Tuesday, April 21, 2009

apologies; narcissim, the universe and other things

Alright cats and kittens, as I knew would happen, a large gap has occured since my last post. Anyone who knows me probably chuckled when I endeavored to keep a "daily" journal.

Seriously, I don't get the twitter thing because....I'm busy living life and barely have time to write something on a blog post a couple of times a month. Who are these people who have time to write stuff all day long?

Which gets me to the narcissism thing. The today show did a segment on today's generation of narcissists. Other than rock stars and porn directors, who really is that interesting that you'd just read thier stupid little one liners all day long???

So then I started thinking about MY blog. I'm the mother of a two year old, I'm not working (just got laid off yesterday) and the biggest excitement of my day is to head off to Target to get a garbage can that compliments my shower curtain. Who the fuck cares? Reading this thing is about to bore ME to tears....and it's my life.

However, on my last blog that I sorta abandoned, I wrote about things, deeply personal things. Things that made my friends email me and say "How can you get so personal so publicly??" I wrote about difficulties getting pregnant, a complicated pregnancy, comitting adultery and the divorce(s) that resulted thereof, Roy's alcholism and his sobriety...and you know what?? People, people I didn't even know, wrote to me and thanked me for letting them know they aren't alone. That other people go through these things and survive...and even thrive.

So it's my belief that if I'm going to take up a little corner of cyber space and you're going to spend your valuable time reading it, it's going to be helpful and have some value. This won't be some empty calorie blog where I write about the latest scrap book I made and how I made hamburgers for dinner last night.

I think it is all of our stations in life to help out our fellow man any way we can, even if it's just to watch someone walk out of the bathroom with toilet paper hanging out of their pants and when we discretely let them know, chuckle assuringly with them and say "I'm glad I'm not the only one that happens to".

So....yeah....I'm laid off. And it wasn't your usual comfortable Silicon Valley style lay off where you get the cushy severance package. Had I gotten laid off 6 months ago, I would have walked out with about 14 weeks of pay (two weeks pay, then two weeks pay for each year you've worked for the company and any PTO accrued). You'd also get COBRA insurance. Our company also contracted with a company to help you re-work your resume and get it into the hand of people who are hiring in your field.

But yesterday, Asyst Technologies, Inc filed bankruptcy in the US and Japan. When your company files bankruptcy, they don't have to pay your PTO. You don't get Cobra and there is no severance package. Fortunately, Asyst set aside a small budget for laid off employees to get a few months of COBRA. (Thank GOD). But I lost out on about $22,000 in severance.

But you know what?? Roy has been laid off since July 2008. No hope for work for electricians in California since the state has gone broke. So we packed up the family and all of our worldly possessions and moved 3,000 miles away to a place we've never been before in our life to start a new life. The "plan" was to live with my parents for two weeks and then head up to Nashville and fine jobs. And then...Roy ended up in the hospital and for a while there we didn't even know if he had cancer or if he'd survive surgery. And here we are, three months, three tornadoes (one of them severe) after moving here, Roy has just been medically released to start work, but is not as yet working, I've just been laid off and yet.... I have this feeling of "Christmas Morning". This butterfly feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Somehow, I just know this is all part of God's plan and something big and wonderful is coming. What it is, I don't know but I do know that it's easy to have Faith and praise God when times are good. But when times are bad, and Faith is challenged and beliefs are questioned, I'm holding firm. God is good and His graces upon us have been many.

I'm going to jump and know the net will be there.

Fasten your seatbelts.