I had stress dreams last night.  The majority of my stress dreams almost always center around moving.  This time it wasn’t me though.  In the dream I arrived at a friend’s house in the early afternoon to help her move and found her asleep and not having packed yet.  She assured me the landlord would give her a couple more days but when she called, she found out the new tenants were moving in at 6 pm that evening, giving us about 3 hours to pack her whole huge apartment and move everything out.  We called some more people and brought them over to help.  I kept sending people out to hit liquor stores for more boxes and stuff but they kept not coming back, until finally I was there only person there doing the packing and loading the truck.  Meanwhile the new tenants were moving stuff in around me, filling the rooms I’d emptied and sort of hovering, trying to make me pack things faster.  Everything I was left packing was delicate and fragile, and I had no boxes so I was trying to carefully pad things in newspaper and then pack them in grocery bags and hope they wouldn’t break.

So, thanks, brain, for that.  Not subtle at all, although better than the life stress combined with zombie apocalypse dreams I had on Saturday night.

Today is my sister’s birthday.  She’s 15.  I’m amazed both that I have a sister that young and that she’s that old.  Jesus. Isn’t she still the cutest little three year old ever, trying to climb up my leg so I’ll hold her away from cats and small dogs (which she was terrified of as a child)?

I expect it’s mostly hormonal and some other stuff, but I am feeling quite old today. I washed my hair this morning, so all the shorter hairs along my part are frizzy and sticking up.  They are all grey, giving me kind of a white halo in the review mirror as I was driving to work.  I’m not terribly concerned about going grey, it’s inevitable, and my dad went grey very young, so I’m mostly happy that it actually held off this long.  But while I’m fine with the streaks coming in across my forehead and on the sides of my head, I wish those short wiry ones all along my part would go away.  Anyway, I was staring at the grey hairs, while sitting at a stop light, and the light from the sun roof and the rearview mirror always seems to highlight them so much more than any other mirror I look in. And I realized, as my own birthday is creeping up that I am a woman of a certain age. Like I’m too young for middle age and too hold for youthful hijinks.  I can’t run around like I did in my 20s, nor can I yet fall back into a cushion of “too old for that.”  I should be focusing on my career, I believe, as at my age most women are focusing on children and families, and I’m so not going there, that I really should be doing something for myself.  And I’m trying, I really am. I’m, just today, feeling a little defeated at how fast the world is passing me by and wondering how much harder I’ll have to work to get the things I really want both at work and from relationships.

Speaking of work, dreaded day job just made me an offer of sorts. Basically it comes down to me having to make a decision by the end of February.  I either say, fuck this, I can do better, and walk, or stay. If I stay they are offering me a promotion with the re-org and a chance to essentially restructure the new position into what I want to focus on, with more money.  It sounds great, I guess, but there’s currently no guarantees on money and no definites on time frame. Plus it wouldn’t be until we got to new office (most likely late Feb), which is very inconveniently located in relation to my house.  I am actually pretty torn.  I could make a one year commitment for more money, a few more hours, a more flexible schedule and maybe a less annoying job. The new position would look great on my resume and could be helpful to some extent in my own career development plans.  But it could just be the same old shit shined up, and perhaps now is when I should take the leap to go a completely different direction.  Some of my major criteria for a new job are: flexible schedule, ability to travel or take time off as needed, more money, more decision making authority, new skills for future jobs. And current job seems to be offering me that and I’m not sure how easy it will be to find in a brand new job around here.  UGH

I think I’ve been listening to too much Tom Waits lately.  I need some sort of system of positive reinforcement in my life, that includes keeping me away from depressing music some times.  Speaking of, here’s a song for my day–

All that aside, the worst part of today is being at work.  It’s in the low 60s outside, sunny and the temp is still rising.  It smells like spring.  I have no illusions, as I know it’s supposed to get assfuck cold again in a few days, but man, I would very much like to be outside enjoying the lovely mildness while it’s here.