Fear has been filling the last few days.
You know that feeling, which goes from slight unease that something is off, pass a big black empty hole right where your lungs and stomach should be, all the way to panic that makes you want to close all the doors and windows and crawl into bed? Yes, that one.
What concerns me? My back/neck for one. I’ve been trying to nurse an inflammation that goes down my right arm and gives me a nagging pain for a few weeks. The source of that is my posture, the muscles in my back, the way I slouch all the time, even though I try to be more upright. So I asked my Pilates teacher what I could do about it, and she put my body to work to rebalance and strengthen it. I brought a couple of exercises home and tried to incorporate them into my nascent morning routine, but I did something to my neck that cut circulation to my head, and I almost fainted. It made me remember the bad times when I had Hep A and could not get out of bed by myself.
Another concern is the tours company that I helped found which is stagnating and starting to go down after five years.
Another concern is that I finished a job for one client, another client fired the whole team (startup went bad), and another client hired one full-time person for my job and another person who seems to be a genius at this stuff.
These events mean that those clients are drying up. I started having thoughts about going full time remote and not have to deal with this anymore, have a regular paycheck at the end of the month and belong to a team instead of always being the external consultant. I went through the 600+ companies of the remotive website and found only about ten companies that I would like to work at. And of course, they’re in the Premier League, which is not how I’m feeling right now.
That connects with my partner, C, having a fledgeling, but small business and no income security and us having the yearly family trip booked to the US for the end of the year and another booked for South East Asia at the beginning of the next one for a full month.
So I find myself doing loads of stuff, except what I need to do. Like finishing off a project for one customer and applying for any of these remote positions. There’s always wash and dishes to do, things to fix in the house, bank/accounting stuff to sort out, a beautiful late summer outside…
So my fears are full steam, and so is my procrastination. They go hand in hand, they always do.