The last few weeks I have been overwhelmed. Not just at work, but at home, with friends, with family, with everything. It is maybe the compounding of it all that overwhelmed me. In all honesty, it's a new feeling for me, so I struggled with it, I normally know what to do, I am the guy who helps others, but this time I was overwhelmed, and it made me anxious, depressed, and honestly a few times was straight up debilitating.
Before you stress out for me, let me be clear, sometimes my feelings of being overwhelmed, came from positive things. Regardless though, it all contributed to my feeling of being completely out of whack the past few weeks (months honestly). I apologize if my stress lately impacted our relationship.
So what has me overwhelmed you might ask? Let me tell you.
My work... For eight years I belonged to La Casa, now I don't. Its hard constantly correcting people about where I work, answering questions on why I left, was I forced out, did I want to leave, did I think their future looked good... so many questions, about a big piece of my identity that I lost. It is depressing feeling like, yeah I used to be the important La Casa director.
My running... Its been nearly 3 months since I got injured while working on projects at La Casa. Time didn't heal it, physical therapy didn't, and feeling like we have made no progress is really depressing. A large of my identity has been running, then biking, and building up my triathlons... It is depressing thinking that I was a couple months away from attempting a half Ironman and then squatting down while volunteering sidelined me.
My community... the out pouring of support from friends, clients and La Casa connections was honestly overwhelming. It was nice when people offered me a job, ha... I feel like anyone working in the non-profit industry is recruiting, but I got a cool new gig it's why I left (no drama ya'll it was just time, and good timing).
Like I said earlier, some of the overwhelmed feeling came from positive things... excitement of the new job, so much support and congrats as I left, but overwhelmed is overwhelmed.
The last month I have not been me, mixing up appointments, forgetting things, being moody, wanting to avoid places I normally like to go, wanting to be alone... I am a social butterfly but lately I just wanted to be alone and left alone, maybe so I can process and get this feeling of being overwhelmed over with, and then I realized it wasn't the list of things above that were actually overwhelming me and making me not want to go out as much....
My identity for the past eight years just changed. "Hi, I'm Sam, I work at La Casa de Amistad". What do I say now? I used to complain that describing what La Casa was to people was hard, and giving out my email to people super hard (sam@lacasadeamistad.org) since it is so long! Well now describing CDFI Friendly South Bend takes a whole background story and pseudo sales pitch, and not sure how I did it, but my web address is now longer than ever (www.cdfifriendlysouthbend.org).
So again, my apologies if my transition in my work life negatively impacted our relationship. I needed to get this all off my chest as part of closure for one chapter, excitement for the next one, and to take a deep breath of calm for once.
To others who feel overwhelmed... holler, I am no expert in all that, but I am handling it as best I can, and I know you will also, but if I can help, let me know.