Amy, I am so glad to hear an update from you. I have been thinking of you often, and glad to hear you and Sara and Ben have places to be that keep you in your community for now.

Thanks, everyone. It's hard because I feel like I've been blind and stupid and possibly too much of a chicken to make changes that have been necessary for a long time. It's hard to tell right now. And the ... other stuff is pretty devastating, too. Right now it's one day at a time.

Sounds like you're in a good place to pause and consider, Amy. Good luck with everything.

However, it's an established fact that shrift's birth name is in no way her real name except by accident of birth and legal identity, and that for all actual purposes of selfhood she is shrift.

Facebook auto-completes people's names into the birthday wishes now, and as soon as I clicked on it for shrift, I felt weird!

That's the thing about a big crisis, it really is an opportunity to think about what you want, how things ought to be, and how to get there from where you are, even if the things you are thinking about are not directly related to the crisis. Take your time with it.

Oh, and msbelle -- is there a place with a beginners' class and/or one that's closer that you could consider? Each of those seems like a pretty big barrier.

Thanks, -t. I'm trying to remember that.

I had a meeting with my manager this morning that completely demoralized me. In my last performance review, which was PRETTY RECENT, I got a good score and Exceeds. In my role, I'm a special snowflake and the only round peg on a team of square pegs, so it's really hard to compare me to my peers. I'm going to be lucky if I squeak by with a "meets expectations" because my manager's manager doesn't "get" what I do. Now I have to jump through all the hoops to justify my existence when I don't even want to be here. Thanks, reorg. Thanks a bunch.

I need out of this org so much, but I'm not sure who would even offer me an internal role without an MBA or a Computer Science degree at this point.

I need to start dedicating a lot of time to finding a new job, I guess. And networking.

Oh, no, shrift. I hoped the good review would mean better work environment in general for you.

For me, it's the first time thinking about doing it on my own. And if that's something I actually might want. Terrifying is an understatement.

Though I got to this point by another path, you have stated completely where I am in my world. The future is bleak from some angles and exciting from others. And completely disorienting.

The only other one of this type closer to us also does not offer beginner classes (all adults just in the same class) and their classes start later at night which is worse.

I think that I will continue with them since I have figured out he Dunkin expenses. Man that is just wasteful stupidness on my part.