Tales of a Mid-Life Crisis

I have started and restarted this sentence several times, in an effort to make this an interesting and meaningful post.  Interestingly, this is what is happening in my life lately.  I've been stopping and starting and stopping and starting again, all in effort to make it all worthwhile and meaningful.  To give you a brief synopsis I'll start from last January, 2010.

I was holed up in a 4-star hotel which we could not afford even with the wonderful discount I'd obtained, about 10 minutes from my home, hoping to regain some rest and some clarity away from all of the noise which seemed to surround me on a daily basis.  Over the previous year I had come to the conclusion that I MUST leave my airline customer service supervisor job, lest I end up in a padded cell.  The thing is, the economy was (is) bad and jobs were (are) scarce and I felt really trapped.  Mr. Husband and I were working opposite shifts from one another in order to offer our son a family environment versus putting him in daycare.  We were the proverbial "two ships passing in the night" and it sucked.  I mean, it REALLY did suck.

We each felt we led the life of a single parent, because we hardly ever held the support of the other person being present in day-to-day childrearing.  We were burnt out emotionally, physically, and psychologically.  Something had to give.

I had just spent about 2 weeks at my mother's house with my son over the busy holiday, and after the pressures of the holiday combined with the pressures of not having my husband there with me to help with our son, along with the financial distress that was weighing on my shoulders, I needed that mini vacation.

So, there I sat, in the lovely, blissfully peaceful hotel room.  Within the first 10 minutes after I closed myself in the room, I had a mini anxiety attack, a physical manifestation of the stress I'd been under.  It was a release of sorts.  I spent the next two days drinking tea (okay, and some red wine), fasting on only fruits and veggies, reading, watching movies, and journaling my thoughts and feelings.  It was absolutely DIVINE. 

I came to a conclusion while on that idyllic retreat.  The year 2010 was going to be my year of change.  I was going to leave the airline, come what may.  I was going to find my smile again.  I was going to live. 

Oh, things changed, alright.

I should add that during this time period I was also on a leave from the airline, and I was utilizing this time to take an online course in medical transcription.  It was going fine, but taking a lot longer than I had anticipated.  I was finding that even though Mr. Husband would take our son out for a few hours a couple times a week, it just wasn't enough time for me to do it all as fast as I thought I would.  I knew I'd be able to finish by the time my leave was to be up in June, however.  It was going to work out.  I was going to get an at-home medical transcription job, and I'd be able to be a stay-at-home/work-at-home mom!

Then March rolled around.

I received notice from the airline that my leave was to be cut short due to needs of service.  I was to report back to hell within two weeks.

WHAT??!!?

My life turned upside down.  I began frantically searching for other jobs, amidst anxiety attacks and night binges on wine.  I was in tears at least 5 times a day.  I couldn't understand why this was happening!  I flippin' HATED that job and with every cell in my body did NOT want to go back!  Was my life to be a prison, forever filled with disgruntled business men complaining about their coach seats, drunk college kids in the gate area, and attractive but cocky people thinking that their beauty should always buy them an aisle seat and "oh.ma.gah.  I will never fly this airline again!" ringing in my ears on a daily basis???!!!  Not to mention the bad weather days.  Oh, man, I could type a book on it.  But, I digress.

I put my uniform on and dragged myself back into that airport, tears streaming down my face. 

But I had an idea.  I didn't have time to work on medical transcription, but I could be a Spanish interpreter!  That's it!!  I began looking into different interpreting agencies and sent out a gazillion resumes.  Within 2 weeks I'd heard back from three agencies.  Good enough.  I was going to get out of a job I'd long outgrown for once and for all.

I walked into work one day, strangely calm and happy.  I rolled out a piece of printer paper from the circa 1979 printer at one of the gate areas, scrawled out my two-weeks notice, marched right down to the human resources manager's office, and slipped that bad boy into her inbox.  I was going to make it happen, damn it.

Well, interpreting is a lot of fun.  But the calls were sporadic, and I found that I was earning barely enough to keep my son in his daycare/preschool 3 days a week.  But soon I wasn't earning even that much.  Then the sheriff sale notice came in the mail.  Things came apart at the seams. 

If you've been reading my other entries, you'll know the "rest is history" and you'll also know that guilt has played a large role in my struggle.  It's frustrating, because I feel like spending 12 years at a job that I began to dread about 4 years into it
should have earned me the right to leave.  I guess in some ways that's true, but what I really should have done was to have left that place 8 years ago when the job market was more steady.  Well, I didn't.  Lesson learned.  My son doesn't get his stubborness only from his daddy, you know.

So here we are.  Mr. Husband isn't happy with his work situation either.  We see our lives passing us by and we aren't even living.  Is this how we want to teach our son to be?  Can't we have a life where we get to be the real person we are at our core, and find smiles and wonder and joy in the journey?

Yes.  We can.  And we will.  And we are.

That's what this is all about.  We're going there.  We are who we are, and we are not going to allow other people, negative thoughts, preconceived notions, judgments from others or ourselves, "nor principalities nor powers nor things present or things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature separate us from the love of God."

Our heaven is going to be now.  In this life.

Love to you all.