Job

I've been on vacation for 11 days. I go back to work, technically, today. After vacation, you're supposed to be well rested and, maybe, see work in a new light.

Instead, I am panicky. Terrified. Depressed. I don't often get like this anymore and, as a result, this is a lot to deal with for me. While I didn't expect my reaction to coming back to be terribly positive... I didn't expect it to be quite so negative, either. This is awful.

The general premise of my job is actually quite enjoyable. It's the situational events that I don't enjoy. While I may have a flair for the dramatic, I genuinely feel like an outcast there. Everyone there hangs out outside of work and is good friends. I am the only one that is not friends. This is not a choice I made and, admittedly, I am in a very different place in my life compared to them. Most of them are in, at the very least, long term relationships, making families and own homes. Not only do I not have any of these things in my life but I, also, have no interest in them.

And.. I'm the weird one. Which, frankly, I enjoy. I've worked very hard to be comfortable with who I am and happily express it. Unfortunately, it makes me even more of a pariah. One of the many things I absolutely adore about myself, distances me from them even further. I'm not about to go change myself for their benefit... But it makes working with them quite difficult.

I do not work a job where socialization is avoidable. I spend much of my time with my coworkers, in the same space, cleaning or prepping. While I am capable of just not talking to them for six hours (or more) a day, it gets incredibly dull. Eventually, someone has to say something about something. Sometimes, it's work related but, eventually, it's not. It is when we haven't had a customer for over two hours and haven't said much of anything when my weirdness comes out. By my friends standards it is the norm. By my coworkers, it gets me labeled as the weird one.

The worst part of all of this, is that I move in a few days...by the end of the month, really. I don't have much packed, we don't even technically have a place yet and the situation is less than ideal. I'm only mildly concerned about that. The fact that my living situation is about to change in a rather drastic way isn't my main concern is disturbing.

I don't know how to fix all of this, either. I'm not sure there really is a way to fix my working situation, except, for finding a new job.

In the meantime, I have to endure...like I always do. Enduring isn't easy or painless, either.