#negababble

I feel like I can’t talk properly any more.

Like...there’s a weird block that exists between me and my personality. Conversations that should be easy or natural feel stilted and difficult. None of it feels like it “comes naturally” any more. I have to force myself to be myself and yet I’m somehow doing it wrong. It’s weird.

I guess more than being weird it’s frustrating ‘cause yeah I’ve never been particularly socially graceful, but I’ve at least been able to carry conversations. Now I feel like there’s a constant...delay? between me and the conversations I’m engaging in. I already know I’m in a low lull of social energy, but even when I’ve been in that position in the past, I’ve been able to at least feel “natural” when I talk with my friends. Now I feel like I have to force my personality to be present and even then I’m...not being me?

And it feels different compared to other times I’ve “lost” my personality due to depression/anxiety. I mean, I guess it could still stem from that just in a different form this time. But it’s more like...I feel like I’m still in touch with my personality when I’m in my own thoughts or left to my own devices, but as soon as I have to actualize it and give it form via a conversation for someone else to process, it feels super out of whack?

I’ve been working as a temp at this position for over a year now. When I started it was very typical temp stuff (read here as: a bunch of odd jobs/busy work/phone answering that no one else wanted to do) while only working 3 days a week. 

However, in the summer of last year, our FOA was suddenly let go and essentially I had to step in to temporarily fill the position as best I could for a few months until we found a new FOA. We found one eventually, but by that time I had kinda already taken over a number of “FOA duties” and when the new FOA arrived, I just kinda...ended up still taking care of them.

So recently I was selected to be one of the two people in the office to implement a new system and I’ve been asked to speak about it at our district meeting (something I was explicitly told temps don’t usually do) and the person who trained our new FOA told me she’s coming to visit the office to answer questions and whatnot.

And I’m just...are they going to offer me a full-time position? ‘Cause I know I’m slow to pick up on this stuff, but I feel like that’s the punchline this whole thing is building to. Or maybe I’m just full of myself and that’s not what they’re thinking at all, who can really say.

Normally I would be super ecstatic about the possibility! But, I’ve already decided that I’m going to accept the JET position (because for once instead of doing the sensible, safe thing, I’m going to do the thing I really want to do) but I haven’t told anyone at the office that yet. I don’t want them to offer me a position or get too deep into this project expecting me to stay on when I’ve already decided to leave the position at the end of June, regardless of if they offer it to me as a full-time position or not.

Technically, since I’m a temp I can leave with no notice, but that’s unnecessarily burning a bridge and I like the people that I’ve worked with - I would rather leave on good terms. So I decided that Monday I’m going to sit down with my boss and tell him that I’ll be leaving...but if you haven’t gathered from all of this pointless rambling yet I’m incredibly nervous and anxious about it and staring at the ceiling trying to sleep but instead mulling this over and GAH!

I don’t think my boss is going to explode on me or anything and really, the worst case scenario is that he fires me on the spot. But that certainly doesn’t stop me from being a nervous wreck about it. I’ll be so glad when Monday’s over and my mind won’t be able to play a perpetual game of ‘how much worse can we imagine this?’.