chewed off all my nails, picked everything, and had about 4 panic attacks. I'm feeling it again like I did in 2012. Like I did last summer. Like I did in 2020. I get the urge to move, and I know I need to change something. Only in the past, it was clear what I needed to change, and right now it's not to me... Before it was so easy to point at my ex or a job or a circumstance and be like, "THAT is why I am unhappy, and I am going to get rid of it." 

But lately, the things that make me unhappy are also the things that make me happy, so it's not so simple. I get a photo of my kids at the beach, and I'm filled with both resentment and joy. How can you even feel those two emotions at the same time?

Changing jobs would be appealing in that I need coworkers. I'm tired of people I talk to not getting it. I need other professional development things where I don't feel so isolated. I need to network. All I do is talk to clients, and they're all my sole responsibility. It's feeling isolating. 

I also need more money. I think I'm headed toward this being more consistent and accessible, and honestly I think I've done better this summer than I thought I would, but I'm so tired of pinching every penny in life to the point where when I'm low and my depression kicks in and I spend $30 on bullshit, it's too much. I need to be able to afford therapy and life insurance myself. I know a job would give me benefits this one isn't. 

I just still feel like I'm a fucking server. Like I spent so much time and effort to get away from that life, and I'm in a similar one. Working day to day, not even paycheck to paycheck, to get as much out of a person as possible, and I can't even pay a bill without draining my account down to nothing. I need to see 40 clients a week, a fully packed schedule, to actually pay all of my bills alone and have any wiggle room. And I feel like a complete failure that I cannot do that and that I'm going to need more. I cannot get this to be more than about 30 clients a week, and I have never been able to achieve 40... It's not like the potential isn't there - it's just not happening without going to a big name, and thus the sacrifices.

I'm tired of what I'm doing having the potential to be easy but not being easy. I'm starting to feel it again, the restlessness, but I have no way out anymore. I can't just leave.

I need more money. The only way I get more money is by giving up time with my kids. I can't do that... I need husband to miraculously be able to bring home money while baby is in school for like 20 hours a week. It feels insurmountable, and I don't see the clearest path out of that.

I also have come to realize I need a place where I feel important. I need validation. I need positive input. I've been getting it from War, from friends here and there, from losing some weight, from buying clothes, manicures, pedicures, but I don't want to be valued for my aesthetic. I'm fucking over that in life. I'm tired of being reduced to a pretty girl and feeling the pressure to constantly be her. I would like to get objective input for hard work that I do - not starstruck clients or compliments based on a body I didn't even pick. This is the first time in my life where I didn't feel like I was working toward something that other people could see, and I think I need it.

I need competition. Even being a Lacrosse mom gave me a little of something. But I need a thing. And it's going to have to be something I can't put a ton of time or money into. It's going to have to be something accessible. It's going to have to be something that provides a challenge, and I want to crush it. I want to take a class and be at the top of the class. I want to rule something rather than run it. 

I need to write my book.