Panta Rheusetai

CWs: work, mental health, physical health, stress

πάντα ῥεύσεται (panta rheusetai), “all things will change”

It’s been a weird week. Lately we’ve been facing a lot of changes at work, changes at the local but also state & federal levels, and that’s been stressful. I’m just trying to roll with it the best I can, but it’s hard. And we had a meeting yesterday morning where we were informed about some further changes in our department. Some good, some bad? I’m not sure how it’ll all play out. One change is that, at least temporarily, our team won’t be handling phone calls (directly). So we’ll be doing callbacks, &c., but otherwise just working through our workload. Which is good. Phones have been a source of stress for me, but I felt like I was just making peace with them.

We had a quick meeting this morning and were told that we’ll be assigned to a particular task for all of next week, and it’ll likely be like this for the foreseeable future. Normally we are on a task for 2 days, then rotate to another, then rotate, &c. So that will be a major change, but it reminds me a bit of when I first started this job. The task I’ll be on all week is one of the ones I am weakest at. It’ll be good practice, but at the same time I’m worried I won’t get enough done. I was telling my spouse about my concerns and they said to keep an open mind. I’m definitely trying to. All I can do is do the best I can, and keep pushing through. Lots of changes, but we’ll figure it out. And our supervisor said that she will fight for us as much as she can, so I appreciate her very much for that.

Today I also did my first session of PT (physical therapy, not Playable Trailer, lol). I’ve been having some shoulder issues lately, and my spouse just started PT themself, so they recommended I do PT as well. The therapist was very nice and helpful and very gentle. He did some diagnostics on my range of motion and such and said things mostly look fine. He had me practice some exercises. It was confusing and hard. I am not used to this sort of thing. I used to lift weights back in the day and do cardio and such, but I haven’t in a long time. Most of the time I don’t have time to get to the gym, &c. I miss it sometimes but it’s hard, since most of the time I’m doing 10hrs/week of Latin, so I don’t want to deal with going to the gym after work and such, and definitely not before work. Anyways, the therapy session was good, and he even gave me an elastic band to take home. He had a little roll and just cut it off of there, it was very cool! He sent me an email link for an app with videos of the exercises, so that’ll be nice. We’ll meet up again in a few weeks.

Trying to take better care of myself in general. I’m seeing a dietitian and she has also been really great. Trying to work on being healthier and such. Again, work has been chugging along, and life is mostly making sense, at least in my little kosmos. I feel like I’m figuring things out in general, the best that I can.

So hence the topic of the post. I really try my best to cope with change. I’m not always great at that. We’ve been in Colorado for nearly 10 years now. Moved out here for a high school teaching job, which lasted for 3 years and then ended. I don’t at all regret moving out here though. It was absolutely the right move to get out of Florida, especially when we did. Those first 3 years were pretty unstable; teaching was never really a sure thing and my contract got re-upped year-to-year. I know that’s pretty standard, but it was a little stressful. Then I had a stopgap job, and after that I got my current job in 2019. It’s mostly been pretty chill, but of course 2020 hit and then things got very weird. But we’ve made it through all sorts of weirdness and this is just another bump in the road. It’ll be an interesting ride. I just really want to stay in my current job and I hope that’s possible, although there are some major variables coming up in the next year that may change that. But until then I’ll just keep doing the best I can to help as many people as possible, as I always do, and that’s enough.

Just wanted to get my thoughts down and capture this moment. Again, it’s been a weird week, but we made it to the weekend and that will be nice. We found out that dear friends of ours will be in the area tomorrow, so I am hoping we can see them. It’s not under the most pleasant of circumstances (family emergency for them), but I am honored they want to try to see us. Overall though we have a lot to be happy about. We have kitties who love us and each other. We have each other. We have a lot of family. And wonderful friends. It’s enough and I’m happy for it. Thanks for reading, friends <3