Hi, blog. It's been awhile. Probably too long. I certainly wish it was under better, more creative circumstances. You see, about 11 days ago now, I found out I am losing my job. (That present progressive verb is used on purpose here because I have to keep DOING my job - my ridiculously difficult, emotional, and overwhelming even on a good day job - for another two months. All is not yet lost.) Needless to say, that was pretty devastating news for me, seeing as I absolutely love my job and I've been assured by everyone (including the bearer of bad news) that I am very good at it. Even though my love for my work had kind of been in doubt for awhile now (I had seriously thought about what it would be like to pursue a different career, even fantasizing at times about the "luxury" of working a desk job where I could listen to my own music, work at my own pace, and go to the bathroom whenever I damn well pleased), I remembered precisely how much I love my particular job the instant it was taken away from me.
I've already spent way too much time thinking about all my regrets, the people I will miss, the graduations I contributed to but won't see... so I won't use this space to cry about that. I'm done crying. Besides, I came here this evening for a different reason. Obviously, I'm applying for new jobs (I am definitely not marrying a sugar daddy... mama's gotta work), so even though I don't use my full name there and I'm practically unsearchable, I checked my Facebook privacy settings. Upon viewing my profile as the general public would, I noticed something odd - the only thing they have access to is the notes section of my profile. I haven't posted a note to Facebook in years. A. and I weren't even dating yet when I posted the last one, and we're getting married in 87 days, if that tells you anything.
Anyway, I naturally started reading through some of those old posts to see whether I should delete them or if they were safe to leave. It's mostly innocuous; lots of those dumb surveys that were popular back when Facebook was first really taking off, a few observations of daily college life, and one particularly feisty rant about Kansas' inability to clear snow properly (in my defense, KU had just lost, so I was quite irritable already). The most interesting thing I found, though, was a writing exercise I used to make myself do when I was feeling stressed and had time to kill at my reference desk work-study job. I would force myself to make (and publish, via notes) two simple lists: the things that made me happy at that moment, and the things that didn't. The goal was to list more happy things than unhappy things. Simple, yet effective. It nearly always worked to put things in perspective and forced me to look on the bright side. I can't think of anything I need more than that right now, so here goes. Indulge me, if you will.
Things that make me happy this evening:
Our incredibly warm and snuggly couch, a warm blanket, a stomach full (and relatively settled, thank goodness) of white chicken chili, leftovers of said chili packed and ready for lunches, an evening of good re-runs of Top Gear on BBC America, a cold beer, Cadbury Mini-Eggs (a surprise from A.), good news today on the job search front, A. getting really excited about Dr. Who commercials on BBC America, goodnight kisses, literally everything about my dear fiancee including how he just glued his fingers together while assembling his nerdy dudes, remembering words of encouragement from dear colleagues, my students were more pleasant than normal after a week's rest, a load of laundry is running, ridiculous Buzzfeed articles (seriously, I'm a sucker for a good set of autocorrects, and today's is gold), knowing I was strong enough to not tear up in front of students today, @FakeJoeDooley and his ridiculous tweets, my Jayhawks are in the Sweet 16, my ring is still extra sparkly from a spring break cleaning, texts from my BFF checking on me, and Pinterest!
Things that make me unhappy this evening:
Having to look for jobs at all, being nervous about going to work every day because I don't know how I'll react, being worried that I'll get another poor night's sleep, feeling like a failure despite everyone's best efforts to convince me I'm not, the gigantic pile of grading that should have been done over break but wasn't because of all the crying/staring/sleeping/puking etc. that happened instead, the draft that perpetually runs across our living room, job websites that won't load properly, a generally unclean apartment (see previous crying/staring...), an unfinished book I know I'll love but still can't concentrate on due to previously mentioned worries.
Well, the unhappy list has some seriously heavy hitters on it, but the happy list is still longer and prominently features the ultimate trump cards: my friends and my family. Time to focus on that and let them help me hope for the best.
