One fleeting, terrifying thought

So I've started work at another magazine. This time at a trade publication, and it's really not too bad. They've just moved into a swanky new building so I've got a great workspace, with a really comfy seat, free stationery and a Mac - except that it's still operating on OS 9. sigh. I kept pressing the F9 key to toggle the screens but it was futile. It took me the whole day to accept it - I kept pressing it despite knowing it wouldn't work unless it was in OS 10.

Anyway, getting up this morning was seriously torturous. I dragged myself out of bed feeling like I'd rather kill myself, and when I got in the shower, I suddenly had this one fleeting, terrifying thought - that the emotion I was feeling, that immense dread from waking up in the early hours of the morning when my body was forced to emerge from another realm where it was comfortable, to one where it was massively reluctant to function in - that dread, was something that I was gonna have to face almost every single day of my life for at least the next 30 years when I inevitably have to forsake my student existence and fully embrace the life of a working professional.

I was so overwhelmed by an uncontrollable wave of melancholy.

I'm not exxagerating, and I'm not being a wuss about getting up early. I'm not sure if it was because I was starting work at a new place and didn't know what to expect, or whatever else it was that I feared. It took all my rational energy to resist the sudden strong urge to jump out, put on my clothes, get on a train to where J is and just fling my arms around him, burying my face forever in his chest and never letting go. Never having to experience that dread again.

Weirdly, it's not like I don't like working. I was fine the minute I got to work - I loved that I was actually being productive. I read so many newspapers (even the Irish Independent and The Scotsman), absorbing all the headlines, and making up for neglecting it the past couple of weeks. I roamed the streets of Farringdon on my own during lunch, soaking in the marvellous sunshine and taking in the buzz of the working London middle-class dining at street cafes. I even had another fleeting thought that the prospect of working full-time in London...contrary to what I previously thought, is not so bad. The places I've worked at, most of them leave at the latest, 6pm. Unlike the hours I'm used to slogging back home where I'm always on call, always busy and could never arrange a dinner appointment. And I was an intern then. What would working full-time there be like?

I know the answer. And maybe that's why I had that momentary dread.

It is the combination of being excited that my career is finally going to take off at last - and the dread that it is actually starting, in full gear. Not like the semi-working, semi-student life I'm leading now, where even though I'm still writing and working, I always have the option of having a few days in a row where I can get up at 10am and later.

I'm actually going to get a salary, probably a mortagage, and the full stress of adult life will finally descend mercilessly on me.

And I guess I'm afraid I will disappoint myself. It's a remote possibly I don't even want to think of, much less admit. And I don't think it will happen.

But once that life begins and I'm going to face maybe that same dread, or a fraction of it, each morning, there's no turning back.

So maybe I should just go to bed earlier tonight. And hope that feeling doesn't revisit me again tomorrow.