Everything happens at once.
My grandpa is in the hospital. He's been having irregular heartbeat problems, and we were going to visit yesterday, so I left work early to visit, and when we got there he was unstable again and we couldn't visit. I'm seeing him tonight, and he's getting a pacemaker in tomorrow. I've been having nightmares about him dying for a couple of weeks.
I got a second job in a vet's office, which was my dream since I was 6, but the adjustment and the intimidation factor of my boss, who is a good guy but who does have a short fuse, has caused my most self-destructive urges to come back full-force. I'm determined to keep it up, but it's started more work nightmares and I've been having trouble not obsessing. I don't trust good things happening, and I keep waiting for a shoe to drop.
My boss at my first job doesn't want to keep working there, and his failing marriage and family life have completely eaten the business. They don't bother to buy supplies. They buy stuff from CVS the minute we run out and refuse to get a debit card, so we pay COD fees on anything we do mail order. His wife's shopping addiction has eaten the entire business account and he refuses to deal with it. I do my best, and he's my friend, but I'm starting to wonder if I don't need better friends, because as much as I do my best for him, whenever this second job comes up? He literally ignores me. See, this vet does grooming. If the dogs/cats need to be flat out unconscious to be shaved, for their own health and comfort due to severe matting or whatever, they do them there. They take dogs we can't. They don't do a pretty job. We focus on aesthetics and the dog's well-being, but they focus purely on the animal's customers, and fuck what looks pleasant. Thusly, they are not our competition. But he won't acknowledge that. Instead of admitting that the business going downhill is due to him NOT CARING and the quality of the haircuts dropping severely, he blames every other shop in the neighborhood, and gets paranoid about his employees, thinking it's something we're doing.
Our receptionist/afternoon worker is back in the hospital. They discharged her too early. She's going to be in there for the better part of this week, and my shifts at this second job I know he's angry with me for taking mean that I cannot cover her shifts. The only other employee we have is trying her best, but she has some brain damage from childhood illness and has difficulty reading and handling numbers. She can't take the shift. Because my boss and his wife refuse to invest in more employees and expand the business, not only is he the only groomer we have, he is the only other one who can take that shift, what with his wife being busy with her job. I can guarantee you he's going to be upset with me, but I will not call in to this new job on my third fucking day saying I can't come in all week. That's not how you make a good first impression. He acts like I betrayed him by getting this other job, but I can't LIVE on what he pays me, and even if he gave me a raise so I could, I wouldn't. I found something I love in this job, but my dream since I was little was to work in a vet's office, and I've been in one of the deepest depressions of my life for a long time. Something has to change in my life, and this is what it is. I have to do this. He's not going to listen, knowing him. I'm not sure what to do, but that's a bridge I'll have to cross when I come to it.
He's paranoid. I have no proof that I really did go to the doctor when I left early the other week. I have no proof I had a UTI. I have no proof that I went to visit my grandpa, especially considering I ended up not being able to. I've seen my boss with his paranoia in full swing, and I think its taken aim at me, considering how he's been giving me the selective silent treatment.
I am going to get an appointment with my psychiatrist soon. This job drug tests, so self-medication is out, regardless of how effective that medicine's been, and regardless of how much better it is for me physically than the "legitimate" meds I've been on. I'm going to flat out ask him for a temporary xanax prescription. A month, that's all. Because everything keeps happening, and it's suddenly all on my shoulders, and that stuff doesn't mess with me cognitively. I don't care if I have addiction issues. I've proven to myself I can handle them, it's just a pain in the ass to fight the temptation. I no longer have the luxury of avoiding it entirely. Right now, I'm calm, but when this calm breaks, it's dangerous, and if that calm breaks at the wrong moment in the next few weeks, I could lose everything.
I wanted change in my life, and now I'm getting it. I'm remembering why I resist change, now.
