Time of my Life

I know what stress is. It's cramming 50 hours of work into 24. It's having your computer crash in the last hour of rendering your project. It's realizing you've forgotten the paper you spent all night writing when you arrive at the class.

These stresses were all immediate to me. There was always a certain way to control them no matter how chaotic my schedule may have become.

In the working world I thought that I might have left stress behind. I worked my 40 hours each week and what was work was exactly that and it didn't come home with me.

At least until a few weeks ago.

Even though I come home without even a thought of work in my head it's been creeping up on me in my sleep. I awake in the middle of the night with images of the projects I've been working on fresh in my mind and they're jumbled up with whatever I've been dreaming about. I wouldn't think anything of it except that it leaves me in this horribly anxious state and I can't fall back asleep. I have to get up and wander around the house, take deep breaths and splash cold water on my face to clear my mind of my nightmare.

I guess I do feel like I've been given more responsibility lately and I receive less help than I did before. I've also been working directly with some big clients without my designs going through a rigorous critique by coworkers before being presented to them.

I'm being expected to be a professional and it is scaring the hell out of me. I don't know why I'm lacking confidence. If I think about it I do have some experience and I actually do have a degree under my belt but those thoughts provide no comfort.

I find myself looking for coping mechanisms in the wrong places which can lead to trouble.

Maybe I should stop working so much and get a gym membership. Then I can at least run out my frustrations. That's what I did in college and it seemed to work.

Stupid stress.