Tag Archives: change

Aug11

Spin Cycle

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And I don’t mean laundry…

A little over a year ago was when I and many of my coworkers learned that our company was moving several departments away from our facility here.  We were not moving with them. Ample notice and generous severance softened the blow a little bit, but, for me, it also made it easier to live in denial for a longer period of time.

The last six months of work came and went, followed by my road trip, #OperationTakeAMinute.  That month on the road was unlike anything I had ever attempted before, especially traveling by myself.  It was a wonderful, soul-healing time spent visiting some family (blood and chosen) and a few intentional nights alone as well.

Upon my return I began the process of rebuilding my resume’ and searching for a job.  Thus began my experience with Temporary Employment.  My recruiter with the staffing agency has been wonderful to help me find leads.  I spent a couple of months at an assignment that I hoped would become permanent, but timing, circumstances, and internal changes with that company were not conducive to me remaining there.  So I waited for the next assignment while submitting applications and resumes everyplace interesting that I could find (and some less interesting places too!).  This past week I began a new assignment, with hopes for something permanent elsewhere.

After working for so long in one place, this new situation feels a lot like I’m living in the spin cycle.  I have often felt like a dirty garment, tossed into a dark place, drowned in soapy water, agitated and thrown around, eventually to be spun at dizzying speed to get most of the water out.  Then the whole thing starts all over again to rinse the soap—and the dirt—away,  It’s actually kind of a violent process!

BUT…this has to happen for the clothes to get clean.  Perhaps that is what this period of transition, instability and uncertainty is supposed to be doing for me.  Perhaps this process is cleansing me.  I sure hope so.  I hope this life stage is cleansing me to get me ready for the next opportunity, whether that opportunity is professional, spiritual, personal, or something else.

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Aug8

Horizons

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Looking ahead into the unknown…

Recently a number of my coworkers and I received news that, as the result of our company being acquired by a larger entity, our departments, and positions, are being relocated.  We, however, are not being relocated with them.  I suspect that others of us may get similar news before everything is all said and done.  Some of us have never experienced a layoff before.

I have.  This is actually my 3rd trip to the layoff rodeo and, while it is a disappointment, I realize that it is not the Earth-shattering catastrophe I once would have thought.  Is there uncertainty?  Of course.  Nervousness, even?  Well, sure.  But panic?  No.  (At least, not yet!)

I am grateful for ample advance notice, time which will allow me and my team of coworker-friends (many of whom I love like family) to formulate a strategy for moving forward.  We range from early 30’s to near-retirement age, and each life stage presents unique challenges and opportunities in the world of job searches, networking and how we might proceed to reinvent ourselves.  As this news is still sinking in, the choice I am making is to imagine a world full of possibilities for all of us.

Do you remember being a child, and having an adult ask, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”?  I am once again asking myself this question…moving forward, what do I want to be and do?  How do I wish to spend the remaining days of my life, professionally and otherwise?

I want to pursue many avenues, and I also want to focus on a select few.  I want to build upon the skill set I already have, and I also want to reinvent myself completely.  I want to be able to provide for my family’s immediate needs and desires while taking a new, longer view at the horizon before me…a horizon filled with interesting, terrifying, exciting possibilities.  For all I know, everything else in my life has been building up to this precise moment, to what end, I have no idea…yet.  But as we say in the television business, stay tuned.

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Jan21

Sock It To Me

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A Mustang, a honeymoon and a surprise

Saturday, June 21, 1986, Sweet Pea and I got married and started our crazy adventure of life together.  His car at the time was a 1977 (I think) brown Toyota Corolla station wagon which, while it got him from point A to point B, was not a fancy machine and, at the time, I think the air conditioning might not have been working.  For whatever reasons, we took Pop Cutshaw’s newer, more comfortable white Mustang on our honeymoon.

Our wedding ceremony began at 4 pm and it was about 6 pm by the time we left the church, so, as planned, we drove to Asheville that night and then made the rest of the trip to Myrtle Beach the next day.  I don’t really remember all that much about the drive, except how much fun it was to be taking our first trip together and the excitement of being newlyweds.  And I don’t remember whether/how much I slept while we were on the road.  (I’ve had a long history of not being much use on road trips because I have trouble staying awake.  Traveling with the dog helps keep me from sleeping an entire day’s drive away!)

And I don’t remember what sent me scrounging through the glove compartment of Pop Cutshaw’s car that Saturday evening as we headed toward Asheville and the first leg of our honeymoon.  Maybe we needed a map, or I was looking to stash some small object.  I don’t remember why I went in there.

But I remember what I found.

“Reckon why your Daddy has a sock stuck in here?”

“A sock?  I have no idea…”

It was tied at the opening and when I pulled it out, it was heavy and it jingled and jangled like a tambourine band.

“Oh my gosh!  It’s full of coins!”

I untied it to discover that it was filled with mostly quarters, LOTS of them.  And there was a scrap of paper.

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“I thought you might need some change.  Have a happy holiday.  Love, Dad.”

I don’t know that most people would have described Pop Cutshaw as a particularly sentimental person…and his gesture might have been  motivated more by common sense than the “warm-fuzzies”.  He was probably thinking we’d need money to do laundry at the end of the week, drinks out of a vending machine or that Jeff might want to play some arcade games once we came up for air!  Dads tend to be practical people, after all.

All I know is that his thoughtfulness touched both of us to our cores.  Such a fun, sweet surprise!  Finding that coin-filled sock in those early hours of our marriage was the moment I fell in love with my new father-in-law.

Sep4

Harbingers

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Bearing the signs of change…

Relief is coming.  I see the signs most vividly on my dogwood tree.  While the temperatures in East Tennessee are still hot and the humidity is still high, my dogwood tells me that fall is on its way and soon there will be respite from summer’s moist, heavy air.

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The past 2 summers have held an additional heaviness for me as well, the weight of grief bearing down as oppressively as the soaring temperatures and wilting humidity.  Stepping physically into the heat feels much like stepping onto the path of mourning, as though somehow my energy is being drained from me, body and soul.  I know this path well.  It seems like I’ve been walking it for most of my life.  Still, its familiarity does not make it any easier to navigate, nor any shorter.

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But relief is coming.  The changing colors on my dogwood tree are just the earliest harbingers of changes yet to begin.  Soon the maples, oaks and other trees will begin their turning from summer’s greens to the parade of warmer shades brought on by the cooler temperatures.  Such a graceful paradox, cooler bringing warmer and vice versa.

Relief is also coming for my grief.  There will never be a total removal of pain from the deaths of those I love, nor should there be.  But gradually, over time and with the changing seasons, the pain becomes less sharp, always lingering but not as suffocating as before.

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Relief is coming.