Own your Stories

Tornados and flip flops

This morning I had the craziest dream unlike any I can remember ever having.  I'm a big nightmare girl, my overactive imagination kicking into high gear as soon as I shut my eyes.  But this dream, I would have expected to have while the evening news was on......you know, when what you are hearing filters it's way into your dream world.

I want to remember this, although i'm not sure why.  Maybe because it's just so strange for me.

I'm at an outdoor event, in a large city, on the waterfront.  It's a beautiful day and i'm sitting at a table underneath a tent.  I hear an outdoor band playing and I'm teasing my friend "Bones" because he is dressed in a silk suit and flip flops.  (Bones is a biker and silk suits or flip flops are not something he'd EVER be in)

I feel a rippling through the crowd and people start pointing and yelling.  I peek out under the tent and see a huge tornado coming toward us but it is still way off in the distance.  It is picking up sky rise buildings and tossing them into the sky like daisy's.  I think to myself "is that real?"  As people begin to run and scream I stand there and tell Bones "what difference does it make to run?  Maybe it won't even come straight at us and it will go a different way" 

As everyone is running away I wonder if i should try and record the storm on my phone, or maybe i should call my family, but who do i call first and what do i say?  I start searching for my phone and think I better put it on my body in case my purse gets lost. (always efficient even in dreams) and now it's completely dark and i can't hear and i'm petrified.

The next part of my dream is me walking along a city road in and out of backed up traffic and everyone is blaring their horns.  There are others walking around in groups or alone.  I'm alone.  I have nothing but the clothes i wear on me and i'm thinking "i have no money, i have no phone, i have no way to get home and no-one knows where i am."

And then, of course, i wake up.

My life, in the middle of my dreams.

Do I know you?

There’s currently a standoff at my house on who is going to cook dinner. It’s just me and the man so our solution for the past couple of nights has been to go to a diner that is in the next town over.  Problem solved.  Last night my spouse and I were on the verge of having one of “those” talks after several days of biting at each other’s heals and the waitress did a great job of interrupting us at the perfect moments stalling any intense public discussions.  I thought she was very nice and I think we were both grateful for the re-starts she unknowingly supplied for us.

I’ve been drowning in an overwhelming feeling of loneliness for the past few weeks, beginning with my 24 year old daughters exit to NYC to live with her friends for the summer.  We’re close, and I miss her intensely even while being very happy for her that she is living her life. (and a pretty cool one at that)  Besides, she’ll return at the end of summer to go back to school and we’ll be back to fighting for space, privacy, the upper hand – before I know it.  But this blog isn’t about my beautiful daughter.  It’s about coincidence and timing.

So tonight we return to the same diner, my bewildered spouse and I, in better moods but still timid over the storms that have been passing through our relationship with my unpredictable feelings of mourning.  (I use the word mourning because that’s the closest I can come to describing how I feel lately)  I don’t believe our waitress remembered us from the previous night, but I recognized her.  She became very chatty and friendly- more so than the attentive-service-make-you-feel-at-home that a good server will provide.  I could see/hear that she was literally brimming over the top with the need to just talk.  She asked about my sweatshirt (yes, its summer in Connecticut and I’m sporting a sweatshirt) which is a bright orange Harley Davidson oversized MOST comfortable attire for a rainy cold night.  Then she proceeded to talk about her Dad and the memories she has off his bikes, and cars etc.

As she repeatedly returned with helpful suggestions on sauces to try with my spinach pie (yum, just yum) she would stay a bit longer and talk a bit more.  This girl needed to talk.  I thought D would become irritated, but he rolled with it……and chatted back a bit with her although most of the conversation was between her and I.  I love him for that - His patience with this waitress who had taken our dinner conversation hostage, who is also a person who obviously needed some talking time with people who might listen.

She’s had a tough row to hoe like many.  I learned that she grew up next to the town I grew up in (both of us transplanted now) and that she lives in a halfway house, (explaining why she chose this particular town to move to….not her choice at all) and that she made some poor passive choices in her life that led her to where she is now…..waitressing, no car, looking for more and/or better work.  Even with 10 years difference in age we know some of the same people.

Now, there are some that would think this is pretty inappropriate talk between people in this particular situation…..i would have been one of those “some” before tonight.  However, as I sat there listening to her I couldn’t help but think how easily our situations could have been reversed. While our lives are on completely different paths, how very similar we are both feeling.  Helpless.  Frustrated.  Sad…..and hopeful for a better future.

I don’t know what kind of a sign this is, and I don’t know if I believe in coincidence, but I do believe what goes around comes around and that we are all more alike than we are different.  Was she sent to me by some divine power to give me a big kick in the ass to appreciate my life more than I do?  Am I meant to help her?  Or have I already by not passing judgment, by allowing her to talk, by encouraging her to carry on and not give up?  Has she been placed in my path for a reason? And if so, what is that reason?

This is the type of circular thinking that takes place in my head on a daily basis.  It’s my life in the middle of the street.

What exactly IS THIS?

Is it coincidental that the two posts over the past two years have taken place over the summer and here I am again........hopefully with more than one post this year.

The problem is that i haven't figured out how I want to use this blog.  In past versions on yahoo 360 (anyone remember THAT?) and multiply (or THAT?) I used blogging as a way to detox through writing.  Every poisonous, noxious thought or happening got spewed onto my blog right along side any happy occurrences and rememberings.  Therapy to be sure, appropriate? Not so sure.  Suffice it to say that there were some readers who were not thrilled when they found themselves in my blog.  Because this is a public forum I have to admit that some things need not to be shared and they are usually the very things that you can't keep inside.

So perhaps this time it will not be about verbal vomit.

At 45 years of age I am back to taking courses at the University I work for.  Why? Because i love learning, love knowledge, love being mentally challenged and because i can.  Writing has been my greatest challenge because i'm no longer comfortable with it in a formal sense.  Blogging may loosen me up but it isn't going to tighten up my skills when it comes to submitting formal thought and communication........philosophy being my passion.  So perhaps this blog can be about random topics that I pick from the air just for the sake of writing.  How boring is that?

Maybe this blog will be about absolutely nothing, however, very well written if not ever read.

I'll have to spend some time dressing this place up.  It's pretty blah. 

The conclusion i'm coming to is that this blog will be whatever i'm feeling like that day- analytical, emotional, etc.  Let this be an exercise in writing and see where it takes me. us?  oh and i just found spell check........already a good start.

Unemployment

So much has changed in the last year since my first post to this blog.  Happiness breeds the lack of time to blog in my world.
I'm still loving my "new" home - very grateful that we made the move when we did because since then I've become unemployed.  Wednesday April 27th my position was eliminated.  I was informed during my "lunch hour" while my re-heated lasagna sat on my desk as I hustled to get needed signatures for an upcoming ad....it was surreal.   One moment I'm under the gun meeting deadlines and the next I'm being walked out of the building like a blue collar criminal.  
Ah, "what did she do to deserve this?" you may be wondering.  Just my job and more. Perhaps I didn't kiss the correct tushy.  There was no wrong doing or lack of doing on my part aside from dedicating the past 6 years of my life to a company that didn't deserve that dedication.  It's difficult not to be bitter, and yet, I know I am not alone in this line of thinking.  I was given a whopping 6 weeks of severance and not one day of my three weeks of vacation that I hadn't taken any of.  When asked if I was treated right by a former co-worker my answer was "I was treated right, I wasn't treated well" and i stand by that.  They did what they had to do within Connecticut state law and not one bit more.  Understandable.  They need the money.  God knows my vacation pay would have probably put them under (tongue in cheek).  Okay one more clear shot and I'll let this negativity go for now.....It wasn't bad enough that they walked me out of the building in the middle of a work week in the middle of the day as if I were a criminal, OR that they gave me literally six weeks of pay and no vacation pay.....Their payroll department messed up my severance checks and I ended up owing THEM money which came out of my last severance check.  They forgot to withhold money for benefits I was no longer receiving.....??  My initial thought was they could have let that little bit of change go to save face if nothing else, but instead they took their few hundred dollars and put it back into their multi- million dollar bank account.

Non-profit treated me better.  I guess it was the red blood flowing through their veins.  Warm blooded people are difficult to find at the corporate level in retail.

So ANYWAYS- I have been searching for work and exploring different options at a time when our Governor is laying off 7,000 people in an already under-employed state.  Over 200 of my resumes have been sent out into cyberspace since the end of April and I have only received one response which was to tell me I didn't fit the position.  I have never been so excited to hear that, because it was at LEAST a response that let me know someone somewhere had actually looked at my resume.  One real, not automated,  response out of over 200 applications....that is very disheartening and very real. 

Oh wait....it seems that insurance sales REALLY wants me, along with everyone else that posts a resume on Monster, Careerbuilder, etc.   I can't get these companies to stop calling me or emailing me.  Its a very strange form of harassment only instead of trying to sell it TO me they want all of us unemployed losers to SELL.  They really just won't go away, like a mosquito.  A nest of mosquito's.   One frustrating conversation began with "I have your resume here in front of me and you are the perfect fit".......So I asked, "you have my resume right there in front of you?  right now? at this very moment?   Yes, indeed he did.  "Well," I asked, "Can you please tell me where you see the word INSURANCE or SALES anywhere in my resume?".....Well no, actually he couldn't.  "what exactly makes me the perfect fit? that I'm unemployed and I'd like to sell insurance to other unemployed people who can't afford it and therefor make no salary on this commission based position?"  

"no one wants to sell insurance" says the man recruiting me for this lucrative position.  I suggested he brush up his own resume and join me in the search for job that would allow us both to keep our dignity.  Has it come to this really?

Happiness is........

....Waking up at 8:00am on a Friday morning and realizing you are still on vacation, looking out the window to check the weather and seeing a turkey and her chick in your front yard AND being able to get to the camera and snap a picture in time, floating down the stairs of your new bedroom in your new house in silence knowing everyone is still asleep, being the first to get to the coffee and bring it out to your new back porch and just BE for a few moments before the day starts, hearing "hey lady" and turning to see your houseguest from WI great you with her own cup of coffe as she joins you, finding a lady bug on your door jam, hearing your daughter describe her new home as an "upgrade", finding out that your spouse has confided to a friend that he "can't wait to come home now"........

Happiness is wading through all the difficult times and still keeping the hope that someday everything will fall into place and then magically.....it does.  No mansion, no servents, no lottery.  Just a small cozy home that fits me, family and friends that love me and are loved in return and the good luck of having a profession that stimulates and satisfies me.  Today, i feel like i have it all.