Frustrated: A rant about my time (or lack thereof)

I just got back home from interviewing with a family for some evening child care. We hit it off and I start tomorrow. I have been taking on as much extra work as possible in preparation for a (hopefully) upcoming unpaid internship. Earning as much cash as possible and padding my saving account has become a priority; if I'm not going to have a regular pay cheque for a three month stretch, it really has to be.

While I'm excited and relieved that I will have some extra cash flow, it definitely felt like I was slamming the door on anything resembling a social life for the next month. I am now either in class or working every night until my Christmas holidays. I may have the occasional Sunday to myself, but no weeknights and no Friday/Saturdays.

It certainly is a frustrating prospect to look at the next month and see such little time for myself. I have been thinking it would be fun to start doing yoga, or running again in the evenings, but when on earth will I be able to fit that in? When will I have time to read or write? When will I have time to spend with these things that I want to be exploring and creating? I knew that making this career change would be hard, and that it would require sacrifice, but ugh. It is a bleak and depressing looking month for me.

Even more frustrating is trying to find time to see friends and do fun, social things. Personal sacrifice I can deal with - not doing anything fun with my spare time because my spare time needs to be used to make these things happen. I can suck it up and do that for the next month. But it really isn't a nice thought that I basically have to tell my friends "nice knowin' ya! I'll see you in 2013." I don't think it is fair to make them cater to my suddenly full schedule and my time is no longer flexible, at all.

I guess all that is to say that this is hard. Making a change in life, a big change, a HUGE change, is really, really hard. I don't get to do what I want to anymore. All my time, money, effort - it is all being focussed on making this one thing happen. I know that it won't always be like this (PLEASE someone tell me it won't always be like this) but right now, it feels pretty awful.

Just to end on a positive note, I will mention this: I went for a run yesterday for the first time since September, and it felt GREAT. Today, mind you, it feel like all my muscles decided to be jerks at the same time, but yesterday it felt awesome. I love the feeling of having actually USED my body. SO - I'm going to try to get back into the morning yoga/running. While my evenings may be fully book, no one has yet laid claim to my mornings. 6am - I will see you tomorrow.