I just feel incredibly fragile right not - like one more piece of bad news and I will just fly into pieces. My only plans for Spring break now are to work on stuff over at school, and then stay home for my "furlough day."
Also, my spring allergies are at their height, and every part of me that has even a little bit of arthritis (the elbow I broke almost 25 years ago, for example) is hurting.
Last night, one of the other people at the meeting I was at who is at my university - she chose to take the early retirement (she was eligible for it, and I think she was smart to take it) said she was "furious" about everything that was going on. I can't muster up fury; I'm just depressed about it. I almost feel like everything is bad and getting worse, it will never get better, and what's worse, it *isn't better anywhere else* so there's no point in thinking about leaving. I said on Ravelry this week has been like being pursued by Dementors and being all out of chocolate - like Ron said in one of the movies, "I felt like I'd never be *cheerful* again."
And what good I can do is so small and so limited that it (a) won't counteract any of the bad and (b) what good I can do won't save my job, if it comes down to that in the future. My half-hour helping the student yesterday may have made her feel better about the upcoming exam, but it didn't do anything substantive to make the world better. I feel like the little kid sticking his finger in the leaky dike - but there's someone down stream preparing to dynamite the whole thing.
I'll get over this, most likely. But right now I'm like a dog that's been beaten: cowering and wondering what's coming next.
Edited to add: $600,000 more in budget cuts this morning. A colleague tells me HR is going through everyone's employment files; possibly they are going to declare financial exigency and be able to suspend some tenured faculty or else levy more pay cuts.
I just.....I have no words for this. As I said earlier this week, it's a good thing I'm not a drinking woman. I may wind up asking my uncle to sell some of the stock I had put aside for my retirement in case I have a financial emergency. I'm going to pray my car stays healthy and nothing in my house breaks that I'd have to replace. (I never replaced the bedroom ceiling fan, will just continue to function without one for a while).
2 comments:
But helping her did something substantive that made her world better. That kindness may resonate through time or it may not, but you did something concrete that made someone's life better. And that's more than a lot of people can say.
Yes.. What Lydia said.
I think I can say that I know what you feel like (I too am someone who is made extremely anxious by uncertainty)-- you've played by all the rules and life is not fair. But we humans are tough and you will get through this.
The French have a saying: "Plaie d'argent n'est pas mortelle" (literally, "a money wound won't kill you"). Keep breathing deeply and fingering your "All will be well" pendant. This too will pass. It truly will.
Joan xx
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