…and then,

So, it is somewhat curious that it has been about 5 years, almost to the exact day since my last entry.

We had just showed up in a new state, unpacked boxes and new life. From what I can gather, the feeling from that time was one of hope and endurance. Endure what was currently in front of me and hope that it would get better.

5 years later, it most definitely has.
I logged on here, to see about removing these postings, no clue who might have been reading these after all these years.

I didn’t give up my dreams and I didn’t give up any hope that we would be back in our home state.
I have since left the job that required me to move to another state, moved back home, found the job I had been hoping for and enjoying each day. The responsibilities as well as the much larger pay increase has been all that I had been hoping for. There were many nights wondering if the extra education that I took on was even worth it, but it has paid off. Would I do it again, not certain about it, but I am where I am.

Now at the age I am, the one thing for certain that I try to hold onto each day, is allowing myself to just be me. I can be nothing else other than that, of course improvement is always possible but a sense of just being……..me, is what I strive for everyday.

As I tell many folks and my daughters who are entering middle school, ‘you don’t get to come back once its over, there is no second chances. Do what you want to do everyday, and if you are not doing it, do what you need to do in order to get there. And hey, don’t forget to have fun along the way.”

Will see where this falls, if you are reading this Hello.
Have you gone outside today and looked up into the sky and said “Thank you” , if not try it.
What a great sense of saying hello….and then…..welcome your day.

W.

Impermanence

It is, that it isn’t to be always.

I don’t know what it is about this time of year, that I seem to enjoy.
A shifting, a new beginning, a heading to a closure for the year.
It’s brought in by the cooler temps and the changing of our landscapes.

I know that I tend to enjoy new beginnings more than I do being in the middle of things.
I can tend to get bored pretty quick, so with the ending of a project, assignment, an adventure I know that right around the corner is something new waiting for me.

We have been in our new home now since July, the girls are doing well in school and my wife seems to be settling into her ‘routine’ as she calls it.
Opposite of me, beginning new things is not something that she looks forward to, give her the same old same old and she is happy as she can be.
I do see how too much change is not good.

Our oldest asked us if she was going to be going to the same school next year, would she have the same friends and teachers around, we said yes.
It broke my heart for her to even have to ask us that. She is only in 1st grade.
I guess our move from her last school, to a new state has stayed with her in her mind.
It hurts to think that she might have already experienced loss.

Looking back, my wife and I still want to get back home to where our families are, and we know that this house, this state is not our retirement place of choice and we will do what we need to and get back home later on down the road.
But for right now, another move is not on our minds, and staying constant is what the girls need.

Impermanence, something I read the other day in my Buddha readings.
See the now, hold it if you can, as it won’t be that way forever.
I try to see how this too will not be here forever, our location, our lives in this new place and with that comes a little peace and smile from me.
I don’t know when that day will be, but I am happy to know that I will have an opportunity to miss being here, so it makes the colors much brighter for me when I think this way.

All I can give and experience is now, and for that I am grateful to God.
Glad for my life, my wife, my children and our home and for the work that supports us.

In a box

One reason people resist change is because they focus on what they have to give up, instead of what they have to gain.

Boxes, everywhere.

Funny thing boxes. Not much to them, they can be laid flat, placed over in a corner, recycled. But when it’s time to move, they are like Gold.
“Do we have any boxes?” “Where can we get some boxes?” “Hey, are you using that box?”

Nothing gives fair warning that change is about to hit, like an apartment full of boxes.

It has been some time since posting anything online. I have been pretty busy, with work and with 2 places I lay my head. 3 if you count the hotels I am in every week while on the road.
An apartment where my family is, and a studio where my company’s HQ are.
We bought a home about mid May.

To me, it was just a house, not yet a home. My family is still out of state and we are waiting for school to be over and Summer to begin. Well that day is today!

But, there will still be some waiting for all of us to be under the same roof, the girls are headed to the Midwest to spend time with the grandparents on the farm as they do every summer. This one being the first summer officially out of a school.
My wife and I are driving the belongings in our apartment to our new home. Today is also her last day of work, she has not found anything in the new state, and she is OK with that somewhat. But for the first time in about 20 years, she won’t have employment or anything to look forward to. This is a big change for her, and a big step toward letting me be the only one working. Trust does not come so easily from her, neither does trusting in something bigger than us.

So, we have tonight and tomorrow to pack up all our belongings in the boxes we have in the apartment. And the movers will be here to pack it into the truck that I am driving.

You can put almost anything inside of boxes, of course depending on the size of the box. Large boxes for furniture, even 65 inch TV’s now. Small boxes for paper clips or staples.
I have yet to find a box that can hold all of the missed opportunities that I feel my wife is carrying around with her.

All the what if’s.
-What if he would have found work here?
-What if we would have bought a home here, not there?
-What if the girls both continued with the same school they know now?
-What if I could have kept my job with the school, and stay employed?

I told her last night that her rear view mirror must be huge, as she is spending the majority of her time looking behind her, instead of what is in front of her. They make the mirrors that small for a reason in cars.

It was tense for a little while after that.

Walk by faith and not by sight I tell her. That is what has gotten me to this point. I HAVE to believe that the Universe, that God, is on our side and if we surrender to a higher calling and first of all BELIEVE that there is something bigger than us out there, all things will be OK.
It is not for us to understand the why’s, or the how’s, but to merely embrace the opportunities that have yet to cross into our lives.
Why would you want to spend your time, your life carrying around a box of ‘what if’s’

Will I miss this state, of course, it is my home, I have lived here all of my life except for a few years when I was gone and met my wife. My mother is here, my sisters and all my relatives.
But to keep asking ‘why’, seems no different to me, than sitting down on the path you have been walking, turning your head over your shoulder and looking back to where you just came from.
All the while it’s just you and your box in the middle of that road.

Yet down the path, and around the corner are blessings and opportunities.
Me? I will keep walking.

I would rather have a life of ‘oops’, than a life of ‘what ifs’.

 

Cheese Straws?

…what is that I asked?

As everyone turned their head at the table to look at the One Eyed Martian not from this neck of the woods. Just as I answered a 75 year old woman got a gleam in her just like she probably did upon seeing her first love or her first grandchild. With a new found spring, she leapt out of her chair and ran out of the room. Only to return to the table with 2 plates of home made cheese straws.

The One Eyed Martian was thanked for asking such a silly question and I had my first taste.

Well it has been a few hundred miles, a few longer months and a few less tears shed but I am in a new state with a new company and a new group of people.
I now have two residences again, this time the second one is out of state and no longer just down the road from where my family lives.
We have sold the house, moved up to the Northern part of the state to be closer to the In Laws, only to find out that my job in Oil and Gas was no longer needed, along with a few of my peers I was laid off.
A few more months of spiritual guidance, and white knuckled prayers for the summer, to be answered with a job, but this time in another state in the South. Not a state I would ever consider moving to, and pretty sure no one ever said “when I grow up I want to move to xxxx”.
But the answer to my prayer came to me, after simply saying. I am not going to fight it this time, I am not going to push, I am going to set down my bag of worry, and let you pick it up for me Teacher. I am going to believe with all my heart, and even when I don’t, I will let you know that I am human, but still praying to stay on that right path. Forgive me for being a man, but love me for trying and bless me for it.

So, the interviews came, the flight out to visit happened and then I was offered the job.
We have since made the traveling back and forth work, I have been lucky enough to be home every weekend, and my family is going to visit this down South state for Thanksgiving. To have my wife look at the homes and neighborhoods and to get a feel of what it is like here. The city we are coming from has mass suburban communities with lots of extras around it, and metropolitan living close by (art, opera, ballet etc). This place….well, not so much. The schools are not the best either, slim pickings there, and everyone with a family is trying to get into those neighborhoods. And there are not many homes built within the last 10 years, so many 20-30 year old homes. Hmm, Dean Martin comes to mind upon looking at the houses.
But, in spite of all the oddities here, the folks have been down right homey and friendly. With everyone asking about my family, and have I found a church yet and to make sure and catch a football game as soon as I can.

While my wife and I have even considered buying a home in our old state, we keep coming back to the same thought. Our daughters will be stronger if we are all together, family is the most important thing right now.

So it goes, all prayers are answered, some with a resounding Yes and others with a quiet no. Either way, I know that my presence in the world and my state of mind solely depends on me and my belief in all things good. I saw this past Sunday that Joel Osteen said, ‘it does not matter where you are in this world, you are always going to be you. No one can take that from you, regardless of where you are’.

Truer words were never spoken, but many still fail to hear it.

I hear you, Echo.

The girls have just left for ballet class, one of the last ones they will have here at the local rec center. Their dance performance is this Saturday.  It will mark the last weekend of activities in our home prior to our move. The house is closing, and May 26^th is fast approaching. Our house has Sold.

We have been taking things off the walls and you can now hear echoes more clearly than at any other time. It used to be my voice and my wife’s voice that you could hear before, but as the girls were born and more things went up on the wall, framing our lives and our home, the echoes seemed to disappear.
Now, they are back. Almost as if the house is speaking to us.

The past few mornings the girls have been getting up early and not coming downstairs but going straight into their playroom and playing. They have not done that in a long time, maybe they realize that their time here is dwindling down as they are very aware we are moving. Maybe the house is calling to them, “come play, come and play”. They seem to have taken it in stride, especially with this past weekend’s garage sale event, that the community had. All of our extra items we don’t wish to take with us out for sale to others.
I am listening to Pandora as I always do and a song came on “Where we once stood”.
Couldn’t help but make me think of our home and how very soon it won’t belong to us. My wife told me that after church this Sunday she finally heard and got the message after many weeks of going there to hear the sermons. I told her that whether we are in a castle or in a tent, as long as we are together, happy, loving one another and healthy, we will always be fine and I will be happy also. She agreed.
Still, I tend to get attached to things, cars, places and now a home, my home, my first home. The only home I have known and the first place my daughters called home, or our casa.

My mood seems to be matching the day, it is raining and overcast. Makes me want to take a long nap, with my family in our bed all of us together. To stay here, a snapshot of all things good and prosperous for us. I have to remind myself we did not plan to move because I had lost my job and we could not afford the house any longer, but to move up North to be closer to my in laws as the girls love them so. I am not going begrudgingly, not at all. I know it is the right thing for my wife and my daughters. I am just fine with that. I just wish we could transplant this house, my job up North, to be next to them.
Losing my job because of the layoff has made this more difficult as I feel we are leaving everything behind. It is good practice for me to apply the lessons I have learned in the past and to stop looking in the rear view mirror as the road ahead is long and filled with many new adventures. Nothing new can come into my hands, if I keep them clenched holding on to things long gone. I am opening up my hands and praying for them to be filled with new things for myself and my family. A new home, a new life, a new career, financial stability and financial freedom from worry. For happiness to stay with us and for blessings and favors to continue to find us.

I have started to take more pictures around the house lately, to remind the girls of certain events during our time here, and to help keep the memories that were so special to me, to us, alive. I know this place will eventually be just another place that we lived in, I had just hoped that it would be easier for me to say goodbye to these walls. They have been immersed in our love, our laughs, our bad times and good times. We have spilled many drinks of gatherings on the floor, many bits of food crumbs, for all the dinners we have shared here, as a family and while having guests over.
Our daughters were conceived in our bedroom and their laughter filled this quiet house. Replacing the echoes that were very prevalent in the beginning.

Now, there are more boxes that fill the house than toys. The pink dresses are being put away, to be opened up and used in a new location. And very soon, the house that became a home to me, we will be leaving, and driving away from it one last time, to never return again. Feels like I will be leaving a loved one behind, hoping the next family will be just as kind to it and appreciative of it, as we were.

Maybe before stepping outside the house for the last time, and locking the door behind us, I will speak to the house and simply say “Thank you, Goodbye”. Praying to hear the echo say, Your Welcome, Goodbye.

The ties, that BIND

I am strong, until I see the face of my wife. The one person that I don’t wish to disappoint and the one person I have always wanted to make happy. It aches me so much to see her worry, and personally to feel as if she silently thinks that I am not doing my part. I have openly confessed to that point, of feeling like I am not holding up my part of the bargain and letting her down. She says ‘no’, that as a husband I have been faithful, loving and caring.
But isn’t there some other part of that equation, to support her and my family? If not financially, emotionally? If that is so, I am failing miserably as she is prone to bouts of anxiety, nervousness and depression. I feel as if she believes in some way the world is beholden to her, by some of her statements that she makes and she keeps comparing herself to her friends. They have simple lives, they stay at home they don’t have to work. I keep telling her that comparison is the killer of joy.
I know that this is my hang up about her, and that I should expect her to be stronger but I get it. After a few go rounds with our situations, why should I expect her to be happy or strong?

I honestly think sometimes that we would be better off apart. She could run her life the way she wishes it to be, without having to worry about a partner’s input. And I could just go back to living in an apartment eating pizza dinners over my kitchen sink.

But then there are the girls to consider. A year ago, it might not have been so hard for me to think this way. But in the past year, they have seemed to open up their eyes to me, that I am part of the family. Just a month ago my daughter who is now 5, drew a picture of our family and I was actually in it. It made my heart swell to see it. She even drew muscles on Daddy as she believes me to be strong.

It is bad enough for me thinking that I am a failure, and trying to convince myself that I am not, without having to look into the eyes of my wife and seeing she might be thinking the same way. Yes it might be all in my head, and she does love me, but the ache is seeing her suffer, and knowing that it is coming from me. I tend to think that if I walk away it will make things better for her, as she won’t need to worry any longer, but that is false as she would just be going at it alone day to day trying to raise two daughters without a Father in the house. I am not a dead beat Dad who would not provide assistance in all sorts possible for her, not at all. But really, it would just be easier on me, to not see the pain I have caused her. I am sure that there are people out there who would do anything to keep their loved ones from harm’s way and would protect them with their last breath. But if you are the one who is causing them pain, what do you do?

We had so many dreams for our future and they have been great, I see the beauty in our lives, our daughters our health, the one thing that has been missing is our financial security for the future. And the continuous disappointments we keep going through. Right when I am feeling better about it all, and I know that the Universe is going to right the ship, I see my wife and she is nowhere near to being in that state of mind, and it brings me right back down again. I have always gotten motivation from desperation, I have said that for years, but to her, she has wavering faith, to believe in some mystical power out there, that will make things OK. She says it all the time, I am angry with God, why should I pray? We have been doing all the right things and then this happens again. Why bother with prayer or believing?

For me, I see the benefits, and to think that things won’t get better is not in me. I KNOW things will be better, but for her there is no end to these things. And, when things do get better, she is just waiting for the rug to get pulled out from us again. Never being in that sense of NOW, that things are OK RIGHT NOW. All we will ever have is RIGHT NOW. Why worry about the future when it has not gotten here yet, and the past holds no control over us if we don’t let it. It was in the past and let it go, if not you carry the weight with you in the presence and it only weighs you down. She understands that way of thinking, but she won’t walk that talk.

So….no what?

What do you wear, to your own lay off?

Decisions, decisions.
It was in the air, it was in the green “Venti, room for cream” tea leaves.

A RIF, or reduction in force for the uninitiated. $22 million, that is the number my company is expected to lose due to the Oil and Gas falling like a beaten up Pinata on Cinco de Mayo.
The signs were there, end of quarter, town hall meeting, and that unexpected (or expected) meeting with your boss, who happens to be the COO.

So, when I got up this morning to meet with him I looked down at my shoes and my dress and figured why not just show up with my normal work day clothes. Which is my usual pj bottoms and college alumni shirt and slippers? I mean, if I am going out, why not go out as I choose to?

Be careful of what you wish for, as what you wish for might not be what you need.
To imagine that once again I would be the unemployed MBA guy is just unreal. I figured I had weathered the storm, did my penance and was now going to see the rewards of my patience.
How do I feel now? Well, blessed.
I have been very in line with my path in life. I have bent my knees every night for the last year, recalling my humility of losing a job and going months without work. I have crossed my hands and given thanks for the blessings of yesterday, today and the blessings to come tomorrow. I have read Eckhart Tolle, Nietzsche, and the Good Book. All the while remembering that life is not promised easy, but any breath that I take, is life, and I can make it what I wish for it to be. Nothing was promised to me, and nothing is owed me or due me. I realize that now. There is NO NORMAL way that life should be, it is a path that is laid out for us and each is different. This is my path and I need to keep walking it as there is no other option other than death. Then all bets are off, you have no choices and that is when rest comes easy, presumably.

But lets keep it real, am I upset, saddened? Why sure. At most, because of the concern and worry that my wife’s face can’t hide. Upon telling her what I suspected was happening I could see the transformation of that vibrant lovely person, turning into an old woman in front of my eyes. Her reply: “I just wish we could get a break, ya know? I don’t know why this keeps happening to us, I just wish we could get a break.”

It is hard enough to keep my spirits high, and follow the light and not allow the ego, the darkness, the doubt to surface again without having to try and convince her that it will be ok. She, to her own admission, seems to gravitate toward the negative side very quickly and easily. Why me, why this, this was not my plan, I did not want my life to be this way at 40, I had envisioned something entirely different for me, for us and for the girls.

I explained to her that she does not need to feel guilty this time around about venting, about being pissed off, or about being disappointed BUT, that I wanted her to get it all out and then bury it and not let it resurface again. To try and get a better handle on all the blessings we have in our lives. Primarily 2 healthy little girls, love in our hearts for one another in this family and for all the prayers and candles that will be lit for us cheering for our day in the sun. This too shall pass.

I shared the information with my sisters, and one of them is an ER nurse, she told me I ws correct in my thinking. She is sending home a baby that has a chromosomal abnormality, is on oxygen and a feeding tube and has facial deformities and the mother is 23. On top of that, the babies father has stage 4 stomach cancer. I immediately counted my blessings and lowered my head and said a prayer for them.
If we were to put all our problems into one big pile with everyone else’s problems, we would jump back in, to get our problems back out, after having seen everyone else’s.

So……now what?

This time around I am not keeping this a secret, I am networking with my other Graduate friends and letting them know my situation as it is one that is all over the news on a daily spin.
The company is $22 million flat for the year, and even my boss, yes the COO is getting scaled back to just an adviser position. He stated to me that he was pretty sure he was not too far gone as well. And, he also said he would not be surprised to find himself looking back into healthcare, the same place he had just left to get things going with his Oil and Gas adventure. I paused….realizing that in the back of my mind I was thinking the same way.
What do I want? Stability, long term stability and enjoyment with financial security for my family. Now, how to make that change after having been out of healthcare for 2 years? That is the new journey, maybe it won’t be healthcare, and Energy is not going to rebound anytime soon, so I believe the Lord is moving obstacles for me right now. Moving people to cross my path, to have that one good thing come across for us to finally get a break.

What I do have, is happiness with my Daughters and Wife. If the world was to come and take everything away that was physical, I would be happy if I could still put my arms around my family and be thankful for the blessings from up above.

Faith is not hoping God can, it is knowing that HE WILL.

Refuge found

Weird to think it has almost been 6 months since I have posted anything on here. I looked back to a year ago, at my posts, and realized I had much to be Thankful for. Last year at this time I no longer was the Unemployed MBA, but an employed MBA.

The journey has been some ride. I went from being at my lowest low to my highest high when I found work.
I found that remaining quiet when I believed things could be different at work, was something new to me. I was still in shock about being unemployed for so long, that I didn’t want to rock the boat. I was very humbled by my experience and didn’t want to blow it. BUT, as I have always said, if you are in a boat that is not rocking, that just means you are not going anywhere.

I realized that it was very hard for me to stay quiet. I did it, but it was hard.
I recalled one meeting with my old manager, about how he had told me about ‘expectations’, that I was not hired as a manager or a Sr. employee. I said yes I recall that, and I answered, ‘but I can’t unlearn all that I have learned within my professional experiences’, many of those experiences did apply to certain situations we were dealing with at the time.
I was offered employment with a startup company while employed with my first O&G company, and took the Sr. consultant position. It has proven to be the best move for me.
I am back at my pre Oil/Gas industry salary, I have executives that I meet with every week who say things such as “I don’t know about that, what do you think?” directing the questions at me and allowing me to give my two cents with no fear of repercussions.
They don’t expect everyone to know the answer, only that you will work hard to find out what the answer is and to share it with everyone. They are setting up a net for me, to not be fearful of being who I am freely. That has been the biggest reward for me, and has proven to be my biggest joy to date within my professional experiences.

I believe that the Universe was making moves for me, removing obstacles and finding a way for me where before there hadn’t been a way to see. It was hard, I had to endure many sleepless nights and many zombie like days. The doubt and uncertainty in a spouse. But I had unwavering love from my daughters, and my God.
I found faith again, and realized that you have to doubt “something” to truly appreciate it, and even atheists have faith of their convictions, correct?

Since my pilgrimage south, to a church that was dear to my grandmother, I have continued on the promise I made to God, of praying to him every night as I used to as a boy, on my knees. It is a moment every day, when I know I am connecting with the world, the Universe and the spirit of One. I ask for it daily, to recognize my connection to all, and to be a help/servant to those in need. Whether in business or outside of 9-5 on a daily basis.
So this weekend and the last few weekends coming up, I am giving back again. This time on Thanksgiving day, to the needy and homeless. Part of a group that is working in a kitchen making meals for them all. Also doing a volunteer work this weekend for a cancer run, wherever they need me I will be there. And hopefully in December at the local food bank, as that was the start of it all for me back in January.

Not sure if I will get back on this blog before the New Year, but I will try.
I found something online that is supposed to be pretty powerful. Once again, politics, religion aside, you call God what you wish. My main intent is the message being said in the words. For right now, I am Thankful, for all the favors and blessings that were given me this year, today, and the ones coming tomorrow. I know, I am in favor and blessed every day I can draw a breath.

לַֽ֭יהוָה מַחְסִ֣י וּמְצוּדָתִ֑י אֱ֝לֹהַ֗י אֶבְטַח־“

Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
He will call on me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life I will satisfy him
and show him my salvation.”

A funny thing happened on my way to quit my job….

A funny thing happened on my way to quit my job, another job came looking for me!

Well, I wasn’t actually going to quit my job, after the last year of hope, and promise and change, I knew that I would do just about anything to hang onto this job for as long as I could. I felt, lucky. And not lucky in a way that you feel gay and happy all day, but lucky as if I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.
Lucky to be coy enough to get this job, to feel lucky to be tolerated for not knowing the technology as so many others knew, lucky to be given an opportunity to take on a client even tho my boss probably believed I was not the best qualified for it. Lucky, just like that.

In all honesty, fear of losing my job was the main driver for remaining low key. I had lost all my confidence and vigor after my last job ending as it did. I couldn’t help but thinking, it has to be me, it has to be me, I am doing something wrong. So fear kept me quiet, and made me quell the passion I normally have for work. 
So, when this job came around, in the field in which I had always wanted to work…well, I felt lucky to have it.
Earlier this year, I found a posting from another Oil and Gas company who were looking for a consultant, with just 1 years experience in the Oil and Gas industry, Graduate degree preferred.
I said ‘why not, maybe it’s my lucky day’ and applied.

Then they actually called me, and well I felt it was pure luck that they did. And even luckier I got a second interview.

3 months went by since that 2nd interview.
Until last week, they called again and this time I was informed I would be meeting with their COO, it was the final interview in the process. It worked out we could meet, because he was having a lay over in a town in which I was working for the week. Blind Luck… I guess?

We met for dinner, we talked, he got around to my experience (I thought here we go). He said “I see you have Healthcare experience” I sighed, “yes I do, many years of it” (thinking of how best to dance around it). He said, “so do I, 15 years worth, it was the main reason your resume caught my attention. I know how difficult working the Healthcare world can be, and doing Projects, Implementations and Managing people is not easy.” 
I simply said “thank you, for acknowledging that for me, as unless you are in that position, you just don’t know”, he agreed. Man, what a lucky break.

That was Wednesday.
Friday they called me with an offer, Consulting Manager, I can live where I want, no office to drive into but work remotely, and same salary I was making before.
Lucky?

I am sending out the signed papers tomorrow, no start date yet, but I will need to inform my current employer about it. Man, what a 360.

I went to church today, don’t do it as regular as I used to, as I believe you find God (again, whatever that word means to you) wherever you look for that power/energy. My cathedral can be in a church, or on a park bench to me. I had a lot to be thankful for, so I wanted to go.

Yesterday, I started worrying about telling my manager. Not so much for myself, but for his sake. You see, as I told my wife, he is short tempered and near sighted in regards to his employees. He just doesn’t hear them, and all they/we want is to be heard and validated in our way of thinking. We don’t care that you have been doing it for 35 years, as we will be doing it for the next 30 years behind you and we have lots to contribute if you just would listen!

I told her, I was afraid he would push my buttons, or take it too far and make it personal and then I would no longer hold back on what I thought of how he managed himself, and his department. And to let him know his 10 for anger was my 1, and how he was getting ready to get an ear full from me. And then I would revert to doing what I do best, sending out zingers to people who I feel need to be put in there place, and oh man does he need to hear it!
Sure, you can say do it, go for it, you are quitting anyway, all True. But that energy, that grey, dull, ringing energy I can create…I don’t want it emanating from me any longer.

Today at church I heard a word I had not heard in a very long time, and had to look it up as it was now foreign to me.
Temerity:excessive confidence or boldness; audacity.

If I walked into my bosses office, and he took things south, that is what I would exactly be acting like, professing to know better than he, and pointing out his faults.
I no longer wish to be that way, I want to be wise and sound in who I am, and not let others tell me who I am or my worth, nor defend my knowledge of what I believe is best, to not give my power over to someone else, because of what they say.
No, I won’t be that way. If he takes it south, I will just say,” I am sorry you feel that way, but before I go, I just want to say Thank You for the opportunity you gave me, and I wish the team “luck”.

“The hardest boss a man can ever have, is himself” Stephen King

God makes a way when there seems to be no way. I am not lucky, I am smart, I am wise, I am intelligent and I am able, I am loved and I am Blessed.

 

 

 

 

 

For Sale….a home.

 

I stood in the midst of the empty house,
It was silent, empty, and bare,
gone was the laughter the tears and the life,
and the family that once lived there.
I stood there observing, to try to revive
the memories this house had to share,
the secrets, excitement, unhappiness too,
these feelings so willing to bear.
I heard children playing and lapping up life,
I heard adults talking and scolding,
This house bore it all with its solid repose,
and accepted with wisdom beholding.
I stood in the midst of the empty house,
with a feeling of sadness around,
abandoned and empty, a lonely shell,
for the place never uttered a sound,
it was silent and bare, where the rooms had been stripped
and the furniture taken away,
the paint had been scratched and the floor left unwashed
when the house was abandoned that day.
The ghosts from its past walk through each lonely room,
and I sigh as I button my coat,
I slam the front door with an echoing bang
and a lump seems to lodge in my throat-
for there on the green lawn for all eyes to see
with dark letters outstanding on pale
is a board standing taut in the cold winter sun
with the large, lonely wording- “For Sale”.

Margaret Hanning~~