I wrapped up the
last task of the fiscal year end crazies on Friday. While it’s still high
anxiety for the real finance folks at the office, at last it’s over for me.
Thank the gods.
The first three
months of the calendar year are the worst three months of the government fiscal.
I return to work after Christmas holidays and am thrust headlong into hell. It’s
fast, it’s furious, and this year it nearly killed me.
Maybe it’s the
non-stop number-crunching. Left Brain is in full control and she is a tyrant. Creativity
takes a beating. I can’t write more than a terse email, let alone a
philosophical blog post. And laughing is not an option unless it rings with
hysteria.
Granted, the
past twelve months as a whole were out to destroy me. Not only was my personal
life in turmoil, my work life was equally volatile. When I am stressed, I lose
myself. I become inflexible. I am resentful and impatient with others. I have
spontaneous crying jags. I develop seasonal alcoholic disorder. I crash at nine
p.m. though sleep eludes me well into the wee hours, and when I do sleep, my
dreams are nightmarish.
I stop being me.
I don’t know who I become, but I don’t like her very much. I’m just relieved
when she goes away. She started packing at the end of last week, once the last invoices
were paid and the quarter reconciled. After the forecast and the final tally
zeroed out, I felt Ru come out of hiding.
There’s yet a
ton of cleanup in the aftermath, and I don’t just mean at the office. I must
also sift through the wreckage and pull out what worked for me when all else
worked against me. Amidst the storming were moments worth preserving: gold
stars for remembering to breathe, to recalibrate, to take care of myself
wherever possible. I also acknowledge the support I had during the worst of it,
from Ter, from my wee sister, my friends, and my brilliant colleagues at work. Work, work,
work. Yup, Q4 is the absolute worst time of the annual cycle—
—and now that it’s
over, I look back and wonder why I was so fraught. Nobody died. Nobody was at
risk. Everything got done, and if it didn’t, oh, well.
Will it happen
again in 2020? Probably … but I have nine months to sharpen my coping skills!
... and your creative writing pursuits!! ;-)
ReplyDeleteI'm not quite there yet, Beanie - more setbacks, but I'll get through them and wrise to rite again!! (wait - that's wrong ...)
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