The job I’ve had for the past 4 years is ending in a few months, and although I am anxious about the change and absolutely ecstatic about the prospect of getting paid out through unemployment, I am sort of freaking out. Without getting into the particulars, my current job is pretty nonstandard as far as things go, to tbe point where I can work 13 hours one day, drink bloody marys while checking email, and then without warning take half a day off to visit my family. There is an inordinate amount of freedom balanced with an inordinate amount of insanity, and while for some time the absolute chaos drove me to explore the cost of getting my CPA so my next gig could be tax prep, I am now petrified at the thought of going into a more rigid workplace. What would it mean? Would I start wearing khakis and pastel shirts? Would I stop getting drunk on weeknights? Would it be the first step towards minivan central? But conversely, maybe I am risk-averse after all and this is simply the next logical step. Maybe for all my talk about moving to New York and starting my own production company I would be happier working a 9-5 gig in an office with a business-casual dress code. But would the uniform break my spirit? I have learned to define myself by my job, with all its eccentricities and random weirdness. Can I handle re-defining myself to fit into corporate culture?

At this point I start to hyperventilate, seeing my youth go down the drain and realizing that I’ve barely started to re-vamp my resume, never mind beginning the obligatory networking in which one is supposed to engage at a time like this. Do I even have any marketable skills? Maybe I am just a total hack who can’t balance a budget, can’t network, can’t get her shit together, fat and ugly and lame and stupid.

Then I feel the monthly wand of agony boring a hole through my uterus and I realize that all the worrying can be temporarily attributed to that certain joy that comes with being a woman. I still don’t know what to do about my future, but at least I don’t feel like such a freak for freaking out.