I started my new job last week. Shit, it’s hard. Not the work -- the work is boring, so far. But the rest of it is excruciating. Being the new person, not knowing who people are, not knowing how free I am to come and go, not knowing if it’s OK to eat at my desk, not knowing who to ask about things, not even knowing if it’s raining since I can’t see any windows from my grim little cube.

I’m not questioning whether I did the right thing. I’m just feeling unhappy. I think it’s fallout from the change -- the same thing happened when I moved into my new house. Everything was fine and in fact looking rosy, but I was just desperately melancholy for the first few weeks. Then it lifted, but slowly.

The funny part is, I don’t remember this change-related depression having happened in the past. I’ve moved and changed jobs before. I don’t really have any strong emotional memories of those changes at all. Why didn’t those changes evoke the depression I’m feeling now? I‘ve come up with three possible reasons.

First, the job and housing changes I made in the past were not really choices. I changed jobs when I was sure I was about to be fired for drinking-related absences and hangover-related ineptitude. I moved when I was about to be evicted. In my past, changes were not a result of planning, weighing my options, and making a decision. Rather, changes were a function of flight and disaster avoidance. As long as I avoided the disaster, I considered myself ahead of the game.

The second reason is that I was always hungover. I’ve realized I may have used hangovers as a tool to distract me in difficult situations. If I was seriously concerned about puking or passing out, I wasn’t much worried about whether each person at my new job liked me or not.

Third, and this is the most depressing to realize: I didn’t really give a shit before. I cared more about the latest scandal in my social circle than about the job where I spent most of my waking hours (well, maybe not -- I had a lot of waking hours).

This time, I’ve made my own choices, I’m not feeling ill, and I care a lot. I think what I’m feeling about my new job is a little like post-partum depression. I’ve spent more than nine months wishing for the baby and planning for the baby, and now the baby is here and the baby has no windows.

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