Twenty-one months ago I did something that I needed to do months, possibly years before. I landed an awesome job, one that led me to meet incredible people and work for the best boss I have ever known. This was a job full of possibilities and days full of fun. Yes, I said it, FUN. This job was fun and it was everything I wanted and I was never going to leave, the end.
Life has a way of throwing you lessons out of left field, most of the lessons I have no desire to learn. So “Hello life! Stop with the lessons already”. How about throwing me a cooking class, tap dance lessons or even singing lessons. Not these spur of the moment, hey your entire life is now up in the air kind of lessons. My heart can’t take many more of those.
A few months ago I learned that things you love can be taken away for no reason what so ever. So the job I love was ending, I knew it was coming and it shook my foundation. This is not a good time to lose a job, if there ever was a good time, this is definately NOT one of them. They gave us verbal notice in the middle of June, in the middle of my awesome Summer. In turn, my Summer turned a little on the dark side. There is no way around it, I was depressed. But something happened to me during June. I let myself mourn until the first of July and then I sprang into action and sent out my resume on a mass scale. I have never applied for so many jobs in my life. Then I waited. And the phone didn’t ring. My inbox was still full of the same old crap; facebook updates, emailed jokes that I don’t read half the time but on the job front there was silence. Until one day I received a call from an employer that is listed in Forbes as one of the top places to work in the U.S.
GULP! I had an interview, only told my loved ones, the ones I trust because I knew they would give me the positive energy I needed to get through what ever it was I was going to have to endure. And boy did I endure some shit. There was this unbeilievably long and down right scary interview. The interview that I NAILED! I walked out of that 25 story building knowing that I gave one hell of an interview, easily the best interview of my entire career. (Can I call this a career? I guess 10 years in the field gives me that right?) So I walked to my car and I said a prayer. The same prayer I have been saying every day since. That and a lot of waiting. No phone calls came, email was the same shit and I was starting to wonder what if? And those what if’s were getting pretty scary.
I did research on unemployment benefits which only made my world more gray. Have you ever checked to see what you qualify for on a weekly basis if you lost your job today? Don’t do it, it will only make you question why you have paid so much into the system to then be handed a check that would pay your monthly grocery bill if you are one of the lucky ones. Then there was a really dark day that made me look into getting government assistance – food stamps. My unemployment benefits would have disqualified me for most, if not all assistance available. WOW. Wow. The days were now getting really dark for me.
I once lived in darkness for too many years and knew I didn’t want to go back to that place. The cool part about this story is that I didn’t have to go back. This time there were people walking beside me the whole time with a bright light shining right in my face, demanding that I stay focused. At times it was Madi, telling me that she was saying a little prayer “Momma I hope you get that job.”, and always there was Ryen. He never let me stay in that dark place very long. He was there for me, he listened to me, he gave me a reason to hope and to believe that things were going to be ok. This is something that I still find amazing. Amazing that I am in love with a man who can pull me out of that place we all go to sometimes. Some people go to that dark place and never come back, some stay for a while and make every one around them miserable, some people are fortunate enough to stay for only a day or two at a time so as to never be consumed by it. Without Ryen I think I might still be there, without Madi I would never have had the courage to endure that grueling interview. I had to do it for her. I needed that job, any job, because I knew that darkness was getting close. October 3rd was closing in and there were still no calls, no emails and I was wondering if AT&T had started blocking all calls from potential employers.
A couple of weeks ago Ryen picked Madi up from school and as they were walking into my office my private line rang. It is almost always my boss calling from next door to talk about changes to the reports I run or calling to ask me if I can cover something while she is out. But not on this day. On this day I got a job. I will be starting in October, I won’t miss a paycheck and the two people who helped me stay in the light were there to witness the call. It couldn’t have been a better moment. I want to say that I am lucky, that I am just plain lucky to have found a great job in a time when there are so very few jobs at all. I will not use the word luck. I earned this. I nailed that interview with my experience and my honesty about what I am capable of doing in my line of work. THAT is what landed me this great job. The lucky part is having two very awesome people to share the news with. Without them I would be different, a bad kind of different and for that reason I am the luckiest woman alive. They love me, I love them and they both shine so bright in my life that the dark moments are impossible to see anymore. I am aware that they are there but they are not really a part of me. Just life moments that I know will pass by. Such a huge difference in situations when comparing the last 8 years.
I am still mourning the loss of my wonderful job, my so very awesome boss and all the people that make work so much fun. And yet I am so grateful for things yet to come. The excitement is intoxicating at times, still pinching myself and staying very close to the brightest lights in my life. So to Ryen and Madi – Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! For believing in me and letting me know it each and every day. Thank you for reminding me how awesome you think I am, for telling me I am a good Mom, for telling me I am smart and for just being here with me. I love you both unconditionally. Knowing that you both feel the same makes everything okay. We are going to be okay. So the life lesson for me turned around – it’s okay to love unconditionally and it feels good to say it, to know it. That NO MATTER what happens or where you are in life, you are loved. No matter what you say on a bad day, or what you don’t say when you really should have said SOMETHING, to know that you are still loved? The best feeling in the world. This is the first time in my life that I have truly felt it, my heart misguided me in the past. Made me think there was that kind of love in my life. Turns out it was only a temporary kind of love, one with conditions and expectations. Not this. No, this love is what keeps people together, keeps them close – UNCONDITIONALLY.
