Living with Addiction - Day 179

So, Christmas is coming.

It's been a weird past week or so.

Monday was the 4th year anniversary of my mom's death which I am convinced is why I had a hiccup, and began playing the Caesars Slots FB game once more. The good news, if there is one, is that I'm not disappointed in myself. I now believe everything is about boredom. I've noticed that over the past few weeks, the normal things I've been doing to occupy my time in the morning hours have become mundane.  I still have three new puzzles to finish and of course multiple kindle books to still read, but for some reason, I just don't feel like it.

Recently, as well, a very dear co-worker passed away unexpectedly. I just cried. I saw her in early November when I was in the office so it was definitely a shock that I will no longer see her when she would pop down to my end of the floor for a visit. 

Lately too, I've begun feeling like so much is controlling me. This has got to be another trigger for me and the FB game. Work has left me suspicious as we seem to be moving away from our protocols and compliance requirements, which is allowing some leniency to the branch reps that submit their billing requests. With the addition of 3 guys to do the help line, they are required to take 80% of the calls, and also because of the new tracking system for customer service calls beginning in the new year, has left me feeling like my great experience and service over the past almost 10 years will no longer needed or required. This leaves me wondering if the new year will find me in a layoff situation. Granted, at 59 and a half, almost 60, come April, it would not be a horrible thing, but finding a new job and starting all over does not appeal to me and I do not think my already sensitive nature to stress and anxiety will help to finish the goals I've made to stay on track to finish up my mortgage and car payment. The possibility of being laid off before my 67 birthday will crush me. Anyway, I did speak with my therapist about all of this, which helped a lot and she seems to think I'll be alright as I seem to be very aware of what's happening and have not done anything crazy so to speak, although, playing the game was not a good idea. I will need to suspend and try again to remain gamble free.

In the meantime, the editing for the 2nd book is going well. I love this editor I'm working with, but again costs are difficult. As such, I need to do the editing in a few stages, only sending so much to be edited at a time to lower costs. The other writing project I'm working on is again on hold as I suspected, working with a partner does prove challenging when there are time constraints. She just doesn't seem to have the time to put aside right now to work on this. I know she wants to do this and who knows, she could be doing things here and there, but we have not had the time to get together to share what she has done so far. I do keep writing the story based on what I do know, but at this point, I've kind of reached a dead end as without her input it's hard to move the story along.

So, for now, I'm in a holding pattern.