Thursday, April 28, 2011

This Post Has No Title...

Hello, World!
Good News! I'm not dead or in a coma or wandering the streets in some sort of amnesiatic haze.
I'm alive, I'm here, I'm in full possession of my mental and physical faculties. Well...I still can't touch my toes or cross my legs, but I've not been able to do for more years than I care to count, but...anyway.

For the past few months, I've been on a very strange journey. It all began at the beginning of February when I lost my job. Though I'd been with the company for over 8 1/2 years, my being "let go" was not all-together unexpected. There's only so many times you can be called on the carpet for other people's failures (while those other people stare at their shoes in silence) before you find yourself getting the "it's no reflection on you, but we are letting you go" speech.

Surprisingly (to me and everyone who knows me), I was ok. Better than that, I was good. Oh, I was as mad as (insert euphemism of your choice here), but I was ok. Excited, even. I didn't know what was going to happen next, and for the first time in my life, I felt like ANYthing could. It was awesome! And, it lasted approximately 6 weeks. ;)

For 6 weeks, I believed ANYthing could happen. I looked into going FT with my photography. I looked into finding a PT job with insurance and doing my photography PT to supplement. I looked into a new and exciting FT job. I even updated my profile on eHarmony. In the meantime, I visited friends, babysat my newest nephew as much as possible and planned a trip to Canada.

Then, reality began to reer its ugly head. Going FT with photography wasn't an option. I got no leads on PT jobs with insurance and the interviews I was being called on for FT jobs were neither exciting nor willing to pay me anywhere near what I was making previously. Oh, and (shocker) no one from eHarmony thought my profile updates helped much.

I went from feeling like ANYthing could happen to feeling like NOthing was ever going to happen...the guy I liked would always like someone better...and, well, my life was pretty much over.

Cheery, huh?

After about 8 weeks, I was presented with two job possibilities. Both seemed like a sure thing. One was back in the same industry I had worked in previously and about 10 minutes away from my home. The other was completely different and about 30 minutes away. You can guess which one I wanted. I bet, reading what you've read so far, you can guess which one actually made me an offer. I bet you could also guess that it wasn't the exciting kind of different I was hoping for and that it also required me to take a pay cut. Add in some sort of romantic rejection and it really would have been the perfect storm of disappoint ment for me.

*Not the exciting kind of new
*A cube instead of an office
*Twice the time to get home at the end of the day
*Location, location, location? ...the opposite of pretty
*A pretty sizeable pay-cut

I deliberated for two weeks before I accepted. I did so with a knot in my stomach and my fist threatening to rise up and shake in God's face.

I had many why's going through my head...many "if...then's". But, mainly, I was asking "Wasn't the whole me getting screwed out of a good job thing supposed to land me in something better?"

God promised that. I wanted to believe it. But, at the moment I accepted the job and for a week or two after, I didn't believe it. Not. One. Bit.

Good news! I was wrong.

Stay tuned...