That Which Does Not Kill Us...

Finish this sentence: That which does not kill us…

There are lots of alternative endings, I’m sure, but rather than go for the cheap laugh, I will go with the standard …makes us stronger.

I’ve been hearing this line in my head a lot lately and thinking about my life: what it once was, what it is now, and what I hope to have it become. I have to believe, if nothing else, that after this entire adventure, I’m a lot stronger. I would like to add happier to that list as well, and I might as well throw in wealthier. What the heck, if you’re going to dream, dream big – right?

Here’s my life as it once was, circa 2006. I was making a great income, and so was my husband. We had a really nice house, actually two of them, one of which was paid off and was primarily a weekend getaway out at his work property. We had every imaginable toy that either of us could possibly want. We were able to have Stu’s father, Alex, move in with us and have two rooms of his very own in our large home without being cramped ourselves. Between his money and ours, the three of us were able to eat out at restaurants almost every night. Both boys were safely in school and not living with us full time, so our only concerns were taking care of Alex and ourselves, other than our jobs. We had health insurance that would cover any and all doctor visits with just a tiny co-pay.

Was I happy? Well, oddly, not the way I should have been. I didn’t really love my job at all, and it was quite stressful sometimes. Stu’s job was stressful to him as well, and we both occasionally brought that stress home to each other and to Alex. Everything seemed more difficult than it should have been, and there never seemed to be enough time or energy to get everything done that needed doing. We were both overweight and out of shape, and we weren’t really taking the time or energy we needed to devote to each other and our marriage. We had two dogs that we loved and two cats that we also loved, but who were beginning to use random areas throughout the house in place of their litter boxes and making the whole place smell awful.

No, when you exclude the income, the toys, the health insurance, I can say with some assurance that I was NOT happy. But I certainly didn’t have the time to think about why I wasn’t happy or what I could or should do about it. I didn’t even have (or make) the time to write a blog like this one to share my thoughts with others who care. I hadn’t flexed any creative muscles in so many years, with my computer programming jobs, that I probably couldn’t have constructed these sentences with any sense of flow or continuity. I was dead inside. My idea of leisure time included hours on end of playing computer games or watching TV with Stu and snacking while doing so.

So fast forward a little bit. In September of 2007 I received notice that my job was going away effective the following February 1. Was I happy then? Of course not, because I knew it meant job hunting again, although I might get a little time off between jobs as usual. I was also worried about our financial future. The first bill for COBRA health insurance after the job ended would nearly send me through the roof, even though I didn’t know that yet. I didn’t think we could live comfortably on just the one income (Stu’s). Little did I know what else was coming.

I got a new job in April of 2008 as a temporary system analyst at a health care company very near my home. Was I happy then? Happy to have a paycheck, yes. Happy to be back into the grind of daily working and office politics, a resounding NO. Much as I liked my coworkers, the actual work I was doing at that job for about the first six weeks was very tedious and boring, since it involved mostly correction of a huge volume of system errors on a new system (package software) that wasn’t working very well. The good news for me, if I wasn’t happy, would be that that job would only last 11 weeks altogether anyway, before company management decreed that almost all temporary employees must be cut loose.

I therefore had my free time back in July, 2008. Was I happy then? You’ve got to be kidding! The worry of applying for unemployment again and trying to job hunt, which I hated to begin with, plus the financial worries of being back to that one measly income between us again. After a very unsuccessful job hunt for many months, I fell into a deep depression.

In February of 2009, I started a very intensive (and expensive) training course to learn Microsoft .NET technology in order to get a programming job again in a job market where mainframes had all but left the planet (all the jobs had definitely left the USA by this time). Was I happy then? Of course not. The course material was difficult and I was the oldest one in the class. In March of 2009, Stu lost his job and we officially became a zero-income family, putting even more pressure on me to succeed. I won’t even bother to ask the question any more; you know the answer now.

Hired for a new job in May of 2009. Fired from that job in July of 2009 for reasons that I now believe were related to personality rather than job performance. Another deep depression. Stu suggesting we should buy and run a business together. My random comment about a bed and breakfast while baking cookies. Stu finding a business and us buying it without doing our homework. Us finding out the business wasn’t all that the con artist former owners made it out to be. Us spending most of our retirement money before finding that out. Us also losing my COBRA health insurance by moving to another state. How many times can you say “not happy?”

Fast forward to January, 2012. Still a zero-income family to speak of, but my priorities have completely changed. I would be very happy with a total annual income of one-half of Stu’s former salary for the two of us to live on. I have all the time I want and need to pursue my creative endeavors. I live in a small town in a beautiful tropical state, in a county where everyone seems to know each other by name, and most of them are really nice. I get to wear shorts and t-shirts in January, and year-round. No stressful job, no dressing up, no office politics. My marriage is very happy, and we just added a second dog to our family. We have enough savings to keep us afloat for a while, and I have already decided I will NOT return to anything related to computer programming, which is good considering the nearest jobs of that type are 50 miles away.

Am I happy now? Yeah, I think I am. And I KNOW I’m a whole lot STRONGER.