Another New Challenge

They say when it rains it pours. Well, it seems that I am caught up in the storm of my life. On Monday, I was told that there was no longer enough funding for my position. I was given until the end of the week to help my team adjust to working without me, to notify my clients and to make sure all my files were transferred off my computer.

The organization has been dealing with some financial problems for a while now, but I was still blindsided. I never thought that with 7.5 years there, and all the work that I did, I would be the first to be let go. I guess I was too confident. I spent the rest of that week in shock, really feeling nothing at all; and then the negativity started to creep in.

In college, I had a huge fear that I would not be successful. I worried that I would spend the rest of my life on SSI, unable to find someone to hire me, living with my Mom and feeling sorry for myself. For me, a job wasn’t something that was a guarantee; it wasn’t something that I could count on. A job was privilege. A job was the difference between the life society expected me to have (and the one I feared) and the life that I wanted. In short, a job meant everything.

When I managed to land the VISTA position at the Ann Arbor Center for Independent Living, I thought I had hit the jackpot. Not only had I found a job right out of college, but it was at a place I had always wanted to work with, doing work that actually meant something. I was so proud of myself, and the whole world seemed to open up in front of me.

Not surprisingly, when I lost that job, those old feelings started to creeping back. No one else would ever hire me; I was pathetic and would spend the rest of my days watching soap operas in my pajamas and napping, and then I snapped out of it. Yes, I am jobless, but my life isn’t exactly that pathetic. I am married to a wonderful man. I held the same job for seven and a half years. I have skills now, and tons of talent. Now that I don’t have a job, I have options.

I realized that this is not the end of something, but the beginning. Without a job, I have time; time to focus on my dreams. The dreams I forgot when I became employed. As of today, it has only been a week since I found out my job was gone, but I am already looking for new work. I have updated my resume and I am applying for jobs, but I am also focusing on me. I have a writing project that I am really excited about, and I am working on creating an etsy site for my quilts. I thought the world opened up when got my job, but now that I have lost it, anything seems possible and I am excited to see where this new adventure takes me.

Yes, life has given me quite the storm, but no storm lasts forever. When they are over and the sun comes out, everything is greener, the sun is warmer, the flowers smell sweeter and the birds are always sing.