So. Now I’ve done it.

Having sat on this since October in the hope that I’d be able to tell my manager(s) and immediate team all in one go (and naturally failing due to scheduling chaos), I’ve finally caved and just emailed them all to tell them I’m quitting the job, going travelling for a bit, and moving back down to Brighton.

Couldn’t stop shaking when I pressed send. What the hell was I thinking? The economy’s gone to shit. I have a full-time job and a flat. Why not toss all that out of the window, bugger off to the States for a few months, and drop myself back in Brighton in the autumn with neither job nor flat lined up? (The fact that I can actually fund this right now doesn’t get a look in, and Mum would probably build an afterlife from scratch specifically to haunt me from it if I wasn’t doing something life-changing now. But the fear doesn’t care.)

I keep stamping on that fearful homebody I’ve turned into, to no avail. He’s a persistent little fucker, with a nifty line in terrified paralysis whenever anything interesting but risky pops into my head. (Interesting but risky covers anything from faking my own death and running away to a clockwork wombat circus in Walla Walla to saying hi to a stranger at something that’s actually meant to be a social event.) Between that and the crushing depression that inevitably follows when I succumb to that fear, which to some degree or other is most days, no wonder I’ve sat in this cosy little nightmare rut all this time. Something drastic was required.

So it’s real now. Quitting the job, travelling alone for a few months. Take that, ye wee cowrin panic beastie. (Also: fuuuuuuuuuuuuck) Obviously I’ll be looking for suggestions for places to visit, good food, must-see stuff in the USA. I’ll be over there June through August / early September (based around SDCC, a fortnight in San Francisco, then GenCon as a basic skeleton). I’ll post up a very sketchy itinerary later and doubtless keep bugging people for ideas. But for now, I’m trying to remind myself this was a good idea and to stop panicking please.