Getting the social back into social media

Or more accurately, getting old friends to offer their $.02 because my head's in a muddle.

THE JOB

I have a new job... yay?  It's more money and it's a growth field, so that's good... but having gone as far as I can in tech writing, I've busted myself all the way down to a starter in compliance.  And after 25 years as a tech writer, I'm wondering if I'm capable of doing something else.

Furthermore, it's a short term contract.  Ordinarily I avoid those like the plague, but I've been given the name of two different contracts we can be moved to when this one ends (if this one ends; the last time I was on a contract with a solid end date, that date got pushed off for over two years.)

So.  That's a thing.  I start March 16 (because it's an internal move within my company and you have to start at the beginning of a new pay period.  March 1 is too early and April 1 is too late, so....)

Frankly, I'm scared.  I'm doing it, but I'm scared.

And then there's...

THE CAT

Gytha is nearly 14 years old now; old enough that her arrival was heralded on my LJ.  I think she's gone senile; I know she's gone profoundly deaf.  She still grooms (rather badly), eats (far more clumsily than she used to), drinks, and even played a little. 

But she rarely jumps and has taken to circling us like a little shark, having forgotten not to walk near human ankles.  If you pick her up she purrs and kneads... but most of the time we find out she's there when we accidentally kick her while we walk.  I had to shut her in the bathroom for a little bit yesterday to keep her from breaking my neck on the basement stairs while I did laundry.

She won't take arthritis medicine; she's not interested in the pill pockets and just pilling her was an ordeal for everyone involved. 

But the worst is that she no longer sleeps out somewhere soft in the sun.  She's taken to sleeping underneath one of the book cases.  This keeps her from being attacked in her sleep by Watson and Sherlock, who are complete shits to her, but...

When is it time?  What indicator shows that she is truly tipping into suffering?