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This is my third blog (if you only count the ones I didn't get sick of and delete after only a handful of entries). There has been a lot of water under the bridge since I first started blogging here. I know that "Here" is not the place it used to be, I also know I'm not the person I used to be. That's okay. Maybe there's still some of that old spark left. |
| Looking at my last entry I realize it has been about a year since my last entry, and back then I was just on the verge of starting my new position. Well, having been in the new position for almost a year, I can tell you I applied for another position within the same agency just yesterday. LOL! Maybe it isn't the best strategy to hop around so much, but after 17 years at the same job, I guess I'm making up time. The position I applied for is under my old supervisor as a Rights and Advocacy Specialist. It would be a good move and more money. I've spent the last year writing and revising policy. I've come to the conclusion that NO ONE wants to read policy. This means that when I write it, I have a hell of a time getting anyone to read the draft and offer any feedback. It also means that I spend a lot of time looking stuff up in existing policy for other people who can't be bothered to wade through the policy themselves. It is a pretty cushy and non-demanding job which means I'm pretty bored, but it pays well and hey... it's better than a kick in the ass, so if I don't get the new job it won't be the end of the world. Yesterday was the first day of school for my kids. Katie started her senior year in college and Zack started his senior year in high school. It seems unreal to me that I will have to graduations to attend in the spring. In other news, I am cohabitating now with a man I intend to marry. His name is Michael and he is also divorced and has a 16 year old daughter and a 13 year old son. They live nearby with their Mom, but we have them every other weekend and Zack and Evan (the son) get along exceptionally well. Michael and I get along exceptionally well too. We've made a pact though... neither of us wants to go through another divorce, so we've agreed that if we don't want to be together anymore, we're just going to go our separate ways, but stay legally married until one of us dies. I guess that was pretty much the same track I was on with my first marriage so I have the practice already and being older now, we're already closer to death.  Oh yeah... I guess I should also say that both of my kids really like Michael also. He is excellent with Zack. Zack has really come into his own and did very well in his first year of high school here. We've started talking about college and right now he says he'd like to study political science, but I don't know if that'll stick or if the interest is just a result of the upcoming election. He is thinking of community college for the first two years, so that gives him more time to figure things out. I don't know how I could possibly expect him to know what he wants to do when most days I feel like I haven't figured it out for myself. But I want to write. So why haven't I been writing? Yep. That's the $64,000 question. It isn't a matter of free time because God knows I can waste my time just tooling around on line. If I took the time I spend looking at real estate listings (Michael and I plan to buy a place in the spring) and combined it with the time I spent tumbling down assorted Google rabbit holes, I could be writing. Michael and I had this conversation the other evening and decided that we needed to set aside time in the evening without distractions for a block of reading and writing. We'll see how it works, but I'm going to try to get back in the habit of daily writing. As a part of that, I am setting a goal to blog every day for the month of September. That's the short term goal, but I'm also looking ahead to November and thinking hard about NANOWRIMO. |
My coworkers took me out to lunch today to celebrate my promotion. It was quite the love fest. Considering the most challenging part of my job has been trying to look busy in the absence of actual work, one might expect my colleagues to have formed some less than favorable opinions of me. This doesn't seem to be the case. Instead, they all seem genuinely happy that I was able to "rise above" a crappy situation and into a position were my knowledge and experience will be better utilized. According to Kevin, there has been a bit of grumbling over how I was able to jump up two pay grades, but aside from that, he says he has never heard anyone speak ill of me within the department. I laughed and told him to wait until AFTER I was gone.  My supervisor stopped in to talk to me yesterday. He has been out for the past couple weeks with his wife and new baby, so we haven't really been able to discuss much. Actually the last time he was in the office he started to congratulate me, but stopped when he realized I was confused. He got the news before I did, and kind of accidentally leaked it. Anyway, yesterday we were able to discuss, and he was very positive and encouraging. I told him I felt this opportunity provided more traction and he nodded like he got it. He's not stupid. He knows I've been underutilized, and I think it has been a source of frustration that he hasn't had the leeway to develop projects with/for me. He asked me to write up an exit memo with observations and recommendations based on my 8 months here. I did it, but I decided to keep it directed at systems and processes and not comment on the toxic work environment. I don't believe in burning bridges. Speaking of toxic work environment, the department director has not acknowledged my departure in any way. He has not spoken to me at all. Now, not speaking is kind of the norm for him. He has a bad habit of just completely disregarding people. I'm pretty accustomed to this form of management, and have never taken it personally. No news is good news and all that. The thing is... with my boss out, he is supposed to be covering as my supervisor, and yet... nothing. I'm pretty sure I need to turn in my Surface and my Cell phone and have new equipment assigned by my receiving department, but no one is conveying this information. We'll see if he initiates the conversation. I've already reached out to IT just to be safe. One more day.  |
| It's September 1st. Do you know what that means? It is bring your novel to work day! Okay... I just made that up, but given my circumstances, I have NOTHING to do at work this week. My bosses wife had a baby last week so he is out for a couple weeks, and since I'm a short-termer who will be moving into a new position effective Monday, no one else really cares what I'm doing in the meantime. Since sitting at my desk reading on my Kindle has the potential to be demoralizing to my colleagues, I have instead decided to revisit my Nano Novel of old. I just finished reading through the original draft and the first four chapters of the revision I'd started. And do you know what? I still like it. Yeah, it has plot holes and all kinds of other issues, but I fundamentally like the story line and have great affection for the characters. I feel an obligation to the characters to do better by them. I need to work on this novel again. I am rather excited about the prospects.  |
| I will be starting my new position next Monday. That's right... I got the job! I am pretty excited about it, and I'm so glad that it is with the same agency because I don't know if I could handle going through a full battery of new employee orientation this year. I think about how much change I've dealt with in my life over the past year and it is pretty astonishing. I am grateful that almost all of it has been positive change of my own choosing. However, it is true that even positive change is stressful. So yes, I am a bit nervous about the new position too. I am worried that it won't be a good fit. I worry about going through the whole process of meeting and getting a feel for a whole new team of co-workers and managers. One thing I don't think I will need to worry about is boredom. LOL! |
| I was scheduled to start classes today, but last night I completed my withdrawl form. This is the second semester I'm taking off, and the reality is that I doubt I will complete the Master's program I started. Honestly, I am okay with that. I don't regret taking the classes I took, but I'm not sure I have the drive to continue. I may have seen it through if I'd stayed in PA. Back in PA I thought education was the answer to moving forward with my life. Maybe it did help me get here, but now that I'm here, I am not motivated to keep at it, and with my commute, my days are long enough that I don't want to sacrifice my free time to reading text books and researching and writing term papers. I had been putting off the decision and told myself that it would depend on whether I was offered the new position I interviewed for. I am not very busy in my current job and I could probably knock out a lot of coursework while sitting at my desk, but if I got the new job, that probably wouldn't be the case. Unfortunately, I still haven't heard back about the new position. It wasn't until last night that I realized class was set to start today. Once I figured that out and realized I hadn't even ordered my text books, it was a pretty obvious choice, and I dropped the two classes I had scheduled. I felt good to drop them, so I think I made the right choice. Today is the first day of classes for my daughter who is starting her Junior year in college, and it is New student orientation day for my son who will be starting tomorrow as a Junior in his new high school. I am really hoping that things will go smoothly for him in the new school. I have a fair amount of anxiety and guilt wrapped up in how he will come through this major life change. Moving was selfish on my part, but I rationalize it by telling myself that even if my choices aren't creating the easiest path for my son, I am building better opportunities for us both. Easiest is not best, and we need challenges in life in order to spur growth. We'll just have to see how this goes. |
| My Ex-husband, Tony, is in the Navy and stationed in Naples, Italy. Our 20th wedding anniversary would have been on July 30th, but our divorce was finalized two years ago this month. He has been remarried for about a year and a half and has a young step-son. Yesterday, Tony messaged me to let me know that he was passed over for promotion. Since this is the second time he's been passed over for promotion, his Navy career is effectively over. I feel genuinely bad for him, but you know what? It's not my problem. I don't know when we arrived here, but it happened, and we are now on the other side, and my life is no longer directly impacted by his misfortunes. Sure, I might lose some child support if/when he stops having a steady pay check, but I know I have done a lot to improve my financial situation and can survive that worst case scenario economically without too much hardship. The only other real impact on me is that he'll be back in the country, and depending on where he lives, we may need to set up a regular visitation schedule so he can see and spend time with our son. This is could be a good thing for Zack and for me. For so long, he held the power to completely disrupt my life, and he exercised that power on a regular basis. It is a relief to know I'm now insulated enough that my life keeps humming along regardless of his latest crisis. I am relieved to find myself so unbound. |
| I am working in D.C. these days. The job is okay. It is a solid job that offers some strong possibilities for the future. What it doesn't offer, at least at the moment, is any sort of challenge. My position was created in preparation for events that have not yet come to pass, and it was filled very quickly at the end of last year to secure the funding before the new mayor took office (I work for the District Government). I keep hearing variations upon the theme of "When X happens, you are really going to be hopping." So I wait for X and spend a lot of time cruising eBay to help pass the time. I also look at job listings, but I haven't applied for many because, in truth, I have it pretty good/easy. It is really hard to knock the ease even when it becomes painfully boring or tedious. I've gotten tired of shopping eBay though. Having just gone through the big move from Pennsylvania to my new home in Maryland, I am a bit put off of acquiring a bunch of stuff. I am renting and knowing that I will have to move again in 2 years is keeping the buying impulses in check for now. It finally occurred to me that I could maybe get back to writing while I have the down time at work. So here I am. Working in D.C. has been an adventure. I hop on my commuter bus each morning to make the trip in. I can't even say I live in the Maryland suburbs because I'm on the outer fringe where suburban turns rural. And still, I am only 2 miles from the park and ride where I can catch the bus that delivers me to within two blocks of my building in downtown D.C. Twice a day I travel between worlds. The first month was extremely difficult. Whoever came up with the plan of starting me during the week between Christmas and New Years was clearly not seeing the big picture. The place was operating with a skeleton crew which left no one with any kind of seniority on hand to orient me. I was also dealing with a lot of Mom guilt because I'd left Zack behind in Pennsylvania with his grandma so he could finish out the school year. That arrangement worked out very well, so the guilt and worry was a lot of wasted energy. Still, I was stressed out about everything in my life changing all at once. I was also living a bit of a nomadic existence traveling back and forth to PA every other weekend to check in with the kids and attend to the mail and the household up there. It was exhausting. I almost had myself convinced that I would never adjust to my schedule and commuting lifestyle and I was destined to always be tired from that point forward. One day on the bus though, I was listening to an audiobook and heard exactly what I needed to hear at exactly the moment I needed to hear it. Have you ever had that experience? I think it was a first for me, and I can't even remember the book I was listening to, but I remember the message. Change is hard. We go about most of our day and walk through most of our routines on a sort of auto pilot. This is important because it allows us to manage all the mundane tasks without using up a lot of mental energy. Mental energy is just as finite and limited as physical energy and when you expend too much, it leaves you feeling exhausted. I was using up a huge amount of energy because EVERYTHING was new and different and navigating that much strangeness took a huge amount of mental energy. Unfamiliar sights, sounds, faces, places and routines demanded that I pay attention. It was like I was watching TV with the volume turned way up while flipping through the channels so fast I couldn't tell what I was watching. So that was it! I was so relieved to hear this because it meant things would get better. Understanding why things were so overwhelming immediately made them less so. From there I started to settle into my routine and little by little I found that I was able to engage the auto pilot and conserve some energy. There has been a continuous flux in my life. I am still making frequent trips to PA, and still encountering a lot of new people. I moved from my friend's house into my own place and for the next couple weeks, I have Zack there with me. If anything, this period of transition seems to have greatly improved my ability to cope with change (out of necessity), and, surprisingly, I find myself seeking novelty more now that things are settling in. |
| I started my job 17.5 years ago. It was my daughter's second birthday, and this was my first salaried position after college. It felt like a huge accomplishment to land a monday through friday with paid holidays, vacation time, health care, and and a retirement plan. I felt like I'd finally achieved the trifecta of adultness - wife, mother, salaried employee with benefits. I had no idea that the job would outlast the marriage or that my daughter would be 19 going on 20 when I worked my last day. Today is my last day. I am starting a new job on Monday. The new job is 4 hours away from "home" and will eventually mean a full blown move. For the first 6 months though, I am going to be a bit of a nomad and do a lot of traveling back and forth between my old and new worlds. I will be staying with a friend for the interim as this will allow me to keep expenses low and take my time finding a place of my own. My son will be staying with his Grandma through the end of the school year, and my girl... well... she is going to stay in the house and this fall she will be joined by several rent paying housemates. Life is about to get really interesting. |
| I recently started following and posting on Twitter again. I am getting so bombarded by the role of social media in my public relations class that I figured I should be paying more attention to it. Turns out it was timely! For those who don't already know, I LOVE six-word stories. As chance would have it, today is day two of a six-word story festival on Twitter. If you are on twitter and want to check it just follow @sixwords. #sixlies There are prompts. The first prompt of the day is Six words that mean you are lying??? I've been brainstorming and this is what I have so far... It’s Fabulous! It’s just not ME. Looking back, I have no regrets. You know I’m worth it Baby. I’m not gonna worry about that I noticed… just didn’t mention it. I could. I just don’t wanna. It seemed like a victimless crime. Going forward, we’ll try your way. My weakness? I’m sometimes too honest. This is pretty awesome in that its got my creative juices flowing and well... it's been awhile. |
| When I received my final divorce decree in the mail a short time ago, I wanted to shout it from the roof tops. Maybe that isn't the normal reaction, but that's how I felt. Well, for the past 6 years ago, a blog has been my forum for shouting stuff from roof tops, but uh... I didn't have one. It was a locked item. Locked because it had fallen into such disuse that it didn't seem to matter whether I paid bail to set it free or left it to molder. Having something as noteworthy as a divorce decree in hand forced the issue of needing a place to note it. I couldn't mark the event with fanfare and trumpets and ticker tape on Facebook. Not with the kids and the inlaws and the ex himself viewing. That would be... insensitive, and I've already committed to taking the high road there. No. It had to be here. Amongst friends - albeit neglected friends. It has been a year and a day since I told Tony I wanted a divorce. What a difference a year makes! So much has happened, and I have stories to tell. I am looking forward to sharing them, but they will need to be squeezed in around grad school course work. I am working on my Master's degree in Mass Media Arts and Journalism and looking to also pick up a graduate certificate in Public Relations. For the first time in my adult life I have a career plan that I'm excited about and writing is at the heart of it. It is good to be back, but man I feel like there should be a role call to see who is around these days. |
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