weeknotes 9

I was sick all of this week and last weekend. It made the week feel so long and drawn out...I can't believe it's finally Saturday night. On my plate: Finding a new job and searching for that new job outside of Chicago.

I've kind of been, I don't know, socially empty for most of February. The end of my current job has approached grossly faster than anticipated for a host of reasons, so what has been a kind of simmering, low level anxiety has really boiled over nearly into a panic. I've been applying and applying and applying—I've been driven to apply outside of the city. Of course, literally as soon as I do, I'm scheduled for an interview and then a follow-up interview. The position starts sooner than I could have anticipated, so potentially my life is very swiftly changing. What else is there to do? I don't know.

I've also just continued to contend with anxiety in my life around relationships and loneliness, which was bad in December, and has only been alleviated by, unsurprisingly, the routine of work partly distracting me and partly resolving some loneliness just by interacting with coworkers (god, that sounds bleak). But where are my friends? I am anxious and frustrated and angry in some ways because...I don't know where we are. It is hard to get together, often it is hard to even get a text back. The group chat is filled with texts and audio messages, generally to the chat but not really about anything. Just people narrating their days or some complaint or something about work, which is what a group chat should be, I think. But I feel like the socializing, the friendship that exists around and under that, has faded away. Maybe without us realizing. I think about how I said I wanted to be on patios all summer last year and we never once got together.

I feel like I'm feeling it acutely because I feel like I have, and for quite some time, put in a lot of effort to make time to see my friends. Even before I lived in the city. I think about our friend who lives in a nearby city: The last two times we visited her were at my insistence on planning the trips. (I think, for three years, we've also talked about doing an international trip or at least something out of town. It never materializes.) I don't feel like that I get any of that back. I invite them to things—anything! Concerts, performances, exhibits, etc. etc.—and they won't even respond. Are they not interested in the event? Out of town? Already busy? I couldn't tell you.

This is all related to my recent post on texting. What am I doing it for? Who am I talking to? And so why stay in the city? I feel like I've wasted time here not cultivating other friendships. It's certainly not too late for that, except maybe I'm moving. I don't know.

Anyway, I started watching Heated Rivalry again and I really adore it, but I do think that I still can't handle it. It doesn't make me spiral like it did in December, thankfully, and in some ways I'm more amused at myself right now being able to sort of objectively "view" myself...but it would be nice to watch it again. I only got through the first two episodes, so hopefully I can pick up the last three soon. (I'm skipping episode three because it is simply not required for my repeat viewings!)

At work, we have one last project before we start winding down our program. It's just a little curriculum develop for a workshop in the spring quarter, but I'm in charge of getting everyone to do the small bit of work it requires. Always surprising to me that the management of it all never ends, but this'll be a nice little bow on the end of the program.

Winding down everything is going to be a lot of work next quarter; we're planning on transitioning all of our data into a readable report for the (co-)chairs of the departments we work with and changing our curricula into modules, let's say, that faculty can use to teach with in the regular course of the quarter, something tangible for writing instruction. With the job I'm interviewing for, I may not even be around, not really, for that work. I'll probably be doing a lot of remote consultation, though; I've been with the program the longest, so I know to much (and control too much of the organization) to just vanish.

Yeah, I'm sad for a lot of reasons! I was supposed to start therapy this quarter, which seems laughable now. When? Hopefully after I start my new job.