“Crisis Management”. That is probably how I’d describe my life from Oct ’06 – April ’08. Wow. 20 months, when you include the weeks on either end of that time frame. 20 months of living day to day, not knowing when I’d have a steady income, wondering if I’d ever have a ‘real’ job again.  20 months of dealing with a career crisis if you will… It was 20 months of crisis management. No wonder in some ways I’m dealing with a bunch of things now that may be repercussions of that “ending”, because that was a lot.
Fortunately I had a good cushion for that long period. I’d been hoping to buy a condo in early ’06 and found that eternally frustrating. 9 offers on 7 condos and getting blown out of the water each time by multiples. Yikes. So I had the down payment saved.  A good cushion.
The first four months were entirely funded by savings, including a very budget friendly trip to Barbados (thanks to having a friend who lives there).  After that I spent two months living on EI and Savings. For the next seven months it was EI, ESL Teaching and Savings. Then it was two months of ESL Teaching and Savings followed by two months of just Savings.  Three months were spent temping at an Engineering Firm before I took a few weeks off before starting my current position in a career-related field.
Whew. 20 months.  20 months of just trying to live month to month, or even day to day. 20 months of constant flux and not knowing how long I could go. 20 months that was probably about 7 months longer than I would have expected, if you’d asked me before it started.  20 months of stopping many of my goals.
Those 20 months were good. I achieved some new goals, grew as a person, developed an increased ability to handle personal unexpected changes (which is saying something given I have historically hated change). They were tough too. Other personal stresses have been amplified by my decreased capacity to handle stress. A complete re-vamping of my support network has occured, and is occurring. A complete questioning of my identity and world view is still up in the air and full of challenges.
So now that those 20 months of unemployment, or ‘underemployment’ are over… What does it all mean? It means I need to deal with some of the stresses that came along with the career crisis. That’s happening. I’m facing those pretty much head on.  It means I need to decide what my personal or career goals and the interconnected financial goals are going to be. Are they the same as before or different? What about the world view and identity challenges. That too, at least after I finish dealing with the stresses that came along with the career crisis.
This weekend I had a time that reminded me of my goals. Saturday was a home, puttering and cleaning day — at least after my long run. I missed my running gang at coffee so I simply bought some groceries at the market and went home. Saturday night was dancing. Sunday I spent it with some friends and had a long talk about personal goals.
Some of those personal goals are hard to really concretely define right now for me. Being that partly by personal I mean ‘family’.  But other ones are easier to define. Like the desire to own a home of my own someday. To have a cushion again. To build something for retirement. To be doing worthwhile work in a place that will be enjoyable, stable and long term, while paying me what I should be paid. To enjoy life, to look back on each day and be able to say ‘I lived life to the fullest today’.
Do I really know how that’s going to look? In some ways I do, in many ways I don’t yet though. It still feels very short term. Like last night.
I was out for a picnic with some friends last night and we chatted about challenges that we all face. I have them, she has them. They’re slightly different given that she’s married and I’m single, but there are challenges none-the-less. It made me realize though that we can make choices and suggestions that will help us all reach our goals. For example, restaurants. Trying to eat out less. It’s a gorgeous summer. So why not do picnics at the beach? I’m going to start doing that more. More biking (once my tires are pumped up)? Less gas money would be needed.  Less drinking coffee out — unless it’s as a cheaper alternative to going out for dinner… but wait, it’s summer… see the picnic idea.
All of those things are fun, yes, and definitely help with goals that I’m starting to remember, and which are still important to me. So those reminders are good. And while I know I don’t have control, really, over a number of goals – those that would perhaps be better defined as ‘hopes and dreams’, at least I’m starting to remember some of my goals from the past, and revisit them.
Now to figure out a clear way to get there… Oh well, that will be for another time. For now I’m going to go and get ready to go to T-Model Ford, who’s performing at The Yale tonight.