Sleepless in Trinidad

Another day follows another sleepless night.

It’s been nearly a week of bad sleep.  It’s the kind of disturbed sleep where you wake up a million times but think you’ve been awake the whole time.  I’ve had some wacky dreams, such as my mom taking over my house (wonder what THAT means?), eating sandwiches with Deb Morgan from Dexter (sandwiches so full of vegetables and pork that I could not bite into them, which annoyed Deb so much she cussed me out and ditched me), running precipitously down a hill in heels and not being able to stop, and the usual dreams about none of my sewing turning out (in one, I managed to sew a dress onto the one I was wearing and couldn’t unravel it from me–huh?)

I didn’t really give much thought to what it all meant, other than noting how the sleep deprivation is making me act like a  pitiful ass-dragging slug (pre-run) and like a potential Public Enemy #1 (post run/pre-cofffee/rest of the day).  This morning, I once again whinged about the shuteye strike, to which the ever-wise and succinct Mr. Laura said,  “I think you have subconscious anxiety about having quit your job and what’s going to come next.”

You can imagine what a “duh” moment ensued.

The only part of that worthy of a quibble is the “subconscious” bit.  I’m highly conscious that I’m 90% completely good with my decision–which also means I’m 10% scared witless of what I’ve done.  I may try to deny the Catholic guilt (so unfair that just three years of Catholic school did me in so monumentally–hello, I was baptized Episcopal, which is Catholic sans guilt!), but it’s there, and the idea of not working at a sure-thing, full-time job makes me feel uneasy, much the same way I felt when I took an easy 12-credit semester (instead of my usual 18-20 credit monster semesters–because, obviously, I haven’t valued sleep very much in my life).

Added to that, I wish I could shake the anxiety about what other people think of my decision, and how it looks to the uninformed spectator (“No, I’m not a housewife” and “No, I’m not trying to have Lauraspawns/expecting  a Lauraspawn,” and “No, I will not be cleaning more or making my husband lunch every day”), but it still bothers me in a way that it really shouldn’t.  Do high school valedictorians just quit their jobs (even if they are miserable in them and know it’s the right thing to do)?  Can good girls with good piles of degrees from good institutions ever shake the feeling that they should be overloading themselves with work, even if it’s the wrong kind of work (and they know it)?  Will I morph into a couch-lounging, Montel Williams-watching, chocolate bonbon-scarfing,  all-day-pajama-wearing queen if I don’t have to wake up early and look presentable for the outside world?  What if I think working from home will be great–and it isn’t?

And what if the writing doesn’t pan out?  And what if I have one good idea–and no more?  And what if I can’t fulfill my world-domination dressmaking ambitions?  And what if being home alone all day makes me talk to myself more than I already do?

Worse yet:  what if I have to return to boring, dreary work in a boring, dreary office setting?

And that worst-case scenario, my peeps, is what makes me realize that I’m doing the right thing.  I don’t want to return to a desk and give 40 hours of my life each week to something I feel lukewarm about unless I know, without a doubt, that there is NOTHING in this world that I would rather be doing.  Not just rather do, but feel giddy and excited about, and want to tell everyone about, and turn into a complete pain in the ass in my rapt state about what it is that I end up doing all day long.

There are plenty of things that I cannot shut up about because they excite me so–ask anyone that knows me.  So I’ll take those as a starting point and stop obsessing about the potential of a sad bonbon-eating future.  I don’t even like bonbons, anyway.

________

And, as if by some miraculous stroke of brilliant coincidence, I ended up working from home this afternoon while waiting for the water pump repairman to show.  Guess what?  I LOVED it, and here are just a few reasons why:

• I can eat lunch in pretty plates.
• I don’t need to pack everything in individual tupperwares to the amusement–and bemusement–of my coworkers.
• Oh yeah–I can eat lunch with the Husband.
• I can blast my music and dance in my chair without being stared at by gawping students.
• I can hassle the dog and work my way back into being his favorite furparent of all time.
• I can exercise domestic zen by running laundry and boiling stuff all day long while I’m hard at work.
• I can take stretch breaks with the foam roller (I’ve debated taking it to the office, but thought better of it, and I need to stretch more because, um, I stretch while applying makeup.  Not ideal.)
• Duh–my house is a million times nicer than an office (water cooler or backyard mango tree?)

Evidence of today’s working from home lunch:

It’s pretty bowls galore for my tomato, cucumber and carrot vinaigrette salad and the provision soup I froze about a month ago, and, as if that weren’t a nice enough display of aesthetically-pleasing foodery, I had a post-lunch chai in my favorite cup for chai:

See?  Told you I’d be ok.  I might even still dress up in the morning, thusly:

Black H and M skirt, black ruffled blouse from Kress in Puerto Rico, yellow tank top from I don't know where, and blue flats from Target, plus...

Granny bling! Cloisonne pin and blue and gold necklace courtesy of my Maggie

But I’d probably have to change because the house is too hot for all that.  Hmmm.  Maybe Rachel was onto something when she suggested working in a bikini and heels….