Limbo

A few days ago, my company ceased trading and, although I still have some work to do finishing the accounts, I am very close to being unemployed. I knew this change was coming. I’m confident that it’s the best thing for my family. And yet…

I am in limbo, facing the kind of terrifying freedom I haven’t had for years. The freedom to look for work, and actually make a choice about what I do next with my life. I made some bad choices when I began my ‘career’ – can you call it a career when you were stumbling blindly between bad choices without understanding what you really need or what your real value is?

Anyway, now it is time to choose again. The old worries resurface. Will I find anything that really suits me, Asperger’s and all? Will I make friends? Will I end up in another job that stresses me out, just for the sake of having something to do?

I am in the unusual position of not needing to work. Financially, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I just stopped. But I’m a young woman (well, 30s) and I feel like I need to work. It’s not the 60s, or even the 80s, I’m not going to stay at home and pop more children out. I want to use my brain for more than entertaining a few children. I guess I still have a bee in my bonnet about proving that I can be useful.

And that’s the Asperger’s talking again. I want to find my place in society. I want to have a regular payslip, to show that people find me useful. To show that I’m contributing to society. To show that I’m not lazy. To show that I don’t want to be a kept woman.

But for now I am still in limbo. Not quite finished with the old company. Not quite ready to face the terror of job hunting. Just thinking, and overthinking, and wishing I could be more like somebody who doesn’t think they have anything to prove.