Today at work, my promotion was announced to my team. The only person in the room with whom I had worked before was my boss, making the announcement. Somewhat ironically, the person who got the job I wanted most in the company (I’m not worried; there will be another chance for me). But amid the whole-hearted clapping and congratulations from these unknown men, for I find myself yet again the only woman on my technical team, I felt the weight of the impostor syndrome that has plagued me (not to mention many whom I love) for a long time. I don’t understand why the people that know me best are the people whose opinions feel unfairly weighted to the positive towards me. I know, intellectually, that my parents, my husband, my boss, and all my previous bosses are right when they say that I deserve this promotion. And yet I am terrified that I will prove everyone wrong with a single mistake. I am not afraid to make a mistake. I am scared to make the mistake. As I try to define It with my anxious, insomniac mind, I discover that there is no single mistake I could make that would prove to the world that I Am Not Worthy. And yet the emotion persists. I took a logic class when I was 14(?) and I recognize that this emotion is totally fallacious. Oi, is that an argument to pity?

Well, whatever it is, it’s keeping me from sleeping tonight. More accurately, it’s keeping me awake enough to think about school, which is causing me more anxiety than I’m entirely comfortable admitting to. And more than enough to keep me from sleeping. When I last left school, I failed (pardon the pun) to withdraw from my classes. Which means I have a jam-packed semester of failed hours. Which has put me on academic probation, because let’s face it, I didn’t really figure out how to be a grown-up until my late 20s and my GPA couldn’t really take a hit of 16 hours of F. So I am on academic probation. World, I’ve learned my lesson. I spend a minimum two hours a day, six days out of seven (I give myself either Friday, Saturday, or Sunday off) on homework after a full 9 hour day in the office. I’m really truly an adult now. If I were a regular student, taking a regular courseload, I could recover within the two semesters provided to me by the university. But I’m not. I’m juggling this slippery-seeming career with a single class that stresses my [shoulda-already-graduated] schedule, and a GPA that all too painfully delineates my lifelong struggle with depression. With a philosophy class and a gym class left to go, I could flunk out of college permanently. And so I sit here writing, wrought with anxiety. That is the mistake of which I am most scared. There is the mistake. The one from which I have been running for so many years. The imminent failure that kept me from going back to school for so long. There might end up being proof that I wasn’t good enough to make it.

And so this house of anxiety and sleeplessness is built. Brick after unyielding emotional brick.

In the modern world of blogging, editing is arguably a losing, though not yet lost, art. In the spirit (as it were) of Ernest Hemingway’s “write drunk; edit sober” quote, I have decided to try it. Although I must warn you that (a) I have not actually verified any quotation source on this and (b) I may or may not end up editing this post. I also apologize in advance for the length of this post. I can’t figure out how to add a paragraph break in my latest version of WP.

So yes, I decided to have a few glasses of wine tonight. I was reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, the third in Steig Larsson’s trilogy of Lisbeth Salander. Because this series has some parts that seriously lag, my husband was watching football, I am still not pregnant, and it is Saturday night, wine seemed like an excellent way to close out my excellent week before tomorrow’s rather unexciting agenda of homework and house cleaning. Then the book started to bog down in business intrigue (which I find rather dull and unlikely) and F. started snoring. I put down the book to tuck him into bed. While I was reciting the words, “tuck tuck tuck tuck tuck! tuck tuck tuck!” I realized that I was saying these words because I don’t recall ever being tucked into bed any other way, and I have no idea whether this recitation is unique to my family. Which made me really want to update this blog because, let’s be honest, no one but my family reads it as far as I know. (Which, for the record, is totally fine with me, because my family is awesome and I love writing letters to them without having to write letters to them. At which I have always been abysmal.)

Good god, WP. I have a whole window devoted to writing this entry, why must you insist upon using no more than 1/5 of it for my actual text window??

So anyway. Stream of consciousness at its worst. Don’t mind me while I jump all over the place. I’ve had an awesome week. Actually, I’ve had an awesome year. So far, despite the whole I’m-not-pregnant thing, 2012 has shown 2011 the door, and slammed said door behind it as well. I got a promotion at work which should be announced Monday, I’ve moved back to a department where my day-to-day duties resonate much more with what makes me happy. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop but it hasn’t yet.

As a supposedly congratulatory present for the promotion but actually just because he indulged his romantic streak, F. bought me a gorgeous ring. It has 5 diamonds and 4 emeralds. Unfortunately, the jeweler that I had heretofore had excellent if hardly unusual requests for, has been an utter dick about the whole thing. F. got me a size 6 ring, which could only fit on my ring finger. Since one of those is taken up by a wedding ring and the other with a rather ostentatious class ring, I needed it resized for a different finger. Because the stones are channel set, they couldn’t resize it despite the fact that up to 2 sizes were on the invoice as included in the price. So I’ve been dealing with trying to get a ring out of a jeweler who made a promise he could not keep. I’ve decided not to be angry about it, and instead take all of the emotion of F. giving me this ring and ignore the hassle. The only downside (primarily for him) is that he’s still on the hook to get me an emerald ring as a 10-year anniversary present. I’ve decided to have the jeweler order this instead. Some part of me feels like I should argue with them to return the money for the original ring (“ALL SALES FINAL” is posted all over the shop) and get one on Amazon in my size for less money, but in the end I’ve decided that once all my current business with this jeweler is concluded I will just move on. I’m sad to see that a jeweler I used to trust is no longer someone with whom I want to do business (mostly because of how they have handled the whole thing, not because the ring can’t be resized). But I’ve also sent out feelers to people I know who still have connections in the industry to see if there is somewhere else I can go.

I’m tempted to bring Nana Paula’s bracelet to the place that’s recently been recommended to me for an appraisal, to see how their customer service (and their appraisal!) line up with AWJ’s (I’ll probably be posting the name once I get my heirloom back from them. Their customer service has been so painfully bad that I’m a little worried about posting anything on the internet while they have it).

So anyway. So far 2012 has done just as I challenged it to on New Year’s: shown that durn 2011 how awesome a year can be. And now I’m getting sleepy, so I’m going to post this without editing it. Because that’s how I roll. When I’ve had a few drinks.

ps. Please don’t think that I don’t realize exactly how lame I am for going to bed before it’s even 11pm on a Saturday night. That is also how I roll, drunk or sober, since I turned about 30. I am old and lame and I am totally ok with that.