The Young and The Restless | Navigating first-day nerves and vicious coathangers

I have learned a healthy respect for the act of getting out of my comfort zone, having experienced the benefits of doing such time and again in my four-plus decades on Earth.

I spent four and a half years quite comfortable at my last workplace, but was recently dangled a tasty career carrot.

Things were changing where I was, and though there were many reasons to stay, there were more to take the opportunity.

I’ve learned to trust the universe in times like these because throughout my entire working life, opportunities — great ones — have been perfectly timed to present themselves at the right moments.

But, I think getting out of your comfort zone gets harder the older you get.

Or does it get harder the more responsibilities you have? I guess they come part and parcel with ageing in most cases anyway, so same-same.

What if I make a wrong decision and can’t feed the three little mouths I have to feed? What if I can’t pay my mortgage and I have to sell our home? What if I can’t pay my bills? What if I make myself miserable, stressed, exhausted — how will that affect my kids?

I’m a fairly indecisive person at the best of times, but every now and then I make a choice easily and definitively.

This was one of those times I arrived at my decision confidently. Yet, as sure as I was I’d made the right one, it still didn’t allay my deep-seated anxiety leading up to my starting date.

And just as I trust the universe for the gifts it offers, I also listen to its warnings.

I intentionally left the weekend before I started free so I could make the transition calmly, no hanging washing out at midnight and making school lunches a few minutes later the night before like I’ve so often found myself doing on a Sunday night after a jam-packed weekend.

During the weekend I dyed my hair so the colour was fresh on my first day, but at some point during the product application a glove must have split, so my fingers and nails were stained black, looking like I’d been working under the bonnet of a car and had no industrial soap to scrub it off.

Okay, no biggie, I’ll just paint my nails and you won’t see the 50 shades of grey. (You could still see it on the surrounding skin.)

Then I woke Sunday with an unexpected and quite ferocious cold.

I’m not going to have to call in sick my first day, am I?, I worried.

Thankfully, my nose had magically stopped running by Monday morning; my first day.

My new hours had me starting more than an hour earlier than at my old job, which I knew was going to take some reorganisation and getting used to, but I thought I’d left myself plenty of time to get myself and the kids ready and see them off on the bus.

And I would have, except I didn’t allow extra time for all the things that were about to go wrong, to go wrong.

I went to grab some brand-new pants off a clothes hanger in my wardrobe and snap, the hanger broke, with a shard flying right towards my eye, making contact directly underneath it (luckily) leaving a nasty red mark on my cheek.

I jumped in the shower, only to realise the water was overflowing the base when I felt myself standing in almost ankle-deep water. The shower was blocked!

With shampoo still to wash out of my hair, I couldn’t exit immediately, and, by the time I did, my bathroom was flooded.

I had to use almost every towel in the vanity to absorb the soapy sea, and then had to chuck them immediately in the machine for the quickest cycle, because we all know how smelly a water-soaked towel becomes after eight or so hours of sitting in its own moisture.

So then I used some extra unplanned time hanging those out and pouring drain cleaner into the shower drain.

I went to pull on my brand-new pants I’d gotten off the now broken hanger and found the button must have only been sewn on by a single stitch when it popped straight off without even being placed under any pressure.

I’d bought a whole heap of new clothes for my new role, as I wore a uniform at my last job and never really had to think about what I was going to throw on, so I cautiously headed back to my wardrobe and the violent hangers within it.

But, after wasting more time trying half my clothes on, I wore none of the new ones and ended up leaving a bed full of garments that would have to wait until after my first shift to be put away.

At this point, I felt like the universe was screaming a warning at me.

Had I really made the right choice? Why on Earth was this all happening today? Of all days, why this day?

In the end, I got out my door on time, but, when I arrived at work, I couldn’t get in its door.

I very nearly gave up, drove home, and called the real estate agent to put the house up for sale.

I was feeling defeated and it was only 8am.

Alas, once that door opened, so did the one to my new career.

Three weeks later and the anxiety is dissipating.

I realise now it was a poor use of my energy worrying about stained skin and the ‘right’ outfit — none of that mattered. Does it ever if you can do your job?

I’m still a hot mess trying to get out the door every morning and juggle significantly more working hours than I was used to, but I’m getting used to it and moving into a new zone of comfort.

My faith in the act of doing so might one day soon be restored.

I highly encourage others to step out of their familiar, too. But, if you do so on my advice, I will not be blamed for rogue snapping coathangers and blocked shower drains.

Bree Harding is a News journalist and single parent to three teenage sons. She loves music, adventure and creating.