Dear reader, I have recently been forced to make a rather grave personal decision. Due to too many factors for me to list here, ranging from potential job loss due to insufficient time off and personal financial catastrophe, I have moved to night shift.
Now, it is not my first time working overnights. Heck, it's not even my third. But, it is the first time I have done so while juggling the responsibilities of home ownership and a two year old, while also juggling several financial chainsaws. Yet...
Yet it hasn't felt wrong. It's never once felt like the wrong decision. Yes, it's been hard. Yes, it's been stressful. Yes, I'm so tired right now that I'm honestly a little delirious. Yet...
I have been pulling at that thread because that's how my mind works and why I'm actually pretty decent at writing despite my protestations to the contrary. I tug, I nibble, I pick and scrape and turn ideas over in my head until they make sense to me, even if that process takes weeks or even months. And this idea has puzzled me, because it's almost felt like I have been forcing myself to make this transition to meet some ephemeral, unspoken deadline that imperils my very soul should I miss it.
And at last, with the force of revelation, I have arrived at my answer: I can at last plant my feet. I have been at this job for over six years now. It is the second longest I have worked anywhere, and it will easily surpass that because I now understand that I am not going anywhere. I am not meant to be anywhere else.
Since I have moved to this shift I have gotten two separate raises, moved this shift from last to first in the metrics over which I am responsible, and garnered both praise and respect from those I am privileged to work with for doing what I do at the level I do it at. The shift itself has different challenges than where I am coming from, and they are challenges I find myself eager to meet.
But more than that, I am building my time off in a way I have not done in all of my six years here. I haven't even been here two full weeks and I've accumulated more time off than I've had in a year, easily. I am not nickel and diming myself every morning by getting here late. I am not spending time by leaving early. I am here, active and engaged, doing my job for all of the hours asked of me.
That may not seem like much. Heck, that may seem like the barest minimum, but believe me when I say that for the last few years, that sort of calm stability has been shockingly absent from my life. Every day has felt like a crisis, every week has felt like a struggle, and it has been so long since I could simply put my feet beneath me and actually meet the day head-on.
I know why I am here. I know why I have pushed so hard to be here. I know why I am going to stay here, too. I am here to build. I am here to build my time, I am here to build my financial future, I am here to build up my family and my home. I have, at long last, found a firm foundation.
And for the first time in my life, I am not scared of wasting such a golden opportunity.