The Other Shoe?

I was doing some thinking last night (dangerous habit, I know), and I think I realized one of the other reasons I’ve been somewhat stressed about this week. You know, besides traveling to an unfamiliar small town, starting a new job, and having to be social with people I don’t know that well.

I think part of me is waiting for the other shoe to drop.

At the risk of sounding melodramatic, this job is unlike any I’ve had before. This job is one I set out to do, with years of preparation and school. It might even be the start of a career. And I’ve never had a job like that before.

Sure, I’ve had other jobs I could have made a career out of, like my A/V tech position before I went to grad school. But this new job is something that, while I may not want to stay a drafter forever, is getting me valuable experience towards some future employment. I’ve chosen a field, in other words, and am making progress in it.

Maybe it’s a form of Impostor Syndrome that has me worried. Or maybe it’s that after two years of not being able to find a job in my chosen field I’ve become a bit leery of when things start going my way. Either way, I can’t help but feel that, on some level, there’s got to be a catch somewhere. Something somewhere is going to pop up, and bring me crashing back down to earth in a spectacularly depressing fashion.

I know that I’m being a bit irrational. But it’s hard to shake the feeling. I’m still in the rosy-tinted “ZOMG NEW JORB” stage, but I’ve also apparently gained enough cynicism over the years that I realize that can’t last. Then my cynicism gets together with my overactive imagination and starts spitballing on ways things could go horribly wrong.

In the end, this is probably going to be a job like any other. It’s going to have its ups and its downs. It will be fun, tedious, exciting, boring, stressful, etc. all in turn. Sure, the fact that it’s in a new field (that I chose) is weird, but whether or not I knew it at the time, I’ve chosen a specialty. Why wouldn’t I want a job using those skills? I’d just like it if I could shake the feeling that there’s going to be complications.