One Year

One year ago today, May 20, 2009, I was laid off.

I was in the middle of printing out a HUGE mailing to social workers in the Oregon and Washington area. It was important information they needed to know about the changes in a program we had in place to help their patients get emergency grant money for rent, prescriptions, child care, and many other things people with life-threatening diseases need assistance with. In the middle of the huge print job I was working on, my supervisor walked past my office door and ask that I come into the conference room for a meeting.

"I have some really bad news. As of today, our office is closed and everyone in this room will have their position terminated." (It's funny to realize that in moments like that, exact words are easy to remember.)

Numb. Blood, boiling. Hot, scorching tears threatening to erupt, a cry I had never felt before. Flushed face. Looking down at the cute yellow top with white Bermuda shorts I had purchased that past weekend.

Bright sunshine glaring through our 3rd floor windows.

Autopilot to my office to collect everything. The Obama stickers and signs I had put up during the 2008 election. Cute pictures of me with my nephew. KU alumni group's 2009 calendar. Don't forget to pick up the Tupperware in the fridge with my lunch. A leftover quesadilla.

Small march, head bowed, past the two national staff members from New York who delivered our life in severance packets, down the hall to hug my now former supervisor. The word "integrity" was personified with her and I never really told her how much I respected and enjoyed working with her.

"Please know this isn't personal."

I had turned down a position in the company a few months prior, as I felt it was a glorified secretary position and I wanted to actually be involved in patient's lives and not in worrying about scheduling business trips, flights and hotel rooms. The person who now had this position still had a job. Other people in the office I considered "friends" had completely lied to my face. They knew it was coming. It was...something I'd never dealt with before.

I walked home. I had just signed a lease for a apartment a few blocks away. I called both my parents. My mom sounded tired. I sat out on the sunny, tiny deck and somehow recounted what happened. I went to the gym. My sweet roommate came home and took me out for appetizers and prosecco. I came home, applied to some jobs and drank a bottle of wine by myself that night.

As time went on, I started to forget which day of the week it was.

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One year, two relationships, two part-time jobs, countless interviews and countless bottles of wine later...I'm here. I've all but given up on finding a full-time job, but I know it could happen. I'm looking forward to moving out of the area at some point. Every time I tell a table at my work my story, I get a big tip. I don't bring it up, but sometimes I get asked about my life.

Sometimes I get so consumed in what money I am making and what money I owe. I am still paying for a loan I took in college so I could get an education and get a "real" job. I am paying doctor's bills since my cheap insurance that my dad selflessly pays for isn't all that great. I am in two weddings this summer for two of my very best friends in the world and I am so sad my excitement for their days is also shadowed with the fear of not being able to afford everything they absolutely deserve.

But my life.

I do what I want. I go to the gym. I cook. I take trips. I nap when I want. I read. I spend rainy mornings in bed. I spend sunny afternoons outside.

Things are the hardest they've ever been in my life. But for some reason, and somehow, I know there's a light, and somehow. It will continue to grow and glow.