Some babbling about the last months, the insanity is finally boiling down.
Since autumn of last year, things at work got increasingly stressful, but we were able to cope. Went to Fuerteventura in March to recharge, and in April, I fucking finally made it to Lead Concept Artist, after struggling against some bad management for the better part of a decade. Shortly after that, things started to escalate with ferocity, and our move came right on top of that.
The move is behind us and everything went well, but the situation at work became unbearable, especially for me. I finally took the decision to end my time with my employer of twelve years and have a new beginning elsewhere. I thought I'd seen it all in those twelve years, but with every week being worse than the week before, I slowly slid into a state of mind where nothing but work existed. We didn't even do overtime, it was "just" the feeling of the team and myself being consumed by the arrogance and ignorance of management people unfit for their roles, and ultimately, being confronted with the realization that I can't do shit about it, no matter what I do. Being a little woman didn't help either, as fucked up as it sounds.
Now it's all behind me since Thursday and I have two weeks of leftover vacation/overtime left before I start at my new employer. I'm looking so much forward to leave all the stupid politics games behind me, and while every place has its own set of issues, at least the insanity of what we experienced over the course of this year will be gone.
We actually had a second vacation on Fuerteventura only two weeks ago, but as we weren't able to re-schedule, our flight left on the morning after I handed my notice in and had to tell my team. It took six out of eight vacation days to come down from the chronic stress of the year, and only now that everything is done and final, the recuperation phase starts.
My brain is in complete idle mode currently. It's not like burnout, it's "just" idling around and happy with that. Feels like it enjoys having less electrical activity for once. Now would be the perfect time for Fuerteventura, but eh. Learned something about vacation scheduling for next time.
The photo above is from this recent vacation. I took the infrared camera and the "red plants" Kolari filter on board and filmed the takeoff. We were taxiing to the runway when this Lufthansa A340 took off right beside us, and with the red grass and the stormy sky, it came out like these fancy flickr-insta retro-hip colorgrade-things. x)
I hope to get some drawing mojo back in the next days :)