Stability Wanted - Apply Within

I have had the privilege of working at Job #1 for three days this week. They booked me for these days about a month ago so I've had plenty of notice. But that is not the best thing. The best part is the regularity of hours.

I am working 8 a.m until 4 p.m., with the option of taking a half hour lunch and starting a half hour later or leaving a half hour earlier.

My first day of work, I had an appointment to donate blood at 5 p.m., so I arrived early for my appointment to save myself the hassle of either trying to waste an hour downtown or else drive home and back. It was a good plan. Instead of arriving for my appointment at 5:05 as originally planned, I was leaving the building and on my way home. I gained an hour that day.

Yesterday, I was home by 4:30 ... and that was after picking up a handful of groceries on my way home. I threw some potatoes on the barbeque and washed the car windows while I waited for supper to cook. By the time we sat down to eat, I had finished what I had set out to do.

I had energy left over at the end of the day. This is a new feeling for me.

When I work at Job #2, I come home and just want to wash the day off of me and be still for whatever time is left in the day.

When I don't work, I fritter the day away and rarely accomplish anything noteworthy. 

Days of being ready to dash off to work at a moments notice often result in a day of non-productivity. If I do get called to work in a new environment, it takes an energy from me that depletes my ambition levels once I get home.

I have a finite amount of energy within me. When I am in a comfortable work routine where I know where I am going, my hours of work and my job I can utilize my at-work energy while I am working with something left in me at the end of the day.

Fourteen years ago, I had an epiphany. I was sitting in the middle of the living room floor with my newborn baby and I knew exactly what I wanted to be. A mom. I replayed my prior 20 years of parenting in my mind and saw how little I had left to give my children when I worked out of my home every day. I did what I had to do and did the best with the situation I was given. But my children got 'leftovers'.

Maybe that is why I am having a hard time with this reentry into the work world. I'm tired of leftovers at the end of the day. I am still in quest of a good main course which revives and energizes me.

I'm looking for stability. I need something solid beneath my feet. I've been at sea long enough.