Why I feel so desperate

I had a discouraging conversation with a colleague at work about moving. It's someone that I trust completely not to say anything. The thing is, as I expected, she had no idea what the reaction will be. It was not helpful and also discouraging. I guess I wasn't really expecting it to be helpful, though it would have been nice to hear something positive. Not that she discouraged me from doing it, it was just that the conversation was discouraging. There are factors I am not considering, because I am so desperate to move, which my colleague pointed out. Factors like my hours and the ability or inability to hit them, the economy, the fact that one person in our group (her) already telecommutes, the fact that management has to approve it even if the two people I work for say okay. At least on that front I can say that the head of my practice group has my back. He would stand up for me, if he is okay with it that is. But he would stand up for me regardless if something happens around here (like more lay offs etc.). I know he would. I am pretty sure he is the reason that I didn't take a pay cut in April. And then there is the issue of timing, perhaps the most important of all. These things I am not considering.

I feel desperate about this and that is not a good way to go into it. It's not good to formulate a plan out of desperation but I feel like that is what I am doing. I feel so desperate that I am getting ready to lay it all on the line. After the conversation I had today with my colleague, I really have to take a step back and put some thought into how exactly to best go about this in order to achieve the outcome that I want without damaging my working relationships with these people. Because I do after all want to keep this job despite any complaining I may do about it.

But the way that I think about this is the way that I think about most things. If I find out I have cancer again tomorrow, what will I have wished or what would I have done differently? I think about nearly everything this way. Maybe I will post a list one day of the things that I would have done differently and then I'll go ahead and do them (you know, since I am lucky enough to have the possibility to actually change those things). Anyway, I think anyone who has been through what I have been through, and early in life, probably looks at life through that lens now and then. If I find out I have cancer again tomorrow, I will have wished that I had spent more time with family and my closest friends, who happen to be not in Chicago. I will have wished that my job was not the centerpiece of my life and that I actually had a life. I will have wished I had been happy. That's the real kicker for me. I have wasted so much time being unhappy. This is how I figure out in advance what my regrets will be, by asking the question of what I would have done if I had only had the opportunity. I've never been able to escape the idea that I will get cancer again no matter what my doctor says. I can't escape it. My time is limited. I know we all know that, but I know it in a way that a lot of people don't understand. It makes me feel desperate and sad. It's not okay for me to stay in Chicago and continue to be unhappy. It just isn't. I have to make this happen or I will regret tremendously the time that I lost. Time that would have really meant something to me.