Four years ago, I gathered up files and folders, thinking I was going to meeting about a challenging client. Instead, I was informed that my position had been eliminated. I was 62 years old. In the months that followed, I filled out over 400 applications--and had two interviews. Finally, a dear colleague told me about a position. It required leaving my family...after I had just moved to be near them. I had wanted to go "home" and finish my career on a high note.
So, one more move--my fourth within a year--to a job that would never be a success, for a variety of reasons. And I would never recover from the economics of being laid off at my age. I look back at that time, and the loss is still fresh. Two decades of hard work in a niche of healthcare...snatched, leaving me hanging in mid-air. Friends, colleagues, and my reputation--gone. Don't you hate when that happens?
Clearly, I need to resolve this in my head and heart.
Here's what I wrote in 2011:
Monday morning arrived, same as always. The only thing different was that I didn't go to work. Not that there wouldn't have been plenty to do; ironically, at the moment of the layoff, I'd been the busier than ever, working 10-12 hours a day. I had tons of reports and projects that needed attention. Make that, I would have had tons of reports and projects...I definitely need to shift to past tense.
Boyfriend tried mightily to cheer me up over the weekend. Dinner in the city, a night at The Palmer House, a visit to the Art Institute. He knows I love Matisse and Picasso. We wandered through Millennium Park. As we stood by "Cloudscape"--affectionately called "The Bean"-- a delightful young German offered to take our picture, with the city reflected behind us. "Come, stand on the other side, I know," he directed. "You're glad to have this photo."
It all worked pretty well...until I hit the wall on Sunday evening. "What are your plans for tomorrow?" Boyfriend asked in his most gentle manner. I looked at him blankly. No idea, I said. It was downhill from there. We were both restless all night, finally giving up and turning on the coffee about 4 a.m.
What to tackle first? Everything seems important--and urgent--right now. Yet I looked at the list I've been compiling and set it aside. In no particular order, here's what I did on Day One:
-considered and decided against watching "Oprah"
-called Apple Support to learn how to reconnect to wireless, post-data transfer
-ate a tuna salad sandwich
-ate leftover pasta with lemon-garlic shrimp
-packed two big boxes of files to ship to the corporate office
-started my income tax
-sold some stock to pay for the MacPro Book
-discovered my hair was long enough to pull into a short ponytail
-checked my Monster.com account
-considered and decided against moving to Paris
-went into a panic when I couldn't find my Kindle
-relaxed when I did find it
-read a chapter of "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" on the Kindle
-did a search for jobs at two nearby hospitals
-took a video of the squirrel who keeps coming on the balcony
-sent the video to Boyfriend, who has named the squirrel "Duke"
-sifted through the folders on my desk
-considered and decided against going to a Spinning class
-did a load of laundry instead
You get the idea. My mind is pretty scattered right now. The feeling is nearly identical to what I experienced when I became a widow. Same physical symptoms, same inability to sleep, same restlessness, same sense of hopelessness. The attention span of a goldfish. Call it grief.
The other interesting thing is that I've had the same dream every night since the layoff. In the dream, I return home and suddenly realize that I've lost my purse. I start to panic because I need to go somewhere, but don't have my driver's license. Now, it doesn't take Freud to interpret this one. For women, our purses hold our identity. Purses tell the world who we are. We carry everything in them, from our legal proof of identification to our favorite shade of lipstick. Photos. Phones. Keys to any door that is important. Even the purse style says something about us. In my dream, it has been stolen. Snatched away. And I'm shocked to discover this.
So, the purse symbolizes my career. My identity. How am I going to be able to prove who I am?
Here I am...still figuring things out. Not as many purse dreams, but they do come.
Hope all is going well. Many blogger friends are abandoning their blogs. Please don't be one of them. I enjoy your writing.
Posted by: Hattie | 04/20/2015 at 04:42 PM