The elephant in the blog

In a recent post, I mentioned that I anticipated making several blog posts to catch up on what's been happening in our lives because I would have time on my hands. Hahahaha. I honestly intended to, but the circumstances of our lives have become more complicated rather than less so, which has meant, on balance, that I haven't had time to blog. The biggest news is that, effective Sept 17, I have been laid off. In the meantime, I haven't been working. Instead, I have been shoving the tangible expressions of our home-life and history into boxes and moving all of our belongings into storage, patching walls, painting and scrubbing the mostly empty surfaces of the place we called home for a little over a year.

I don't think -- my departure from the family home at 19 aside -- that I have ever been so sad to leave a place, but with Dan still only working on contract and my job no more, we couldn't hold on to our little house any longer. The decision was made quickly and the majority of the move itself was accomplished in about a week. It reminds me a bit of when Dan and I got married... when I decide to do something, I can often be incredibly efficient. Once I settled on the groom, I had lined up a church, dress, caterer, band, and just about every other large detail of the day in about a week. :D Similarly, this move has been a whirlwind of just doing what must be done.

The job loss is a mixed bag, as you might imagine. The bad parts should be rather obvious: financial worries, doubts, feelings of failure, worries about finding a job when unemployment is at record highs, fear of starting over again. *sigh* I'm not immune to those things by any means. However, what I find more interesting is the rest of my reaction ... The reactions of the parts of me that remain hopeful and look forward to new opportunities. I guess this means that there is some degree of relief, some degree of resignation, even though I might not have chosen to leave on my own. There are three main things that come to mind that are positive factors in the midst of the worries and fears:

1. I've been missing working with people. That's not to say my coworkers were inhuman :P -- I mean with people I can see in person with cubicles or desks I can show up at. There are a couple of reasons for this, but the deepest of them is what my past work habits had meant. I tended to work insane hours. I spent so much of the last year connecting to California via the internet that I have didn't get out much. As a result, I made only 2 or 3 friends or acquaintances (of varying degrees) in the entire time I've lived in North Carolina. The lack of local friends makes it easier to relocate 2 hours away... but who wants it to be easy that way? I mean, if you know me well, you know I am more social than that. It's been difficult to feel so isolated, and I am definitely ready to get out of the house...

2. ... which brings me to the another good aspect: the ability to potentially leave work at work and have a home that is a haven from work's stresses and worries. I worry excessively anyway, but I found it incredibly difficult to not carry all of my stresses with me all of the time, because work was at home and home was at work.

3. Finally, if I am honest, I have to confess that over the past year or so, I had gotten to the point where I was deeply dissatisfied. The best way I can describe the "why" of the matter is that I didn't like the person I was at work anymore. I don't meant that I am inherently incompetent or anything, it was just that all of the particulars of the work setting and my personal situation, I think, brought out some of the worst in me. Rather than feeling the joy of the things I did well, most of the time I felt uneasy and worried. Again, this isn't a criticism of the company or the people I worked with, I think it was just what came from the convergence of difficult circumstances surrounding me during this most trying year.

Of course, I can also derive some comfort from the certainty I have now. I'm certain that I won't have the same job in the matter of days. I'm also sad about that and can't help be feel at times that the change represents my failure, but it's really kind of nice to know what the future holds: options I would never have considered otherwise.

I can't help but feel the timing is kind of bad... but there's never a good time for these things. I recall my Dad's job loss right about the time he had to bury his own dad. Now THAT was bad timing. Timing for us could be better, because Dan's job is still a non-permanent contract, we have huge expenses because of our transition between cities, and our benefits will run out with my job. In another way, though, the timing is great, because in the next few weeks Daniel's job will either solidify into something permanent in this area or not; the way that works out may influence where we choose to live now where I (or both of us, for that matter) ought to look for a new job.

So... I will update the blog. Among other things, I have lots of pictures from our visit with Steve and Jayne and the boys that I want to share. I did, however, want to name and talk about the elephant in the blog. It's name is "Change", and it's charging at me again.

On a lighter note, I thought I would thank two of my faithful helpers during the move process: Monte, who can be seen here on box security patrol, and MooMoo, who is pictured testing the suitability of a box for carriage of delicate contents. Monte kept the burglars and mice at bay, and MooMoo snuggled with me and with the boxes to make sure that she remained well-rested and ready for whatever the day might hold. The kitties also, when they were there with me, helped me not feel quite so very alone in the world. That was their greatest mercy.

I'll end on a musical note... We plan to attend our first rehearsal with the Choral Society of Greensboro tonight. I'm looking forward to that very much. There's no audition to weather, so we'll just show up and sing. Sounds like fun to me. :)