Thursday, August 2, 2012

All rolled together

Original Post: 7/26/12
Re-post due to blog breakage 8/2/12
-----------------------------------------------




I have a dear, dear friend faced with a more than difficult situation in the pregnancy she fought so hard to attain. We've been discussing this as it has been unfolding. Tears, anger, denial, and cold, hard, clinical facts, all of it. And she still has good days and bad days with it. Several weeks ago she reported she was a"hot mess." Two days later she was fine and thinking very carefully about ways to both honor her sad news and celebrate the happy parts of her pregnancy, without one taking away from the other. The conversation we had was how she is happy, sad, disappointed, grieving, excited, angry, and grateful all at once. And we discussed how this is like LIFE. Nothing is ever completely easy, or completely dark and twisty. Nothing is ever all good or all bad. It's always all rolled together.

I'm trying to embrace this as I look at me and my life moving forward: my relationships, my future, my choices, my good and less than good days, and my job prospects. My therapist is always very keen to remind me that seeing things as black and white means not seeing all of the gray shades in the picture, and that means resigning myself to not seeing the whole picture. I'm occasionally keen to block out that message, or make a face when he says that, but I recognize the wisdom therein.

As you might imagine, I have varying levels of success with seeing things as good and bad together, easy and hard, red licorice and black licorice in the same bag. (After all, I am the organization queen.) For instance, today it worked out pretty well for me to get up at a not obscene hour, eat breakfast, make a lunch, go to my part-time gig for 4 hours, feel productive, and then mosey around Boulder for a couple of hours getting little bits of things done - capricious pedicure, my quest for Popsicle molds, finding some healthy snacks for the house (settled on strawberries and jalapeno cheese sticks for those who wonder), and dropping off a prescription.




I can look at that and feel like I did things that were meaningful out in the world, personally satisfying, and good for my homestead. This kind of balance was . . . well, I wish I could say rare, but it was actually non-existent when I was holding down a full-time job that included running a remote region by myself and being on the road more than I was in my office . . . which was a bit sad since my home WAS my office. This is to say, there are many things about being unemployed that are GREAT.

 . . . And of course, there are several that are less than great.

I heard myself say today to the business owner I was consulting with, "Listen, I get it. you aren't used to being the bad guy, and you really, really liked being the team player that everyone liked and it's hard not to be in that position because you are working for yourself and sometimes have to make decision that don't make everyone happy. But, I'm sure there wee things at [your job] that you didn't like. Whatever it was. Hours, people, certain tasks. This is like every job. there is always some part of your job that you'd really rather not do. Running your own business is a job, and so there are going to be parts you don't like. "

Don't you love it when you can be wise for OTHER people but not yourself? Right.

So, here's the thing: being unemployed is a JOB. For me it's a job that involves devoting the larger part of my "working hours" to job searching, applying, networking, and interviewing. But there are other tasks such as: tracking sales in order to stay in budget, grocery shopping and cooking on said budget, exercising more than before in order to relocate that balance in my life, balancing my scant opportunities to make money with the seeking of potential opportunities, finding creative outlets in my cooking, photography, and writing, and going to therapy at least once a month to make sure I am being appropriately supervised in this new job I find myself in.

Honestly, this isn't the worst job description I've ever signed on the dotted line for. (No, that would be the kid I babysat 4 days a week when I was 14. He refused to flush the toilet and threw things at people as well as launching into frequent tantrums.) Like any job there are going to be tough days, days I want to close the door on, disappointments and frustrations. But there are also days where I feel accomplished, hopeful, aligned with my principles and core values . . . in other words, days where I am doing exactly what I know I should be doing, and doing it well. I had those days with my last employer . . . days where I knew I had done work that mattered, days where I knew I had contributed positively. But I also had days where I felt like I was being asked to jump through hoops, backwards, while standing on my head just because that was someone else's idea of what getting things done looked like.

Nothing is all good or all bad, I suspect - it's often in how we look at it that smudges it dark or colors it good. As Shakespeare says, "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." (Hamlet, if you're curious.)

I don't want to be preachy or speak for anyone else so I'll just talk about me (narcissism beats preachy by a nose!): often how grateful I am for what I have, how willing I am to admit hope and be optimistic, and how much faith I have that things are as they should be and that I am doing ENOUGH (or as Brene Brown points out that I AM enough, regardless of what I do or don't do, have or don't have) determines the relative goodness of something, not it's inherent properties. Doing laundry can be a boring chore, or a chance t make the bedroom smell like fabric softener and put clean sheets on the bed. Working can be a blessing or a necessity. My friend's dilemma and pregnancy can be an uncomfortable reminder that things don't work out the way we plan or a cause for celebration, and my continued quest for the right career opening can be stressful or an opportunity to value myself higher and hold out for something awesomely awesome.

On Monday, I was pretty miserable with this. I was mentally listing all of the things that discouraged and irritated me, and generally made me want to pull a blanket up over my head and give up. Witness:

  • It's been 7 months, what's to say it won't be 7 more?
  • I've had several near misses on actually landing job offers for positions I've interviewed for . . . this must mean I'm the weakest link.
  • Not being employed means making health decisions sans health insurance
  • I have enough money for food, bills, and the occasional trip to get frozen yogurt but not enough to do things like visit my peeps in Jersey, meet my bestie's (not new! It's been 8 months!) baby or go to my friend's wedding.
  • I also miss my brother and my sister terribly
  • Paychecks are nice . . . siiiiggghh
  • I worry people will think less of me because everyone so profoundly expected me to land a job within weeks of applying and here we are in the second half of the year with no job in sight. Oy.
  • I miss singing and performing and can't really afford expensive habits like that right now
  • I'm weary o answering people's queries and invitations with a non-committal, "Umm, I'll have to see what's going on then because it's really hard to plan ahead right now . . . "
  • I really miss working out with my trainer
That was Monday. Today I can see the value of what one friend refers to as my desert island time.
  • I've had 7 months where I've been able to examine, and really plumb the depths of, what happiness looks like for me and how to create and attract that to my life.
  • I've had some amazing almost job offers and opportunities to consider careers "outside the box" of things that I have aimed at before. I also know the not-hiring of me in those circumstances were about organizational rifts, not about me. I know I am interviewing well.
  • I have been insanely healthy (not my usual thang so this is big) and so the hard health decisions have been few and far between
  • I work from home all the time in this job. I can also work from the library, the coffee shop, and even within a lunch date at Panera while my friend is doing homework and we are both enjoying sandwiches. 
  • I have enough to cover the basics, and after 7 months of not working, that is saying something. Re-learning how to budget strictly and make choices means I'm happier with what I DO have than I have been in a long time. this reminds me of when I was dirt poor in college (like, 2 jobs every semester, at least, and three in the summer, with babysitting and house sitting thrown on top) and said to a friend (who I am still proud to call friend!), "When I don't have money, it's typically not an issue because I just don't want as much. The problem is when I have more money than I planned and then want a lot of thing at once.

    The psychology of decision making is complex enough that I have several friends from grad school that have made careers from it. I'm wary of boiling it down to a pop psychology nugget but research in this field suggests I am not making this up and that there are many cases where having more to choose from leaves us less satisfied with the decisions we settle on.
  • I have missed people and places and events that I regret and wish I didn't have to . . . but also more than ever, I have palpable evidence of how loved and surrounded by sincere caring and support I am. It's new for me to be at peace with that, to see myself in that light, to accept help and have some sense of being worthy of the love and attention. As Heinlein says, "this is a goodness.

    I am loved and I am lovable, and knowing it means I have some hint of a sketch of a blueprint of what love is and means to me.
  • I'm learning that my attachment to plans are often a symptom of not feeling secure enough to be what I am, do what I need, and walk boldly. If I'm too steeped in a plan then it is worth at least taking my temperature and seeing if I'm suffering from some thinly veiled insecurity. And even if that's not the case it's still NECESSARY to remind myself that my plans don't actually get shit done (plans don't accomplish things! People do!) and also that planning is just another way of saying "expectation" and that expectation leads to attachment, and attachment leads to suffering.
  • I took a walk in the middle of the day yesterday. It as the perfect time - early enough in the day to not be too hot, late enough in the morning to sidestep blood sugar issues. Working out when and how I want to means I'm more apt to do it because I'm not talking myself into stopping at the gym at 8pm as I'm driving home after a 14 hour day. 
  • I have a sense of my identity outside of what I "do." I DO lots of things. I throw amazing tea parties for 5 year olds. I get babies to sleep and coax smiles out of them. I cook. I write. I hike. I organize offices. I lesson plan for tutoring. 
  • I have enough peace of mind in my insufferable know-it-all head to have the space in my heart for a little faith. It's still work for me - I'm just not gifted in this realm. But, I believe in enough good in the world to know I believe in something. 
  • I have enough time in almost every day for all of the ingredients of what happy looks like for me. Good and healthy food (mostly homecooked), doing something that makes a difference, connection with friends (emails, texts, Skypes, Panera dates, hiking, what have you . . . ),working out, time spent with my person, enough sleep, music, photography, laughter, processing time. This means . . . I got to watch every episode of Grey's Anatomy on time this spring, if I wanted to. It means I get to write and re-teach myself to read music. It means my laundry can be done on time . . . though it still often isn't.
  • I know myself sososososo much better these days - flaws, my need to process in my own special way, sometimes less than well-contained ADD and all.
  • I am letting go of the notion of PERFECTION as being equivalent to WORTHINESS. This is, shall we say, an ongoing project for me. (Ahem) And it probably always will be. I'd also bet all of the money I DON'T have that this will be a major theme in the blog moving forward . . .


On the numbers alone, the positive outweigh the negatives in this, my new job. (13 vs. 10!) But this is also what my brother calls, "comparing apples to NOT apples." The characteristics of the items on the top list isn't the same as those on the lower list. The top list is about convenience, societal norms, and boxing things up neatly. The lower list is about leading the life that's good for me . . . even, and sometimes especially, when it's neither convenient nor easy. It's about being healthy, and not just physically. It's about setting myself up for success beyond what looks good on a resume, and it's about what this blog set out to do, back in the day.

That list is about high-quality calories, maybe not fancy, but the kinds that don't leave room for empty ones.

I can't promise to never have another bad day with frustrations, low self-esteem, and taking things out on myself when it comes to the disappointing and downright discouraging cycle that is job applying. I can say I know there are always hard days at work, and pledging to see this as a job, and therefore neither all good nor all bad, is my goal.