I will survive

I've worked a week. 5 days. However, only two of those days were full shifts. I was in the shops on monday, had a coast guard physical on wednesday and drove to Portland to fill out 15 minutes of paperwork for the TSA yesterday. Even so? I'm exhausted. This is hard work.

I haven't had a physical job since high school, when I cashiered in a grocery store. And that was basically standing in place for a long time, and moving my hands and arms in such repetitive ways that I got carpel tunnel and tendonitis. This is much harder.

This is doing a weird combination of leaning, sitting and standing, usually at the same time. Maneuvering around trailers, trucks, tractors, tow hitches (which if you bump into one, it hits mid shin--haven't done that one yet), huge side mirrors, gates, slippery metal deck, doors that open a foot off the ground. Add to that the stress of being new, not knowing what I'm doing, screwing up landing after landing after landing, and trying to get along with people I don't know and don't know if I really want to know, and I'm exhausted. When I'm stressed, I hold the stress in my feet, and my feet just ache. I have flat, wide feet, virtually no arches. I have custom orthotics, but still. I got home from work today around 2, and I've pretty much been on the couch since then.

Emotionally, this is really hard. It still feels really unfair that I was laid off. Not so much that someone else should have been laid off--I don't think that, I know how government bureaucracy, unions, and office politics work--but just unfair in the general sense of the universe. I'm tired all the time, which is a new feeling for me. My schedule is chaotic and always changing. I'm not used to not knowing how to do anything and being the newbie. I'm a woman in a VERY blue collar man's world. These are huge changes. I've come home and cried most nights this week (tonight too, thanks to the supportive ear of my sister).

It will get easier. I'll be able to read the currents and the boat better, I'll nail the landings regularly. I'll be able to handle toll taking and driving the boat at the same time. I won't be the newbie, I'll be working on my own, on a new boat, in the summer. I'll be able to come home and not need to just sleep. But for now? This is easily the hardest transition in my entire life--and I've dropped out of high school, I've been fired a week after my car was stolen, I've had rough transitions!

And just cause I like including a pic, if I turn around from the controls, and look out the window, facing south, this is my view:

The cable, for some odd nautical reason, is called the baloney. It's basically an extension cord, holding all the electricity that powers the boat.