Anger still lies very close to the surface and is infecting a lot of my thoughts and interactions at the moment. I feel dangerously close to a total loss of control, the plane spinning out and nosediving, the few things my identity can reasonably claim to be structured around (work, family, friendships, relationship) disappearing bit by bit. I was right all along: money means nothing on its own.

Last Thursday felt like a quadruple whammy of things, all intersecting to create a monster inside me that hasn't left. It went like this:

i. Postdoc meeting with potential supervisors went badly. They clearly didn't have faith in my ability to express my proposal to the specificity of the funding call. My methodology section was weak and even subsequent revisions still see it as a bit loose. They're going through the motions, so am I, and as such one door to the future seems to have swung shut.

ii. My colleague T stopped by office to chat and conspire. We are seen at work as a kind of double act because we were hired on the same day and have some kind of seniority in the junior ranks, if that makes sense. Spotting us together, our boss came in to have a reassuring word about how the future was looking re: being rehired. For a reassuring chat it was remarkably not very assuring whatsoever. In fact, it sounded like a preliminary to an exit meeting. Subsequent rumours have only compounded this. Another door blowing closed.

iii. The least of my woes, but my students were increasingly demanding, ignorant, and entitled. I do not like teaching posh kids. They are bluffers. After the first two points this was just an ongoing headache.

iv. N keeps emailing, trying to bait me into a fight. It always starts innocuously and I reply flatly. She asks why I am being like this and I say I am being like nothing, because I am not talking to her. She offers a dishonest state of why it was good to break up (I say dishonest because nothing says you don't believe what you are saying by saying something provocative to someone who doesn't want to hear from you) and I say that I don't want to talk about it. I blocked one email address, so she emailed me from three more.

There have been fleeting moments of okayness - went to Weston with colleagues/friends. But also yesterday I ducked out of a work social because it all felt a bit overwhelming.