Uncertainty Sucks

I've been feeling lost lately. That's not something I particularly care to admit, both because of pride and because it's something that scares me. I've spent the last year and half feeling like I'm moving forward, like I'm making progress in life. And now... now I feel like I'm standing in the middle of the road trying to figure out if I read the map right.

Most of this is related to work. Right now there's a lot of changes coming for my field, and many of the preparations are already here. This isn't exactly bad in and of itself. However, it's created an exceptional amount of stress for me, and in addition to that quite a few of my clients are having a rough go of things lately. To say I'm overworked and underpaid is to state the obvious at pretty much any given time in my line of work, but it feels exceptionally pronounced right now. And I feel myself wondering what on earth to do about it all. I never particularly intended on staying at this job more than a relatively short time period, but right now I'm seriously wanting to jump ship. Only thing is, I don't know where I'd go from here. I'm not quite in a position to go back to school yet. I'm not in any position to not have a job. And most of the other jobs in the field that I could hold with a Bachelor's would likely have the same things as my current job. On top of that, I really don't want to quit. Again, part of that is pride. But part of it is that I like the work I do. I like working with my clients. I like seeing the change going on in their life, connecting with them, and trying to help as best I can. A good chunk of them have been on my caseload from the beginning and we've got a good rapport built up. I want to continue working with them for a while longer. No, not forever, but for a while. If I could just work with them, and not have to worry about the paperwork/compliance/productivity/ management/bureaucracy side of things, I think I could be happy there forever. But right now the latter part of that is really making me question everything.

I just feel lost. Do I stay? Do I go? Where would I go? What would I do? See, I take forever to make decisions about this kind of thing. I like to mull things over little by little until a picture forms and sticks. I don't really know where I want to go in my career. Well that's not entirely true. I know I want to go back to school and become a licensed therapist. However, I'm not ready to take that on yet, mentally or financially. I'm not sure where I want to go between where I'm at now and doing that. I also have some financial obligations that I need to take into consideration, not the least being the need for slightly more income that I currently earn in order to pay down some debts. But I get this sense that I'm running out of time to figure it out. And I just feel lost and discouraged.

If you read this, pray for me. I'm praying too but I don't feel like I've received an answer yet.