Three lunches and a training session

Letting people help me is one of the most difficult and most healing experiences of my life.

Let me preface this by saying, I don't want to accept help. I don't want to need help. I hate help.

Which is all really ironic and hypocritical since I love, love, love helping others! Since graduating I have given to charities that matter to me, I have volunteered at nursing homes, educational programs, with young children, and registering voters. I still volunteer monthly with a program I believe deeply in.

There's no way to do this without sounding like I'm so awesome and I know it, but I used to donate more hours than I was required to students. I am always available to my friends who need editing done on essays, letters, or the like. I have written more reference letters than I can count, and used to be everybody's favorite person to help them move. I've carried a lot of couches. I have helped people learn a new skill, helped with homework, and babysat for free.

It makes me happy to be someone's ride, to cook someone dinner, or to buy a friend a drink. It is my pleasure. But more than the things I give what makes me most satisfied are the times a friend needed to talk, needed someone to listen, or needed help with something intangible. I like giving.

I tend to agree with my friend Eric, that no giving is completely altruistic. My experience has always been that when I can look at my day and point to something worthwhile I did (you know, point to it to myself. Not to others. That really would be bragging!) my day feels more rewarding. I give because doing it feels good.

This was never more evident than the day before I moved to Colorado. I had insisted we find a shelter or food bank to give my unused pantry food to. When I found one, I looked at their list of most needed items and saw they also wanted soap, shampoo, and other toiletries to offer their guests the ability to shower. Well, lo, I had a shopping bag full of travel sized toiletries from all my business trips. So I packed those up along with my bags of rice and canned goods. We had to stop what we were doing in the middle of packing and loading and drive a town over to make the delivery, and parking was not ideal. We had the wrong address. It took a hour to make this simple donation. But when we arrived someone dutifully took our grocery bags, but then we had to come inside to make the toiletries drop. The kid who took that donation went RUNNING to the back office, shouting, "Look!  Look! How many showers can we offer with this?!"

I was tired, and sweaty, and had been feeling kind of over-cooked with the moving process. I had fielded three really difficult good-bye meals, and one crying friend (who never, ever cries) breaking down in my kitchen. I was DONE. Stick a fork in me. But that 30 seconds of seeing the glee someone else had to be able to provide for those who had less, to know I played a role in it - that hour kept me going for the additional 12 hours it took to finish loading the moving truck that day.

People feel good when they can do the right thing. People feel confident and happy when they can help. People like to know they did something meaningful, supportive, and contributed to the greater good. There's something to being able to pay it forward. And as my mom says, water seeks its own level. So, I should assume that when people offer me their hands and help openly, it is because they love me and it makes them feel good. I know it can be that way, but often the reaction I have first is warriness.

Although I went out into the world feeling more alone than I was ready for, I. Did. It. How? Ummm, I had help. I had people I could lean on. I talk a good game about being so independent, but you know, it wasn't like I sold a kidney and then took care of myself. I had mentors. I had a family friend who loaned me money. I had friends who read my papers and helped me complete them (granted, this was part of my college's plan - we had to form committees of readers to pass our papers and take us through several drafts. And students who had already "passed" that area could be readers). I had people who hooked me up with a myriad of part time jobs so I could pay the college the sums that no 18 year-olds knows how to come up with and stay registered. I wasn't all on my own.

And that community was such that I could see exactly how to pay that forward. I helped other students get their papers read and passed. I helped students get their portfolios together. I did community service aimed at supporting students. And when I graduated and was working on campus and some student housing burned down, I offered up my extra bedrooms.

So, where did that feeling of "full circle" go? I left that close knit community and small campus and life went fast, and all of a sudden, here I am, nearly 13 years later, stymied by this situation. For a couple of weeks after my lay-off, I was fixated on a conversation I had had at a friends' house in NJ in May. One of them had quit her job the very week I was there. She and her wonderful wife had decided her happiness was more important than another couple of months of salary. And we were talking about my job and I said, "if there was another income in my house, I would have quit already."

And so, when the position was eliminated, all I could think is, "what does a woman with no other income in her house DO in this situation. I'm all alone."

What a ridiculous liar I am sometimes. I was never alone. Within a couple of days, I had people asking if they could be my reference. I've been offered the opportunity to consider a couple of different kinds of part time work. Friends have called to check on me. People who I haven't talked to in over a year have asked to pass along my resume to those they know. And not one, not two, but three people took me to lunch this week.

I had four amazing years of community support and the ability to give and receive help in college, and then 13 years of painfully unlearning that. And the horrible lesson I learned was, "don't trust people who want to give you something. You will be let down. There will be strings attached. It will get messy. You don't deserve anything offered. Keep your guard up." But this week, I had three lunches, and a training session that countered that.

So, the door I had slammed to all of that began to open. I told myself stories like, "well, I took her to a movie once when she was broke," and "I was invited to dinner and said I was going to bring 2 things, but then brought 6 things," or " I help her with something hard for her, and fun for me, every week." and then I shoved that kind of ledger-thinking away and said, "I want to see and talk to this person. I want to keep being positive. I want to keep depression at bay, and not find myself curled up on the couch crippled by the enormity of this story. So. GO. Go out to lunch. Enjoy the time with this person."

Those moments were hard for me. Not because of my friends. My friends are not only wonderful, loving supportive people, but people with the grace to make those lunches about wanting to spend time with me and celebrate my release from bondage. I never felt like I was their charity.

Those moments were hard for me because of my foolish pride, and this false idea that I have that I'm an island. Somehow, in my mind, there are terrible consequences to building bridges off that island. Or letting anyone defy my bridge-less-ness by bringing their boat over and saying, "Hey, I notice you have lots of coconuts here, but wouldn't they go well with rum? And hey, I know how to mix that drink! Wanna have some with me?"

Those drinks healed me. In lots of ways! I literally did have a boozy lunch with one of those friends. and it was simply delicious to talk everything over with her. And while it was water and salads at the other lunches, the conversation and things those women bravely shared with me reminded me that it's a bad goal to try and be an island. My friend, the same one who cried when I left Jersey, the same one who supported her partner in leaving an unhappy job, wanted to NOT have a baby shower. She didn't want a fuss, or silly games. I understood that. But I pressed her and said, "It's not just to get gifts It's because there are a community of people who want to celebrate this with you. those aren't just your fans, but your baby's fans and the people who will be there for you when you need support and love and someone to talk to as a parent."

So, she had a shower. And I was PSYCHED to send a gift. But guess what? All of those people also lined up after the delivery just waiting to give love to them and their baby girl. Love is for giving away.

It begins to heal the bad lessons I learned over the last 13 years to know that people are offering their support and help because they believe in me and think I am a good bet to put what they're offering to use in a positive way. And so, today, I took the next leap and accepted an even bigger gift at my training appointment. It is one that will make me very cognizant of being accountable in this process. With this gift in my hand, I can't just work out, or eat right, or search for a job as isolated tasks. I have no choice but to see this as a process of finding the life that allows me to keep those things in balance; whatever the job ends up being.

So, thank you all. And keep me honest about accepting help and support.

who has two thumbs and renewed optimism?

This chic right here - of the four serious jobs I've applied to, two have responded within 48 hours, and one called and asked me for an interview :)

"It will be ok"

Somehow I managed to convince myself that I was ok with all of this through Christmas. And then my mom left, and my act dropped (hard). I put my best face on when I flew to Boston, but in that week there were countless conversations about my severance agreement, COBRA insurance, and finally, at what point the money will run out and I will have to leave Colorado (and move in with them). Reality became very real that week. And this last topic settled over me like an Eeyore cloud. I can joke all the day long about moving into someone's basement, but the reality is, I might not be able to make it through this on my own.

Scratch that. I already can't do this on my own. I needed help to understand my severance. I needed help from not one, but two different friends to polish my resume and cover letter. I needed a ride to and from the airport and I need almost daily reminders to stay positive and see my lay off as an opportunity. A chance to find my way to a better me.

But, the thing is, it's painful for me even to ask for those kinds of help.

I have lived life, for too long probably, as my own unit. I take care of me. And although there have been wonderful examples of people doing amazing things for me (some that they don't even know!) there have been some very memorable pieces of evidence that when I let someone in and start to count on them, they let me down. So taking care of myself, as much as possible, has seemed like the best policy for most of my life. This has been true for me, financially, for half of my life but has been true in other ways for longer than that. I left home more completely than most do when I left for school. And I also took the responsibility for the financial burden of that education at that time. So I count that as the moment of my independence. But the truth is that before that, I had been on my own in other ways. I had more financial responsibility than my peers, if not total financial independence. And I had other responsibilities too. I often found myself in conversations with adults where it became clear I was the grown up in the exchange, and I had had to be much more emotionally self-sufficient than I want my future, hypothetical children to have to be. I wasn't unloved, or uncared for, but some of the resources available to me were impoverished.

In much the same way that working too much to pay some of my bills in high school paved the way for me to know how to work four part time jobs in college at any given time, not having the ability to get what I needed at home paved the way for me to make families of the other people in my life. This the the blessing that was disguised in my first home and it's discontent - it taught me to get my needs met elsewhere. In high school I was part of a very tight group of five friends. We shared everything with each other, and looked after each other in deeper ways than most teenagers do. And these many years later, I am in touch with all of them, and one of them is the family member I visited in Boston. The very same one who initiated a conversation about me moving in if it comes to me not being able to make it on my own. Stick a pin in that - we'll be back to it.

This was the beginning of a long trend for me. Pretty much everywhere I go, I find myself joining other people's families or making ad hoc ones of my own. I have not one but two non-biological families in New Jersey, which was a place I did everything I could to reject on the cellular level for a full quarter of the time I was there! I went through a terrible break-up with my fiance after moving here to Colorado, but found that his best friends of more than two decades were more than happy to keep me in their family, even as he refused their overtures of support. I have family in NY, Texas, Seattle, Virginia, Illinois, Florida, Oklahoma, Connecticut, and Maine. And I have friends here in Colorado that are reaching out in ways that tell me that if I'm not yet in their family circles, they certainly think I'm worthy of their time and care.

I shouldn't be surprised that people want to offer their help, but I am. And I'm not only humbled by it, I'm . . . embarrassed to need to even talk about accepting it, much less actually take someone up on it. It makes my skin prickle to ask for a ride to the airport. It makes my insides ache to ask someone to help me tune up a cover letter. So what wound will come of needing financial help?

But the truth is, there is a very finite window, dictated almost entirely by the amount of my severance, that allows me to continue to be financially independent while job hunting.

Having to borrow money or move in with someone seems to me like the very worst thing that could ever, ever come of this. But it's a little silly to realize that I have helped other people in this way. (I had someone I didn't even know all that well living with me for a month while he found his feet in the summer of 2009. and another person was given a place to stay for three weeks later that year.) And I would do it for any of my family members (where family is a broad term for me) in a heartbeat - something my friends and family have hastily reminded me for every form of help that has been offered. My first instinct is to reject people's offers of help. My second instinct is to keep rejecting it. And my third instinct is to logically remind myself that it is my pleasure to help others, especially my friends and family, and that denying their offers is a way of being selfish. I had this conversation with my ex so many times, and in so many ways that even I am tired of hearing myself on this subject. How many ways are there to say, "People weren't meant to do everything on their own?" or "Doing it on your own isn't working." or "You push people away and hurt them when you won't let them help."

Well, there are at least 6 months worth of different ways to communicate this message because that's how long he and I have been having this conversation. So, there was a cruel symmetry when he, last week, pointed out that maybe the lesson I need to learn from this is to accept help and let people hold me up.

I wanted to slap him (just a little), but really, what I wanted was to stop myself from having to hear or face up to those words. He didn't say it unkindly. And he's not wrong. I just don't want this to be true. And it had been resounding in my head since my bestest friends had set a date with me to draw a line of trying to make it on my own with the formula of:

waning severance/savings + part time work + unemployment = not making ends meet and no full time job in sight


That line was drawn at an alarmingly soon date and calculated on the basis of numbers. I'm hoping for a different outcome and aiming for it by a rigorous job search.

I've had a deal with whatever universal powers there are for 15 years now. It goes like this, "I know I was made in such a way that I can't take prescription pain killers. Fine by me. Clearly, with the substance abuse issues in my family history, this is a good thing for me. So, just don't give me pain I can't handle on my own. "

This deal has worked, surprisingly. It has worked with countless broken toes, and a broken foot. It worked with a car accident resulting in a hairline fracture of vertebrae in my neck. It worked when my impacted wisdom tooth was removed. It worked when I had sinus surgery reconstructing one quarter of the face underneath my face, and two knee surgeries and the injuries that precipitated them.

I feel so lucky to have had that work out so well. So, being who I am, I feel like it's WRONG to ask for more. But I'm trying to overcome my crippling sense of pride to ask for another deal. I want to send out the request that if I am willing to learn the lesson that I can't do everything on my own, and set aside my pride, and accept help people are offering (which, really, has been overwhelmingly awesome. Everything from part time work to sending me job postings to help with my resume and getting it into people's hands to reduced rates on services I was previously paying for. Not to mention several offers of, "come live with me!") could it just be possible for me to learn that lesson without being in such a financial hole that I have to leave the life I built here? Could it be possible for me to keep living on my own?

Deal? Ok, let's shake on it.

My Boston fam told me that inexplicably written on the calendar on a day this year was written, "It will be ok." I have that same phrase entered into my calendar on the day we chose to re-visit me moving in with them.

One kind of job I am looking for: Corporate Training/ Instructional Designer

Christie Veitch

Boulder, CO 
ChristieAVeitch@gmail.com

 

q  Objective: To design and deliver trainings for an organization that values creating exciting and beneficial professional development opportunities and seeks to positively impact its employees, clients, and community.

q  Skills

o    Developing and delivering individualized trainings, presentations, evaluation and communication tools

o    Teaching/Mentoring in both group and individualized settings, students from ages three - adult

o    Educational and Business consulting

o    Understanding of cognitive and psychological learning models for children and adults

o    Project management including thorough attention to details and goals, strong written and verbal communication, scheduling, and time management

o    Proficient in Microsoft Office suite, as well as many Adobe and Apple software products           

q  Education
2005 M.S. Rutgers University, Cognitive Psychology
      Thesis: Adult processing of Get and Be in active and passive sentences
2004 M.A., Rutgers University, Linguistics
1999 B.A. Hampshire College

            Self designed concentration, “ Simplicity and structure: The study of Mathematics and Linguistics”

q  Professional, Consulting and Business Experience
Kumon North America: Teaneck and Lawrenceville, NJ, and Boulder, CO.  2006 – 2011
Franchise Development Manager, Boulder, CO Fall 2010 - 2011 As the business and franchise consultant I administered all training in this region for Instructors/Franchisees and franchisee trainees, including: professional development presentations and hands-on trainings, individualized development plans, and assistance in all aspects of opening and growing their business including evaluation of their businesses, development and critique of business plans, site searches, and marketing plans. As a satellite office in Colorado, I operated this region, office, and managed all projects solo in addition to developing and providing all group and individual trainings.

Educational Field Consultant, 2006 – 2010. First in the NJ/PA field office and then running a remote region in Colorado, I operated as an educational consultant for Instructors/Franchisees in the Kumon method offering group and personalized professional development plans, presentations and tools, educational support to them in developing their lesson plans and student results, setting and achieving goals, and certification in the Kumon Method. This role required the delivery of professional development opportunities and tools, as well as assessment of needs and analysis of results and future needs. (Promoted to Franchise Development Manager)

Hampshire College Admissions Counselor, Amherst, MA. September 1999-August 2000. Reading, evaluating student applications, interviewing students, hosting and performing as the main speaker at information sessions to interested students and their families, college fairs and high school visits, planning and implementing Admissions events bringing together interested applicants, current students, and Hampshire college staff and faculty.

q  Instructional, Teaching and Mentoring Experience

Greenhouse Scholars Mentor (Volunteer), September 2008-present. Mentoring high-risk college students receiving scholarship and other support from Greenhouse Scholars. Volunteering on several advisory boards and leading application/interview committees.

Instructor, Psychology Department, Rutgers University, 2001-2006. Sole instructor for Psychology of Language, an upper level Cognition and Psychology course and sole instructor for three different Psychology laboratory courses - hands-on, small group-setting lab course for Psychology undergraduates. Tasks included creating and delivering course content, grading, and meeting with students regarding individual assignments and course related projects.

Rutgers University Writing Program Tutor, 2004-2006. Working with students in required reading comprehension and expository writing courses to define and organize topics, questions, and supporting points for their compositions, setting weekly goals with students, reporting on student progress, and employing the "minimalist tutoring" protocol so that students received guidance without dependence on tutoring.

References: Available upon request

2011 in review

I filed for unemployment yesterday which felt a little like cutting a pound of flesh out of myself, but needed to be done. It is still less than half of what I need to survive, and it is still impossible for me to believe I am in this situation. It is still necessary for me to find part-time work right away (which will, of course, eliminate everything I'm getting from unemployment). And it is still dire for me to find full-time work. It is still frightening as hell to think about becoming a person who runs around trying to make a certain amount of money every week by stitching together part time gigs, and it is still worrisome that if I do become that person, I might never have the time to find the full time work that makes me feel happy and rewarded.

And so it is also true that I had a mini-panic attack last night. Suddenly, while sitting in the living room surrounded by fabulous people, I couldn't maintain "being ok." I decided to not NOT be ok in a way that made other people deal with it so I escaped upstairs for 10 minutes and sat in the dark. I was trying to breathe and slow everything down, but the opposite happened and everything started to speed up and feel scarier and huger. Luckily one of my two best friends found me and stopped the madness.

But, despite all of this, I am trying to not let these hard moments, difficult decisions, disappointments and anxieties define what I did accomplish this year. I did a lot of good stuff this year. I gave a lot, I discovered a lot, I worked on important things, and I have a lot to be proud of. It often takes me some time after the new year to carefully consider and design my New Year's resolutions. I always want my goals to be achievable, and to have, if not a deadline, a definite way of telling if they have been met. So, don't expect to see that post for at least a week. In the meantime, here is a recounting of 2011.

• I got out of my knee braces after a year (and then rejoiced because I could wear normal clothes again!)

• I was able to bring the level of my work outs higher than where it left off when my knees were injured and lift some serious weights
  
• I started running
  
• I actually achieved treating my workouts like a priority. This is huge for me since I typically treat gym time as a "have to/don't want to"
  
• I saw a dietician and between her and my trainer started cleaning up my eating and accountability issues with food
  
• I started praying again and trying to reconnect with God. This is definitely an "in progress" type thing for me.
  
• I helped a friend learn how to swim, and in the process got so much more than I gave - inspiration, the chance to be part of her accomplishment, a deeper friendship with someone amazing, a structure to help support my need to get up and workout on Saturday morngings, and a chance to learn a lot from how she meets her goals
  
• Broke a facebook rule and made a great new friend because of it
  
• Reconnected with another old friend and got really close
  
• Stood up for myself and the people I worked with at my job
  
• Learned to poach eggs
  
• Took a class on not only singing solo but leading a band in performance and then sang on stage with the band!
• Took responsibility for my needs and broke up with my boyfriend.
  
• Have managed, so far, to stay friends with him and still give him support.
  
• Took responsibility for my part in an unfortunate misunderstanding with a friend and patched up our friendship
  
• Went back to therapy (while some might see this as sad news, I see it as good news that I was ready to work on myself and start thinking about ways to improve my life)
  
• Started eating meat again! Aiieeeee! ( I still have some distance to go on cooking it but I've had bacon, chicken, duck, turkey, ham, pork tenderloin, burgers, and beef tenderloin so that's pretty solid for a 12 year recovering vegetarian)
  
• Started this blog. Was amazed at how much it resonated with people. (Surely I am not that interesting?!) Was even more fascinated by how much there is to learn about myself via writing about . . . me. So narcissistic, so weirdly helpful.
  
  
  To be full-on faithful to the mission of accountability and self-improvement, I should check this list against my goals and resolutions for 2011and see how I measure up. But for now, I'm going to rest on these laurels. I'm also going to stop typing since I managed, in the final 4 hours of my benefits, to chop part of my finger off last night.

My perfect job

Two friends have suggested I get very clear on what my perfect job would be. One of these friends believes very much in the beautiful order that can sometimes emerge in the chaos of the universe. The other believes very deeply in God and thus believes that nothing is completely random.

But the fact that I had this request twice in 24 hours, and from two people who have been helping me job search pretty intensely, felt like a sign to me.

I've been spending some time talking to God. My prayer is a little different depending on what I am most feeling and dealing with at the moment. And no, this doesn't doesn't answer my continuing questions about God. Or solve my issues in that relationship.

"God, I'm really scared. I know I need to learn to accept help and support from you and my loved ones, but please don't make that mean I have to move into someone's basement. I am trying to talk to you every day so that I can build a stronger bond with you. I know there are broken parts of my life I can't fix on my own, and I know needing help means I won't always be in control. I know I need to learn that lesson. Please help to guide me into seeing this as an opportunity for a better job, and a better way to be me. I want to believe that I can have that and deserve it. Please help me be patient, diligent, faithful, and to have the conviction to discern what the right next steps are. I know not my will, but yours, will be done but I am hoping for this to be a good change, not a scary one. In your name. Amen."

Sometimes the prayer is like this, "Please help me to forgive, move on, and let go of my bitterness." Or even, "Keep my ass in gear big guy - this is not time to get depressed and paralyzed."

Other times the prayer is just an unspoken wish, a picture in my head of what I want life to be like.

And it's like that bad joke. "A flood came and wiped out a town. A man got up on his roof, and watched as his house and belongings were submerged. A towns' person came running by saying, 'Mister, follow me! We can still leave." and he said, "Thanks, but no thanks. I believe in God. I go to church. I pray. God will save me.' The water rises, and soon a boat comes by and the people in it call out, "Come with us. we'll save you!' And the man shakes his head and says, 'I believe in God. I go to church. I pray. God will save me.' the water rises more and is washing everything away. a Helicopter flies over and lowers a ladder to the man, but he refuses saying, 'I believe in God. I go to church. I pray. God will save me.' The flood wipes everything out, and the man dies, and as he stands in front of God he grows angry and says, 'God, I believed in you. I went to church. I prayed. Why didn't you save me?' and God says, 'I sent a man, a boat, and a helicopter to you. Not to mention my only son! Why are you here?' "

I can't ignore when things converge, even if I don't know what it means to me. I've been praying for a job, for a pathway, for the ability to accept help and be patient. And now two of my friends have come by during the flood and called up to me on the roof, "Hey, make sure you know what you're looking for before you go out there."

So, here goes.

My perfect job is to get paid to write this. Except, I'm not sure that job exists. And if it did, would writing this blog be as much fun for me? Sometimes getting paid for an avocation makes it less meaningful (there are psych studies showing this!), less enjoyable. Either way, I'm pretty sure that job doesn't come with benefits. Which I badly need.

So, next down on the list is being in a position involving teaching/training. I've looked at non-traditional paths to teaching certification, adjuncting at the college level, but I have looked mainly at corporate training.

At this point, I would like to have a blend of working independently vs. working in a team or larger group setting, and to be working with "the right people on the bus" as Jim Collins would say. I value working with people and organizations that are passionate not just about positive change and impact, but evaluating how best to deliver positive change. I am primarily looking into non-profits, health or human service, or education groups because I would like to work with groups that make decisions about what is best for their employees or "clients" (or the targeted outcomes they are trying to achieve) based on value that is calculated in ways beyond the bottom line. I would dearly like to work in the realm of education and/or in ways that call on my expertise in working with students of many ages. Most of all, I want the kind of job that excites me each day; in other words, something I truly believe in. I also value organizations that hire individuals in the hopes of allowing them to grow in and beyond their current position and/or that promote ongoing professional/educational development in their associates.

I need a workplace that appreciates my long memory, perfectionism, attention to detail, organization, communication, and honesty. I'm loyal and hard working, so being surrounded by like minded people is a plus. I do not have IT, publishing, or e-Learning experience, but I'm all for getting some. I do have teaching, consulting, and professional development experience.

What I learned from my last job is this - being good at something and liking it aren't always the same thing, but can easily be mistaken for one another. I also learned that there is a limitation to how much change one person can render alone, and without support. So, for-profit or non-profit, educational or business centered, the organization must be one that values hiring people to grow into other roles, has integrity, and puts real thought into supporting their people.

It seems like a lot to ask, right?

I know, but I have to believe this happened for a reason and that it allows me to find something much closer to my dream job. Or at least I have to believe it when I'm not too consumed by freaking out.

Conversations I never thought I'd have

In the past week, I've had a series of conversations I never imagined would enter into my existence.

1. "Please press 1 if you want to hear Frequently Asked Questions about filing an unemployment claim."

This was not so much a conversation as a horrifying, demoralizing, depressing phone call. Technically, I'm not unemployed for another week. But I'm trying to be on my game and get all my details sorted out.

The truth is, unemployment in Colorado is pretty limited. I can't really pay rent and bills on it, unless I plan to eat, well, nothing (not an exaggeration). So, this of course means part time work in the interim. So, I need to look into what I'd like to do there: FedEx Kinkos is hiring. And I've had some thoughtful offers from two people I know, which of course makes those offers simultaneously more attractive and more complicated.

The deeper truth is, I don't want to file for unemployment. Even if it was enough money to make a go of it (and it really is NOT!), I'd rather not. Part of this is pride. But part of it is that I think there is a stigma about collecting for time on the couch. So, yeah, that's probably pride too.

2. "You have to promise you'll let me know if you need prescriptions you can't afford."

I made said promise, but if and when that time comes. I'm not sure I can do it. I know what my prescriptions cost 10 years ago without prescription coverage. I never heard words that felt truer to me than when President Obama stated that our debt crisis was synonymous with our health care failures. I never lived scarier times than my first four years of grad school without any access to health care. (correction: never scarier times than now.) I put everything on the line for my education, and that meant paying hundreds of dollars every month out of pocket for drugs that save my life every day.

Things are better for me here in Colorado than they were in New Jersey by a LOT. I'm unlikely to drop dead if I go a day or two without meds for asthma. But, if I don't have them for long periods of time I am likely to end up being hospitalized for asthma or bronchitis/pneumonia. I have permanent lung damage so I really, really need those meds. But do I need them enough to take that money from my mom knowing what she'd have to give up to do it??

3. "What's your full legal name? I need it for some paperwork regarding ___(her son)______."

Let me 'splain. A couple of years ago, a friend asked me if I would be her son's guardian if she should ever pass away. Or rather, she said something about it on Facebook and then we talked about how she knows I love him, have good values, and that he would love me. Since then, she has re-married. It seems that she and her husband are updating their wills and advanced directives in light of their fairly new wedded bliss. So, her son's father would still have shared custody, and of course, if she departed and her husband was still here, he would share custody with the father. But in the event that both she and her husband pass, I would be the other half of her son's guardianship and share with his father.

So, the conversation went like this. "__(ex husband and father)__ doesn't get him?"

"He would get his legal amount of time but not 100%."

"I get it. I would be his 'mom' side. I'm honored!"

"Yep. If __(new husband)____ and I go at the same time."

"Promise - if that day comes I'll raise him to be smart and caring, sweet and strong. And to love himself and be grateful for all you two did and gave him! But let's hope that doesn't happen. He and I would miss you too much."

I am honored. It's amazing to me that even in my precarious current situation my friend thinks I am the best choice. It's unlikely that this will ever come to pass, but it's a stunning vote of confidence.

I want kids so, so much and it feels like someone saying, "I know you can do it. " I will take any positive reinforcement I can get.

4. "There is a guest room just crying out for you."

This was a conversation with my two amazing friends about the guest room in their house they often refer to as "Christie's room."

I have had several of these types of conversations. My mom would be happy to have me in her basement. And my Uncle jumped right up and said,"I'd be happy to put your things in a truck and move you back here." and my cousin and aunt are itching to have me in Seattle.

But here's the thing - as much as I badly need to dump the rent on this place (I would never have rented a place this large just for me. It was chosen, in large part, to house the office I no longer need to run.) moving into someone's basement/guest room/etc. is a difficult prospect for me. Of course there is pride. I have been working for TWO DECADES. And I have been taking care of myself for half of my life, literally. It would be hard for me to give that up, of course it would be hard.

But, the bigger problem is that my life is here. Most of my strong contacts are here. And there isn't enough money for me to job hunt AND move. There's enough for one or the other, and either will still have to be on a severe budget. So, if I job hunt and fail, then I won't have any money to move, and vice-versa. So, the event that causes me to move in with someone means I have hit bottom, and have to sell all of my stuff for bus fare. Or something equally horrifying.


None of this is to say I am hopeless. All of it is to say I am very anxious about how to make this work and feeling overwhelmed.