One Year

A year ago today, my life changed drastically.

At the end of the work day, I was called into a manager's office, and told that my three year tenure with the company at which I was employed had come to an end.  Immediately.  They watched as I packed my office, escorted me down the elevator to a taxi, and sent on my way, with decisions to make about signing documents and severance.

I did a lot of crying, consulted a few trusted advisers, gritted my teeth, decided to take the money I was being offered, and choose to see this as God's hand moving me forward.  Two days later I left for a two week road trip with my dad, and a few weeks after that I announced that I was going to pursue nursing as a career.

A year later, I can tell you that my life, though it looks nothing like I thought it might, is better for the end of my tenure at the company that my roommates referred to as "the soap opera." 

But there remains painful twinges, as I think about that day.  It's a bit of a humiliating thing to have a job end that way.  Escorted out as if you can't be trusted.  No chance to say goodbye to the friends you've shared the days with for three plus years.

It wasn't the start to a new path that I would have chosen.  It's yet another thing in my life where I have to look at it and say, "even with that, I trust you, Jesus."

It has ushered in new and unexpected things, and today, as I ponder them, as I ponder this year of healing, I feel just a bit melancholy and sad.  It's different than I would have chosen, because so rarely do my plans seem to be in synch with God's, but it's good.  Today I'm thinking about the losses of this year of deconstruction, and praying for the healing and rebuilding that has begun.

Grey

The sky keeps spitting white stuff today.  Nothing sticking to the ground like yesterday, but cold and damp white stuff.

It's not helping that my neck and back tightened up painfully overnight for some reason, and left me with a headache to fight off too.

I have a government employment insurance session to attend this afternoon.  One that may or may not be fully necessary, but is somehow mandatory. 

It's one of those things that highlights, somehow, this season of deconstruction.  Months after I lost my job, and am finally within reach of a new position, my government benefits kicked in a few weeks ago, and last week I got a letter informing me that I needed to attend this session.  And, now, after a crazy summer of studying, after a wild and ongoing emotional ride, going to a session like this is almost like having the deconstruction of my life waved in front of me like some sort of macabre flag.  "Look, your life looks like nothing you ever expected!"

I feel grey today.  Not particularly down, not black and blue.

Just grey.

Blah.

Like the skies outside.

Like the boredom of a government information session.

So, I'll take the train, and read a book, and maybe some scripture, and I'll look for color amidst the grey.  I'll make the effort to focus on the the things that remind me of joy and life.  And I might just come home from the session and spend the evening taking a bubble bath or sipping a big mug of tea.

Procrastinating

I am procrastinating this morning.

The big "to do" item on my list for today is to fill out some government paperwork online.

A process that the website promises will likely take at least an hour.

So I'm procrastinating.

It's the first thing I'm going to do.

After I empty the dishwasher for my parents.

And make a cup of tea.

And eat a pumpkin cookie (I made another batch yesterday.)

After I read a few blog posts from around the world.

And after I stop in here, to mention that I'm procrastinating.

But it's the first thing I'm going to do.

Really.

Monday, 2:45

Monday, 2:45 p.m.

Things this day has held:

• Lazyish morning, feed the cat, clean the litterbox at the house-sitting gig.
• Brunch with a long-time friend at a diner restaurant she recently discovered that uses mostly local suppliers
• Brunch included stuffed french toast - stuffed with gouda and Canadian Bacon
• A ride to mom and dad's
• research, research, research, as I work on moving a few things I'm dreaming about into a realm of concrete reality where I can discuss them more openly
• job applications.  I'm kind of sick of job applications.
• one pre-interview clarification call on a resume I sent out, with the hint that they may call back to offer an interview
• Starbucks application - to be honest, right now, the idea of working in a coffee shop is highly appealing.  I just like the idea of doing something totally different for a while.  But seriously, the Starbucks application (the basic barista one, not the managerial one which I also filled out) is one of the most involved applications I've ever encountered.  It included all kinds of work/personality questions and took probably 20 minutes or more to complete.
• A little bit of reading here and there.
• And now, now it's time to break for a snack (probably the leftovers from this morning's brunch date) before sending off a few more resumes.
• the arrival of a reference letter from my previous employer that was decidedly more balanced and positive than I'd expected it to be, based on my experience with that particular person.

I'm sort of forcing myself to be disciplined on the spending time sending off resumes thing.  It's definitely not how I'd rather be spending my days.  So, I'm making sure I spend a couple hours a day tackling that, and then giving myself lots of grace besides...

And, this week, I've scheduled time to see friends or family nearly every day.  That will help make the job-hunting more bearable, I think.

Daily 5 - Day 295

Today's Daily 5:

1. I bought decent walking shoes tonight.  With this new life reality of taking transit everywhere, I've been doing a lot of walking.  I've been doing even more walking than usual this week because of the location of where I'm house sitting, and I've noticed that my favored shoes just aren't cutting it.  My feet and knees HURT.  I've had problems with the tendons in my feet and calves since high school, and bad shoes are definitely not helping with all this extra walking.  So, tonight I caved and spent money, even though spending money when I'm not employed kind of makes me want to throw up.  My mom talked me into buying shoes, reminding me that it would be a better idea to buy shoes sooner than later so that I don't damage the tendons and muscles and bones while I'm busy walking all over the city in bad shoes, and she even offered to drive me to the shop where I could buy appropriate shoes for a decent price.  I'll wear the shoes around indoors for a day or two to make sure they're going to work, but I'm optimistic that this pair will be the one I'll keep, and they were quite a bit less than I would have been ultimately willing to spend.
2. I spent some more time dreaming about the future, and what I want to do with my life today.  A plan is slowly taking shape within me.  Something that somehow just feels right.
3. Errands with my mom tonight, and dinner with both of my parents helped a bit with the feeling of spending too much time alone with my thoughts and not having enough human interaction.
4. I again managed to send off quite a few resumes, and I have some ideas on tap for where else I want to send some over the next several days/week.
5. I've only slept at my grandma's house once in the last three weeks or so.  I realized today that I'm starting to miss my own bed, but that I'm not at all missing that location.  I've not had nightmares in all these other places I've stayed.  And, to some extent, the fact that I've flexibly stayed and slept in a whole variety of other locations over the last three weeks is encouraging to me.  I used to only be able to sleep in my own bed in my own room.  In the last three weeks I've slept in an SUV parked at a highway rest stop, at my parents house, three different hotels - including one very bad hotel cot, on a couch at the home my sister in law grew up in, at a relative's house, in the place where I'm house sitting, and at a friend of a friend's.  And I've actually slept, not just laid awake all night, in each of those locations.  That's a miracle to me, and a huge growth thing for me to acknowledge, and celebrate.

3100

3100 blog posts seems like a milestone.

I feel like I should have something profound to say.

(I never seem to have anything that feels profound to say when the milestone posts roll around.)

Instead I'm just going to acknowledge that I've written 3100 posts.  That I've been showing up here consistently for over 5 years now, and writing about whatever happens to be on my mind at the time.  And I'm going to talk a little about my day.

Today is just one of those days.

I sent out a pile of resumes, and I have a pile more to send.

I heard back from one place I applied yesterday, telling me that I was not going to be a candidate.

I did an errand or two with my mom.

I'm discovering the weird balance of being an introvert and needing human interaction.  Apparently my previous job, however I felt about it, was meeting a need for some human interaction.

I'm finding myself tired of myself the last few days.  Tired of being alone with my thoughts, and the battleground they can tend to be.

Tired, I think, of the ongoing neccessity to choose joy.

Tired of the deep internal wrestles I was walking through with God even before I lost my job and that tension was added to the mix.

And tired of too much time alone.

It's partly why I've been hanging out at my parents' house during the day.  That, and their internet access is better for job hunting than the access at the place I'm house-sitting.  Because they both work from home, I get a bit of human interaction as they come and go from their respective home offices.

Tomorrow I'm hanging out with a friend and her daughter for a while.  I think the plan is for us to go to the farmer's market together.  I'm flexible.  I'll just enjoy time with a friend.

I've been hesitating to set up times to see various friends during the day, always wondering if I'll get a call for an interview, or be starting a job and have to cancel.  I think I'm going to change that.

Since the majority of my job-hunting is online, I can be flexible in which hours of the day I apply myself to that (and I'm determined to apply myself to it for at least an hour or two a day or more.)

That means I can make time for friends.

Yes, I'll maybe have to cancel if a job or an interview comes up.  But I'd rather have those things to look forward to, than stare at empty days.  I'd rather feed my soul and be with people I love.

Because feeding my soul in that way seems wise.  And it makes the choice for joy just that much easier.  And it seems smart, somehow, to try to make what can be such a hard choice easier.

Some Days are Just Easier

Some days are just easier than others.

Yesterday was one of those days.

A day where things flowed.  It was sunny, I had an amazing coffee appointment with a new friend.  I sent out resumes and felt hopeful about them.  I knew deep joy and peace.  I felt like myself.  I laughed via email with a dear friend, and discovered a dream about the future deep within me.  I talked about twirling and tattoos and the fact that the word hope in Spanish is nearly the same as Italian, and a friend had encountered that translated word in a place she'd recently revisited in Malta.  I was laughing at the idea of ducks totally out of line, or missing entirely.

Today is a harder day.

A day where I kind of want to cry.  It's raining and cold.  I've been wrapped in a blanket since arriving at my parent's house this morning, eaten soup and a toasted cheese bun, and have my feet propped on the warm power adapter for my laptop, and I still can't get warm.  I'm having a flair up of some health problems.  I'm kind of lonely.  I'm thinking about routines and revamping life, and kind of want to scrap everything and run away, even though I know deep within me that that won't fix anything.  The dreams deep within have begun to be researched and I'm resigning myself to the knowledge that they likely won't be as instantly acted upon as I would like.  Where I'm sending out resumes but having a hard time not being fatalistic about the job hunt, even though I've really only been actually putting my resume out there for a couple of days.

And I'm having to remind myself that this is how life works.  That some days are just easier, but I'm responsible for choosing how I respond whether the day is easy or hard.   That I have to choose joy and life on the cold, rainy, lonely days just as much as on the sunny, warm, flowing days.  That just because it's harder and the circumstances seem huge doesn't mean that it's not still my choice.  That sometimes routines are important, and perhaps I should re-engage them.  But also that some need to go.  That discipline, a word I've hated for years, a word that has been used as a weapon against me, describing all of my failings, maybe isn't a bad thing in every situation.  That it might be a good thing here.

I'm having to remind myself that there are little things to celebrate even on the cold and lonely days.  That I'm inside and warm.  That I'm wrapped in a blanket.  That I am loved - by God and by friends.  That tonight I will get to join my house church for the first time in several weeks, and we'll talk and pray and enjoy each other's company, and meet with God.  That there can be hugs in this day - spontaneous ones, but that there are people around who I can ask for a hug as well.  That I'm housesitting, and thereby having a break from the challenges of life at Grandma's.  That yesterday was beautiful and that beautiful days will come again.  And that in between those truly beautiful moments, I can choose to find beauty, too.  To find joy and hope and life.

Some days are just easier, and today isn't one of them.  And that's okay too.  Because I'm choosing to celebrate God anyway.

I don't even have ducks...

While I was away, one of the stops we made was at a wonderful publishing house clearance bookstore in Grand Rapids.  While there I picked up a book by an author who has never yet steered me wrong.  Every book of his that I've read has been profound, and this one, which I read in the car on the remainder of the (long) drive home wasn't an exception.  This one was timely, too, as it's about finding one's calling, and, well, I'm unemployed and moving towards 30 years of age, and beginning to wonder if I shouldn't perhaps try to find a calling, or at the very least, a career, sometime soon.

In any case, I had the book with me today when I met a new friend for coffee.  After we'd shared a little of our lives with each other, I knew I had to share with her a passage I'd marked in the book.  (The book, by the way, is "The Echo Within" by Robert Benson.)  And then I had to laugh at how it's message was hitting me all over again too.

Benson writes:

I like my ducks in a row.  I like my t's crossed and my i's dotted.  I like, as the old revival song says, my old accounts to be settled.  I like for things to go the way we drew them up on the blackboard, to go according to plan, to be right on the money.

These are things I have to be careful about when I am trying to listen for the calling voice of God.  God does not seem to be particularly interested in whether or not my ducks stay in line.
(Benson, pg.141)

I had to laugh.  My calendar is quite literally blank.  All of the things I had planned are gone.  I like my ducks in a row.  I like the security of that.  Trouble is, right now, I don't even have ducks!

Daily 5 - Day 292

Today's Daily 5:

1. Hung out with family again
2. Discovered that there do seem to be a number of positions available that I would be qualified to fill
3. slow, lazy morning
4. going to get a lot of exercise house-sitting since the house is a 2km walk from the train station
5. thinking it will be a quiet evening of either reading or bubble-bath or both tonight.

You Give and Take Away

I cried during worship at my dad's church this morning.  I don't think that has ever happened before.  I'm not actually sure I've ever cried during a worship service.  You have to understand that tears don't flow easily for me, even now, all these years removed from depression.

But this morning I cried.

This processing the loss of my job is a weird thing.

Yes, I see it as a blessing.  Yes, it also sucks.

But this morning, I cried.

The line that got me was one from a Matt Redman song that has long been one of my favorites.  It's a song I fell in love with during depression.  A song that somehow echoed the cry of my heart in those times.  The cry that said, "even in these really dark spaces you, Jesus, are still worthy to be praised."  It's a cry that is resonating deeply right now.

But the lyric that drew tears this morning was this:

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

Because when I started this job, it was very much a gift from God.  And somehow, the ending of it is also very much in the timing of God.  And that is not always easy to reconcile.

And so I stood this morning as my brother led worship, and tried to sing, and settled for simply raising my hands and closing my eyes as tears came.

(Ironicly, if this had been a charismatic church that repeats a song a number of times as God moves through it, I'd have been in big trouble.  I'm fairly certain I would have moved from quiet tears, subtly swiped away as the song ended, to full out sobs, less easy to keep out of the line of view of those around me.)

You give and take away, and still, your name is blessed.