Saved By Zero

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!