I'll Be Better Soon

Wow, I have just become really bad at updating....I remember when I wrote daily....ah, good times, good times. So, I found a job. A really great job at that. I'm now working with a precious 18 month old little girl named Sunny who lives in the Sunset district of San Francisco, which is close to Golden Gate Park, the Pacific Ocean, Presidio, etc. It's a really nice, quiet area that I'm excited to be traveling to 3 days a week. Yep, I'm only doing Monday, Wednesday, Friday from about 8am to 6:30-7pm. While I will be making enough to live on, I'm in the process of trying to find a Tuesday/Thursday job as well just to fill in my week and make a little extra cash. I'd love to find something close by that would only occupy a few hours on those days, but I'll see what I can find. I'm really happy with this new family and feel that I may have finally found the right one. Their current nanny has been with them since Sunny was 3 months old, so that's a good sign that they're nice to work with. This nanny also had nothing but wonderful things to say about them, so I feel really good! I've worked a training-type shift, babysat for about 4.5 hours Sunday, and am doing another short shift with the current nanny on Wednesday afternoon before I begin officially on Friday. I feel really good about this job and I'm so excited to get started!

The only downside is that the commute is kind of long. However, I really think that I am going to relocate to Oakland (maybe Berkeley) when my lease is up in a few months. I really like living in this house and with my roommate, but I feel that this position is going to be long-term and would like to cut the commute as short as possible. And I mean, hey, living closer to John wouldn't be bad either ;) I am so ready to be making a steady living again. And this time it's for real...No guessing about how long I'll be at work, no more wondering if I'll get enough hours to pay for rent, no more and I'm incredibly relieved. I had a minor breakdown last week after letting all of the stress build up for too long, but I'm much better now, thanks to the amazing people in my life. But the stress has really taken its toll on me emotionally and physically. I haven't been able to motivate myself to exercise, to eat right, to control myself and I'm paying for it. I had 3 headaches over the course of a week, breakouts on my face constantly for the last few months, and stress eating. This is what happens when I don't talk about my worries enough.

I wish that I could find a new way to deal with my stress, but for now I just do what I've always done: ignore it and hope that it goes away. This is the absolute worst way to deal with any struggle. You can't better yourself or your situation without working at it. I know this and I hate that I know this and still do nothing to correct myself. It's one of the many character flaws of mine that I am trying to work on. I find it so much easier to hide, to become even more reclusive, to shield myself from furthering my anxiety. But in turn, the anxiety feeds upon itself from not dealing with it. I have always been anxious and, at times, crippled by anxiety. The problem is that I don't have the energy or motivation to get out and fix it. I need to be running again, to be out there burning calories, burning energy, getting myself back on a normal sleep-schedule, but it is so much easier to let myself stay inside and further my depression. Yes, depression. 

A lot of people think that depression is something that is triggered by a sad event or something like that. The truth is that most people who suffer from depression have a chemical imbalance, often times geneticially transferred throughout generations and I am one of those people. Several of the women in my family suffer from depression and we have all been through some really rough patches of lows. While I do have this imbalance, mine is often brought on by a series of negative events in my life and I subconsciously let things spiral out of control. This time it has come from a combination of being unemployed, being home with family for a long time and then leaving, not getting to spend as much time as I'd like with my boyfriend, not eating right (viscious cycle), not exercising, and feeling unstable in general (too many things floating up in the air). No matter how healthy I am or how happy I am, I will always deal with depression. I can seem happy in person, smile, laugh, carry on in normal conversation, but in my head, all I can think about is how much I'd rather be in my room alone watching a movie instead of dealing with people. I hide it all really well (another reason I believe I'd be a decent actress lol). A true introvert is social, chatty, and personable, but most of us have a hard time getting ourselves out there and into the social situations in general. Once I'm there, I'm all there and love a good time, but psyching myself up to get there in the first place, to actually walk through a door, is really, really difficult. Social anxiety is not a good friend. She's more a frenemy, if you will. 

I apologize for finally giving you an update and dumping all of this sad stuff on you. Sometimes I just have to talk about it, because as I said earlier, I bottle things up and then explode in a breakdown. I mean, I'm discussing this after the fact, but it still feels good to talk about. I'm still not great, but I have a feeling that getting back to work, fixing the way I'm eating, and exercising will really help turn my disposition around. Speaking of eating right, I was surprised to find that I've only gained about 6 or 7 pounds over the last 6ish months. I'm not proud of that, but I thought it would be worse....I'm doing my best, well not really, but I'm going to try to be better. I feel that when I'm like this, all I do is bring those around me down. I hate feeling that way and I really want to change it. I'm trying. I'm breathing and I'm trying. I'll be better soon :)