When it’s time to turn the page…

So here I am, it’s December 31, 2023 and I’ve spent some time really thinking about the past year. Boy what a year it’s been. I didn’t find the FREEDOM (OLW 2023), I thought I would. I found so much more.

Quit My Job.

I was making great money… had an excellent performance review in January, and then in March boom! Put on a Performance Plan for not doing my job well enough. It was a shocker on a ton of levels. I can point to a million things that impacted my choice to leave, not feeling set-up to succeed in my role, and having a really bad boss, to the likes I’ve never had. But the truth in that is I made a choice to leave, and learned in the process I am simply not cut out for “Corporate America” in the layers and layers and layers of leadership I had in my position.

Got Fired.

Yep… finding a new job after Trane was super easy. I went to work for one of their customers. I have a skillset they really did/do need. But, I took the position without super clear expectations and in a 24 day ish span I found myself being FIRED for the first time at nearly 50 years old. It was a serious gut check. And it hurt… messed with my sense of worth and being like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Not in being a wife, mother, sister, daughter, or any of the “other” things I think I am.

I got lost.

I was without goals, without direction, and without a really sense of purpose on many many days. I applied for position after position… and found rejection after rejection. In June I applied or one position, interviewed four times, references checked and still came up empty handed. All the while my sense of worth continued to erode away.

By the time October rolled around…

My finances were nearing their end and I took a job in the floral department at our new Safeway in our neighborhood. If nothing else to help slow the financial bleeding I was experiencing. I worried and still worry about keeping my home, bills that aren’t paid, the fear of the unknown, the fear of FAILURE. The good in working for Safeway is meeting new people who will remain in my life, learned to appreciate the beauty in the simplicity of a floral arrangement. I got back to loving work, and loving the people I worked with. I learned humility. In a big way. I had gone from a six figure income to making little more than minimum wage… I learned to wait on the Lord. I learned to really pray… really really pray.

And then…

I learned I had to get real with myself, get real with Ken, about what I needed and what was really happening around me. I needed help and I needed to depend on him. Keep in mind, I was raised to be able to take care of myself, in all things, in EVERYTHING. So with my pride seriously bruised and a face full of tears and snot, Ken did what I thought I never needed… He gave me a safe harbor and gave me someone to depend on. And it was soooo hard, soooo cathartic, foreign…. and soooo beautiful.

Being Dependent…

Created a space to hope. Being dependent opened my eyes to the thought that I don’t have to do my life alone, and I shouldn’t, and I don’t have to know all of the answers, it’s okay to ask for help.

New Beginnings.

Ken and I got married on 12-1-23… I married my best friend, the most handsome and generous man I know. I’ve received two offers for work and am starting back to work 1/2/24. There’s so much more to say, and that will come.

And it all comes down to my OLW 2024…

We’ll call it a compound word.

In-Dependence. I can be independent, and take care of things, do things, be things, and have things. But that’s really missing the point. I can don’t have to do all of those things alone. I can do them in-dependence. Knowing there are people… so many people to help along the way, and people who need my help back… There are days where I’ll be he hand reaching out to offer help, and there’s days where I’ll be reaching out to your hand for a lifeline. So here’s to In-Dependence and looking at what changes when you ask for help, and then reach out your hand to someone in return.