Well, here I am.
I should just expect that the cosmos will punch me in the gut each January, steal my keys, clean out my bank account and crap in my kitchen.
I thought this January might be different. I thought I might make it through without any major crises or catastrophes. I was wrong.
Last January, I lost my job of seven years and, almost immediately, had my wisdom teeth pulled. In fact, I had a dentist appointment less than an hour after I found myself unemployed.
The January before? Gall bladder surgery. This followed a month and a half of eating rice and drinking chicken broth because, well, the results of eating anything else were a nine on the pain scale. Fun!
The one before that was a really good one. I woke up New Year’s Day barely able to walk. Herniated disc. The neighbors had to carry me to the car to go to the doctor. That’s right. They carried me.
A lot of you have carried me over the years, both figuratively and literally. For that, I’m forever grateful. As it happens, it looks like I’ll be leaning on you a little more in the near future.
As I see it now, in the haze of “how am I gonna pay my bills?” and “I wonder if I’m still eligible for unemployment compensation?” and hours of looking at Craigslist job postings, I can go in two different directions.
This was the conclusion I came to last year, after several months of mopey unemployment (early retirement?). I can continue to grieve for opportunities lost or I can make new opportunities.
I wrote a lot last year and didn’t finish a single project. Not one.
So, unemployed again, I can’t help but see this as a second chance to get it right. Use the time, the cosmos tells me. Use the time to create something.
Funny that. As I sat at my desk today, doing someone else’s work, I thought to myself,”I’m not making anything. I’m not creating anything. I’m not putting anything into the world that will outlive me, that will be my legacy, that will carry my name when I am gone.”
I’ve wasted a lot of time. I’m not going to do that anymore.
I’ve got another week at this job but I’m not going to wait that long before I start putting the words together again. I’ve got plenty of editing to do on last November’s NaNo project. I’ve got the little Valentine story I started about this time last year that became a story about werewolf royalty (you read that right). I’m thinking about writing fairy tales since they seem to be all the rage in Hollywood right now and probably will be for the foreseeable future.
I’ve got lots of words and lots of time. I just need to use them both wisely.
octoberthoughtspdx 