Miss me?

Profuse apologies for depriving you of my daily wit and wisdom for my prolonged and unintentional absence this past week. To say the last 10 days have been stressful would be like saying Obama made a small donation to the economy today. I haven't had much time (to do anything interesting) or energy (to post about what little I did do), not to mention that I was in a less-than-cheerful mood for most of the past week.

Last Wednesday I had to lay off the two ladies who work for me. Over the phone. Do you know how much I loathed doing that over the phone? It was an awful way for it to happen but I wanted them to hear it from me and a call was the only way to make sure they didn't hear it elsewhere first. Those two ladies were the reason that my working-from-home situation worked. I always said that if I lost them, I wouldn't be able to do what I do and it's true. I can't. The days I have spent without them have been the longest, most scattered days of my entire career. And beyond the million ways they made my work-life successful, I just genuinely liked them. They are amazing ladies and I am sad at the thought of not talking to them every day anymore.

I can't decide what is worse - to be stabbed in the back so suddenly (as the ladies were last week) or to wait patiently, with my head on the chopping block, for the lay off guillotine to chop my head off too. My job is disappearing, no doubt about that, but nobody will say when. And so I wait in that limbo-land of being almost-but-not-quite unemployed.

Hindsight is always 20/20. I look back now and I realize I should have left a long time ago. Like when we moved to Indiana. Or at the very least, when we built the house and it was clear that we were sticking around. But I loved my job, I loved my ladies and my boss, and I especially loved the flexibility that working from home offered me. But now I am almost-but-not-quite unemployed and I have ZERO network for finding a new job. I spent the first few days last week kicking myself (figuratively, of course!)and despairing of ever finding meaningful work again. Pity, party of 1.

Then last Thursday night, as I spent my fifth sleepless night in a row racking my brain for ideas, I started to think of all the things I wanted to be growing up and how I am not a single one of those things today. Why the heck not? Maybe it's not too late to make one of those childhood dreams come true.

And that is when I realized that what I saw as a kick in the teeth might actually be an opportunity from God. Even in the midst of this trial, I am one blessed lady. I have a paycheck coming in for at least a few more days. I have received many kind phone calls and emails from colleagues and vendors who care and are concerned about me. I am not in danger of losing my home just because I lost my job. I will not starve to death by any stretch of the imagination (although I could stand to tighten that belt a bit). I can afford to go to school if I feel like it. Or take a part time job to get experience in a brand new field. In short, I can go ANYWHERE from here. How many people get the chance to say that?

I know this turned into kind of a long post, so if you are still reading, thanks for hanging in there while I rambled along. I am sure that I will have more bad days, when I'm feeling less than grateful for the extra days at work or for the blessing of starting over but I am determined to keep my focus on the good that can come from this and I will count my many, many blessings every day.