Over the last few weeks, I've done a lot of thinking about my needs and priorities. It all started when I began a new position back in February. After years of working with my previous employer, I decided that the time had come to pursue other opportunities, and a great one opened up close to home that I couldn't turn down.
The first few weeks were stressful, as any new job would be, but I stepped into it fairly quickly all things considered. I'm given to understand that I am fairly good at this position, but that doesn't come as a surprise to me. I thought I would be stepping into a position with more responsibilities than my last, but it turns out, since I joined a much larger organization, that I actually have significantly less responsibilities. Much of what I do now is similar to a portion of what I did at my previous employer, and while there are certainly still some stresses in my daily routine, I am facing nowhere near the amount of daily anxiety I was up against before.
That realization hit about three to four weeks into the new position, when everything started to come very naturally to me. Now I'm at three months into the position, and I have reduced my daily stress levels to what I can only describe as historically low. This happens to be amazing time, though, because my daily stress levels at home have never been higher. My son, as I mentioned in my last post, spent some time in the hospital back in February. It was my last week with my previous employer, and made the transition especially difficult, but the real lasting issues are with him at home.
Prior to his hospital stay, he was routinely sleeping through the night. Now, if he sleeps through the night once in two weeks it's a godsend. Last night he woke four times, which is also unusual, but he was having trouble breathing again last night. He never really recovered fully from the RSV. He's had a stuffy nose and an intermittent cough since January. Yesterday he had a bit of a relapse, and the draining of his sinuses really made it difficult for him to eat or sleep. He's learning to be mobile as well, which adds a level of anxiety that I wasn't really anticipating, and he's been teething off and on since his hospital stay, too, which has made him more restless and irritable.
Spending time with him, despite all of the difficulties described above, has generally been the most amazing experience of my life so far. I love watching him learn. In the past few weeks he's been pulling himself up on tables and other objects, and trying a few steps here and there. It's amazing to watch; I can literally see the learning happening on his face. I've watched him learning spacial reasoning skills, movement skills like rolling and scooting, and social skills like smiling, making eye contact, and even attempting to form words like "ba-ba, da-da," etc. It's the most exciting time of my life so far.
Which brings me back to my priorities and thinking about life. Almost a month ago, my manager took a different position with the company, and a new manager was hired. The new manager wanted to meet with each of his staff individually to get to know us and learn about our lives and career aspirations. A year ago, I would have had all sorts of ideas for things that I wanted to learn and what path I wanted my career to take and what steps I needed to get there, but when I sat in the room with my new manager and he asked where I wanted to be in five years and what my career trajectory looked like from here, all I could think was that I was pretty happy right here doing what I am doing right now.
It hit me like a brick.
I have never before in my life abandoned my ambition to better myself. I've looked down on other people with low ambition. Yet, here I sit, with no desire to take on more responsibilities than I have right now.
I like my new job. As I mentioned above, it's a lot less stressful, so I can conserve my energy and spend it on my son. I also have a more flexible work schedule, so I don't have to worry if I need time to take him to the doctor, or leave early to pick him up from daycare because something is wrong. My work hours are also nicer, as I start my day an hour sooner, and can leave up to an hour and a half earlier based on my choice of lunch break length. Mornings are a bit rougher due to the earlier start, but I feel like I get more time with my son because, even though he's still asleep most mornings when I leave the house, I come home with him usually an hour and fifteen minutes or more earlier than I used to. I never spent much time with him in the mornings, anyhow, as I generally like to wake as close to the time I need to leave as possible, so I spend all of my waking time in the morning getting myself ready for work. I mentioned above the new position is much closer to home, but I didn't mention that it's within walking distance of the daycare and that, because of the only 6 mile commute, I have increased my time with my family even more. Honestly, the whole thing seemed almost too good to be true.
Since that meeting with my new manager, I've been thinking about my aspirations. Other than the need to earn enough money to support my current standard of living, I honestly don't have any specific career goals any more. All of the effort and energy I've put into building my professional image and maintaining my career have been redirected into raising my beautiful son and spending time loving my family. Maybe in a few years that will change again, and I'll start wanting to focus on my career more, but last week I considered the ease of a job as a machine operator with jealousy, wishing I could have something as simple as that right now. Megan thinks I'd be bored, but I think it would just be another way to keep myself occupied throughout the day so that I can make enough money to spend more time with my family. Ah well. No point in moving backward, but at least what I have now is satisfying and relatively stress-free.
I finally have a reason to look at life outside of a job or classroom, and it amazes me how wonderful it looks. Now I want to start focusing on the self-work needed to be a better father, husband, and generally better person.
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