Treading water

I am one week in to my new job. I am four days in to Death Cold 2011. My workouts have been thrown out the window courtesy of these two things. I am approximately eight mentally composed blog posts behind (a weight loss post! an Ohio trip recap! a giveaway! a sappy letter to Elle! all this could be yours if you choose to read it when I eventually post it!). I have about dozen things I need to do, another dozen I want to do, and no clue when any of them will be started, let alone completed.

WHEW.

Things at the new job are going well for only being there a week. I am incredibly overwhelmed - learning such a dramatically different new industry is frightening, y'all. A coworker told me today that I "need to be more confident," that I "know what I'm doing and just need to trust myself." Soooo not true. I'm coming off the confidence of being in the same industry for 12 years, working for multiple newspapers of various sizes in a multitude of positions, circumstances and environments. There, I was confident. Here, I'm scared to death that I'm going to eff something up. There is a lot to learn, and a lot at stake (like, oh, wasted material, money, the company's reputation, etc.) if I do something wrong.

My last job was with a large company. This is a very small company, and there are definite pros and cons to that. I'm thankful that my coworkers all seem great, but it's a major adjustment for me. And being the "new kid" on the small block makes me feel like I'm constantly being scrutinized.

Read: Pressure.

In some regards, though, it's going better than I thought. After the first two days, it was all I could do to take a deep breath and just keep plugging away. The last three days have been spotted with some successes, though, as I pick up on stuff, slowly but surely. I'm shocked that the shift from nights to days hasn't been hard at all (thank you, darling 14-month-old daughter). I'm awake during the day without the help of an insane amount of caffeine, and I even managed to go to the gym before work last week before Death Cold set in (sadly, the gym doesn't look any better at 6 a.m. than it does the rest of the day).

I came down with a runny nose - completely out of the blue - on Saturday. By Sunday, I had a stuffed nose, congestion and a scratchy throat. Monday was full of nose blowing (hi, new coworkers!). Tuesday brought me no voice (did I mention that my new job involves a decent amount of interaction with our clients? Yeah, other people had to take my calls and translate for me). And today I had a lot of nose-blowing, some dizziness and some coughing, but I *sounded* a little better. And now that I'm done breastfeeding, you can bet your bottom dollar that I'm medicating the crap out of myself. 

Would you not miss this face?

Provided that I survive Death Cold, I have faith that things will be OK. It's going to take time to adjust to this new life. I miss Elle like whoa. I miss our mornings together, miss getting stuff done around the condo in the morning while she napped. I love coming home to her or picking her up at the sitter's and eating dinner with her (and sometimes Tim, when he can get away from the office). I hate hardly seeing Tim, although it was fantastic to have two evenings at home with him this week. I still have a hard time going to bed early enough (like I should be doing right now). I love being able to put Elle to bed at night. I hate not being able to just run to the post office, make phone calls or schedule a doctor's appointment like I could when I worked nights.

But ultimately, as Modest Mouse says, we'll all float on. Some day (soon, I hope), I'll understand this complex land of my new industry. We'll hit a groove at home. I won't go through a box of tissues a day because my nose is full of snot. I'll blog regularly again. I'll reply to e-mails in a timely fashion. I'll get a massage every other week. OK, just kidding. Honestly, though, we've undergone a lot of change in our household in the last two years - if we didn't know how to adapt by now, I'd be worried.

Off to visit my pillow so my brain can be sponge-y and alert tomorrow!