Couldn't Call It Unexpected

About a week and a half ago I had a really bad day.

Not a horrible day. Not even a day that ranks in my top ten worst days of all time. Nobody I love died or was diagnosed with anything or went insane or decided they didn't love each other. Nothing happened to my children, or my wife. My foundation was not shaken in any real way.

But this is what did happen: I lost my job, more or less, through no fault of my own. In a couple of weeks I, like 9.5% of the American workforce, will be unemployed. And that's not great news.

I'm not going to go into the details, for a lot of reasons, but suffice it to say that while I was of course extremely saddened by the situation, it also wasn't entirely unexpected nor, I honestly believe, is it entirely a bad thing. I've spent 4 hours a day in my car for the last eight months, arriving home to sleeping children and an exhausted wife far, far too many nights, and not entirely clear where the career path I had chosen was leading. I think, now, that I know exactly what I want and how I want to get there, which is something I definitely didn't know eight months ago. I'm grateful for that realization and believe I can put it to use, one way or the other.

So I haven't been blogging much lately. Instead, I've been "processing" this development, and preparing for whatever may come next. I've been updating my resume and writing cover letters and having lots of conversations with lots of people about lots of things. I've been trying not to panic, and, for now at least, pretty much succeeding. I haven't been second-guessing my choices, or wondering what would have happened if I hadn't made certain decisions at certain points in time. I've been telling myself the truth, which is that I'm extremely grateful for this professional experience, that I knew when it started it was an experiment. Sooner of later it would have been time for me to take the lessons I've learned and move on to the next thing, and it turns out that time is now.

Of course that realization is always easier when it's not being forced on you by circumstance, but that's the way life works sometimes. Most of the time, actually, in my experience. And I would like to have the strength, grace and confidence to recognize that reality and take it for what it is.

I read somewhere recently that when you boil it down, every decision we make is essentially a choice between hope and fear. Surely that's an oversimplification, but I find the notion appealing. I know, for certain, that I have chosen fear far too many times in my life, and I would like not to do that anymore. I would like have the strength to choose hope.

I don't intend to write about this much from now on, but it's an elephant in my particular room and I couldn't keep this blog going if I didn't at least express and process the news here to some degree. So there it is. Onward and upward.