The Journey of 2987 Miles Begins With...

Song of the Day: The Boxer --Simon & Garfunkel

In the clearing stands a boxer 
And a fighter by his trade 
And he carries the reminders 
Of ev'ry glove that layed him down 
Or cut him till he cried out 
In his anger and his shame 
"I am leaving, I am leaving" 
But the fighter still remains 

My song of the day may seem strange as I am not a boxer, nor have I visited the whores on 7th Avenue. But I do feel like a fighter and the battle I'm up against these days feels like the toughest one yet.

I've had a lot of free time since I moved back to Portland. I haven't had much free time since I started working full time 2 years ago. Even the 3 months I had off between graduating from x-ray school and working 3 jobs weren't spent doing anything fun or particularly interesting. I thought the best use of my time back then would be to begin freaking out about finding a job so I could finally get rid of my debt and pay back my student loans. As soon as I started working 65 hours a week, I realized there wasn't much time to do anything...except work. I woke up in the morning, went to work, came home and went to sleep. But I was making good money and was grateful to have so many jobs when classmates of mine were struggling to find any work at all. I had almost no time to myself but I felt blessed all the same.

When things started to get difficult at my full-time job, I tried my best to take it all in stride. Sure, it wasn't an ideal situation, but what situation is? How many people love their jobs? So I took the extra work and the positions I wasn't qualified or trained for. I took the screaming, the blame, the abuse, the mood swings and the guilt trips because it would eventually all be worth it. Things would settle down and start going well. We would hire people to take over all the jobs I had acquired but wasn't hired for and that would be that. I waited for all the promises to come to fruition but none of that ever happened and things got progressively worse, both at my job and for me. I was exhausted, easily irritated and stressed out beyond recognition. My mom started asking me if I was okay a lot more than usual. It was starting to affect me physically. I was worried I would get fired but also secretly prayed for it. I said at least once a day "I can't wait to get out of here." But I needed money to get myself out. It was a catch-22 and everyday, sometimes multiple times a day, I had to convince myself that I could handle it.

Four months ago, after a terrible day at work, I hit my breaking point and walked out. I had never quit a job without notice and part of me felt guilty...but most of me felt awesome. It was liberating and exciting and wonderful. It felt right. Literal minutes after I made my decision, I received a text from my old roommate telling me my old room in Portland would be available in a month.

And that was that. The decision was made. My dream of moving back to Portland was finally coming true.

So now I'm back in Portland. Getting back here has been my ultimate goal for at least the past year, definitely longer than that if you count *wishing* the move was possible instead of *knowing* it was. I was looking forward to relaxing and having fun in the city I'm so happy to call home once again. But that plan went slightly differently than I had hoped and, well, I gotta say, it's been a bit of a shitshow...for lack of a better word.

It feels as though every emotion I've ever had over the past 2 years that I didn't have time to deal with not only surfaced, but roared as they made their presence known. Good and bad feelings were unleashed and, though I have plenty of time to handle them, I wasn't expecting all of them at once. Some of them I wasn't expecting at all. They seem to rise out of nowhere without warning. I feel out of control, like someone has reprogrammed me and all I'm doing is spinning my wheels to figure how I work again.

On top of relocating 3000 miles away from my family, trying to find a job and readjusting to a new routine, dealing with this feels, at the very least, amazingly overwhelming. I don't know where to begin. Everything feels like it is the most important issue. Over the course of 2 years, I've managed to completely neglect my self-worth and sacrifice my morals and beliefs. I listened to half truths and made decisions based on them. I let people make me feel worthless, cheap, stupid and replaceable. But I didn't realize any of this until I had the time and space to sit back and watch it all unfurl onto my life like a giant tidal wave. I am now dealing with the wreckage and trying to hold myself together as best I can.

This time off I've been given started out as a break, became a nightmare but it will end up being a gift. I'm grateful for the chance to get to work this out in a city I love, surrounded by people who care about me and know that I will be okay. There is only one way out: through. I'm excited, scared and bewildered as I take these first steps. I've been in a terrible, poisonous, self-loathing mindset for far too long and I know I only have good things in store. After all the anger and the shame, I'm not leaving. My fighter still remains...