Life

I decided my life needs some changes. Most especially in the area of work. I came home last Friday feeling like someone had punched me in the chest, it was sore and tight and I felt like I almost couldn't breathe. (Hmm...borderline panic attack anyone?) I ended up crying and freaking out my husband. I'm not going to go into the details about why work sucks so bad but suffice it to say that I have not particularly liked my job for about 4.5 years of the over 5 I've worked here. I've gone through periods where I've been ok with it and periods where I couldn't stand it but I have stuck in there because it is, after all, an office job in a small tourist town with limited job opportunities and it has benefits. Saturday morning Denny and I had a talk about what I needed to do. He thinks I should take classes at the local community college in book-keeping and advocated quitting this job and being a barista at a local coffee shop where two of my sisters work while I tried to get book-keeping experience. I took Accounting 1&2 quite a while ago. (I was thinking, "6 or 7 years ago, but no it was longer than that, let's see I was living in that place which was right after that so !HOLY COW! it was 9 years ago!") I really liked those classes and would like to get into that and I see ads for bookkeepers all the time so I'm thinking that's the direction I want to go. I also want to learn Microsoft Access since I often see ads that say you need that. However, I have to really sit down with my husband and talk about the reality of me making less money than I am right now (pittance that it is) and how things will work. Of course, if he could be unemployed for 3.5 years I think we can deal with this. To be fair he had his retirement income and VA disability so things were tight but the bills still got paid. I'm so excited at the thought of quitting here that I feel lighter and my mood (rather depressed and dark the last few weeks) has instantly improved. Yet at the same time there is that scared nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. I haven't reinvented myself since I took a one year leave of absence from college that has somehow now stretched to 10!