New Year's Reflections

Here I sit on New Year’s Day 2007. And I’m retrospective, as is to be expected I suppose. I just got laid off, five days before Christmas. And I’m feeling really conflicted about it. Part of me is really angry and hurt that the organization I gave almost 18 months of my life to has essentially swept me under the rug and forgotten about me. Part of me is really grateful as now maybe I won’t have headaches everyday and I can reinvest in my kids, I’ve been missing them a lot lately.

And so I find myself, once again, at some sort of crossroads. I could get my resume up to date and start applying for jobs again. Probably wouldn’t take too much time to find one. But I don’t really want to. What I really want to do is start applying to grad schools to start an MFA in writing. What I really want to do is go to play dates with my friends so that our children can play and I can be with like-minded women. What I really want to do is revise my life so that it’s healthier and more positive. What I really want to do is the absolute opposite to what will make me feel safe and secure and make sure that my family is financially safe and secure.

So I’m asking myself, which is more important. Having that financial safety or my family having a wife and mother who is sane and present and happy? Of course the resounding answer is the latter, but I’ve not quite figured out how to explain that to our mortgage company.

For months everyone around me has been telling me to just trust and take a leap of faith. That the universe will take care of me and that I will always be exactly where I am supposed to be. And it appears that since I couldn’t make myself take that leap, the universe went ahead and shoved me off the cliff. Because here I am, putting one foot in front of the other hoping that here is still something solid under my feet with every step.

There’s a bit of freedom in that not knowing. But I think it could turn quickly into a dangerous type of freedom. The “I don’t care about anything anymore” kind of dangerous. I’m predisposed to that kind of danger I’ve learned. So I have to keep moving, I have to keep doing something. So here I am. Writing on New Year’s Day to keep myself moving. To keep the freedom positive and active.

So here I am.