Panic

I slept badly from last night until I woke. Even my dreams acted out the worries in my head: that I would fail at tomorrow’s tasks or be unable to cope. I brought the difficulties into my mind before they happened, and spent more than ten hours before starting work at nine feeling awful. In my dreams I was late because I could not reach the check-in point, could not get onto campus to finish my task, or got lost…

Even as I woke, the dream kept repeating the fear of arriving too late. I could think of nothing to do but pray. Luckily, the problems I feared did not happen. It was a false alarm, but it was no fun.

Today was the first day of trying to improve things. New tasks filled my time and gave me more courage to imagine my future. If you ask what work means to me, I would say it is a way to test some of my ideas against reality and move, step by step, toward the work that suits me best.

I have not been happy lately; I have been going through a painful stretch. Much of the enthusiasm I began with has been knocked out of me. Still, seen another way, the experience is valuable: it has given me a deeper, fuller understanding of society…