What a bad week...

This has been a crazy, stressful week (on top of about 8 crazy stressful weeks just passed). My anxiety disorder is in high gear, meaning that I'm constantly on edge and restless and worried. We've put a contract on a house that could well be overwhelming, but is what we can closest afford (or COULD have afforded). I'm deep navy blue over the shootings at Va Tech. And yesterday, to top it all off, I got a call from my most major client, the one which has, for the last few months provided 25% of our income (and the only REGULAR income I, personally, have, and about 75% of my revenue), and was laid off due to plummeting profits.

I just kind of stood there, listening to my supervisor (this was an actual part time job rather than a contract) nodding and going "uh huh" at appropriate times, trying not to freak out and cry in front of him. It seems the SEC has changed rules about how the kind of research we do has to be expensed. So instead of being paid out of commissions from the trading desk, it has to be paid for up front in "hard dollars." Real money. As a result, revenues plummeted, and people were being let go. My Red Hat project, for which I was supposed to be lead, wasn't picked up. And as a relatively new hire, I was laid off. I imagine a reporter with more seniority will take my place on my existing project.

I'm still freaking out, really. It's not that I can't replace the revenue. It's that it's damned hard to replace regular, dependable revenue that requires as little energy and brain power as this job did. Yes, I can replace the income, but at the cost of 3x the work... which I really don't have the oomph to do.

And to have it happen NOW. We're buying a more expensive house. I expect costs for our internet service to double (twice as much money for far less bandwidth, sheesh!). Our mortgage will rise by 50%. It couldn't really be much worse--I shouldn't say that, it can ALWAYS be worse. Just when things begin to go well, the sky falls. We never get ahead because through absolutely no fault of my own, bad things happen. Pardon me for whinging, but WHY, OH, WHY DOES THIS ALWAYS HAPPEN TO ME?!

I don't need to be depressed and de-energized this week. I have a book project that is still behind. I still have one last project for this job which I will have lost as of April 30. I have a moving to orchestrate and the last bits of paperwork for the mortgage to do. I have kids to get from one thing to another. I have laundry--that never ends.

This sucks. It just sucks.