[196/365] full power

At the end of my work day I was talking to my manager (he finally helped me sort out train tickets for my work trip to London next week that aren't completely ridiculous: it'll still be a long day but not like the one I had to have a month ago) and he said he'd just been talking to my grandboss and, uh, going with that analogy there's like an equivalent of him on the other half of the team, like a siblingboss, other offspring of the grandboss? someone who isn't responsible for me but I work with her a bunch...anyway, they were apparently all saying how great I am, how I've jumped right into things and gotten a lot done.

I was extremely glad to hear this because I feel like I've gotten nothing done; I feel like after two weeks of new-job bewilderment we all got covid and my attention span was down to seconds -- seriously, I was fine if I had like an e-mail to answer or a meeting to go to, something right the fuck in front of me, but the second I sent the e-mail or finished the meeting I was adrift again. And it wasn't like a brain-fog covid thing directly, it was mental and emotional distress that the worst had happened. So it didn't go away when I stopped having covid. And the mortgage buyout is going along (it's fine but it's still taking up a lot of brain space), and all the other stuff in the world, and things still aren't back to any kind of "normal" in my household but also there's nothing to say about it but also I feel weird talking about normal stuff...

So yeah I've felt terrible and unproductive and stressed about it all week, and I told my manager this in this conversation but he's like "well I think you're doing great, if this is what you're like now I look forward to seeing you at full power." Ha, maybe I should've set lower expectations! But he's been lovely and encouraging all along, as has everyone else, and I'm glad I can be honest with him about my struggles because having to pretend I'm not struggling is another well-known source of anxiety for me.