Because you love me anyway...

It's taken me a week exactly to be able to write this post, and even as I type it I feel a little nauseated, but you guys are my friends and this blog is about my life, and last week something very big and very bad happened in my life.

Last Monday, I was fired.

Technically, the sales group I work for/with was fired. This had nothing to do with performance, it's half crappy economy and half office politics, but honestly, that it's not my fault doesn't go a long way towards making me feel any better. And boy, could I use something to make me feel better.

The truth is, I've never been fired before. Anytime I've ever left any job, it was to move on to something new and improved, and now to find myself slipping backward is, frankly, demoralizing. I feel sad. I feel ashamed. I feel burdened.

I have a beautiful home--yesterday, in fact, was the anniversary of our closing--and all it represents to me now is the one thing that we MUST keep afloat. I have a fantastic new pergola, thanks to the extreme generosity of my in-laws, and I can't enjoy it. There are reliable cars in the driveway--necessities that wrack me with guilt, because without help, we can't keep them. It's been a rough week, y'all.

So, that's the bad news. Let's discuss the good, and quickly, before I start crying again.
We have savings--enough to continue to pay the mortgage for months and months and months. I'm still being paid through December, and thanks to the fact that Matt and I live on a very detailed budget that can be tightened at a moments notice, we can stretch those paychecks for another 4 months. We have no debt beyond the house. Thank you Mom and Dad, thank you Dave Ramsey, thank you everyone that ever taught us anything about money. Matt's job is very secure, his college is paid for, and we both have health insurance thanks to Brinks. We haven't "lost" anything other than a job, and that in itself is an amazing blessing. We will be fine. We won't be going out to eat any time soon, and Christmas presents will be homemade this year, but we will be fine. Most importantly, we have people willing to help us, and while it cuts my very prideful soul to the bone to accept, it's offered out of love. That, too, is an amazing blessing.

So, now the further question is--what exactly am *I* going to do?

Well, I'm not going to waste my chance. While I have loved my job, loved the opportunities and freedoms it afforded me, it has kept me from ever being serious about another career. I was never looking to cash in my comfort to pursue something I really loved more, and now that comfortable spot is gone, and I feel as though it would be ungrateful of me somehow not to try to do something...more me. This means a lot of different things. It means I'm going to start doing catering jobs with my aunt. It means I'm going get serious about cake decorating and baking, and take any and every job I can get, even if it scares me to put myself out there. It means I'm going to start painting again (!) and open up an etsy shop. It means you might see ads on this blog. It means I'm never going to sleep again, because my mind is in full brainstorm mode, and I can't shut it off. It means that if you have any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions, I'm all ears. It means I don't ever want to go work in an office for someone else again.

If I have to get a part time job to keep the money flowing, I will. Of course I will. But if there's a chance, even the tiniest glimmer that I can do one of these things, any of these things, ALL of these things and keep our family going, I want to give that chance everything I've got.

So, yeah, those are my plans. We'll see how it goes.

I will add that the very first thing Matt and I did once the dust had settled Monday, was go vote. In a time when I felt so completely afraid, and so totally powerless, the most positive way I could think of to take some control back for myself was the power of my VOTE. Of my Voice. Of my Choice. I will never forget the vote I cast or the significance of that day for me, for my family, for my own personal history. I made that day about something bigger than my job, and hopefully my vote will make the fact that I lost my job that day nothing more than irony.

I voted. And that made me feel better.