Bad times hit the good life

skpadilla ♦ August 4, 2012 ♦ 9 Comments

Sometimes one’s best intentions turn out to be irrational and unsuccessful.

And that’s why one might keep a box of red wine in the basement.

Go ahead, open it.

I recommend a Bota Box for camping and Children’s Birthday Parties in the Park.  Tonight, however, I’m drinking boxed wine to commemorate an anti-celebration of my last week at work.

Lay off = ugh.

Yeah, lay off. AGAIN. I really wish the overly educated, middle-class driven, one percent controlled economy could get its act together already.

Since moving out west, I’ve had the unfortunate experience of a lay off twice. Each time, it was made completely clear that it was due to limited resources and in no way a reflection of my work, but it still hurts. The first time I was among over 200 City employees who were laid off. Critical employees including police and fire officers were about to be let go, so I understood how dire things were for that particular institution.  This time, however, my layoff is more the result of missed opportunities and transitional leadership.

It’s a major bummer. Until yesterday, I worked with talented people who shared a common vision of strengthening community food systems. Regretfully, there wasn’t a way to bridge the gap between grants to allow me to continue full-time.

This comes at a time when I find myself at a crossroads.

Over the past year I’ve plunged into freelance writing - creative and nonfiction. I recently landed a contract as a short term grant reviewer.  I’m pretty confident I can cobble together some meaningful work as a consultant over the next several months.

But consulting isn’t a job in the sense that a job-job is.

Diving into an unfamilar and rapidly moving river is scary.

Am I ready?

When I mentioned the lay off to a friend, she said, starry-eyed, “oh now you can be a stay-at-home mom!”

Hmmm. True. I could. And staying home with my boys would be incredibly rewarding and challenging in its own right. But that should be my choice and not a consequence of an undesired layoff.

I’ve worked since my eldest was three months old. I admire stay-at-home moms and have no idea how they keep sane when their kids are five and younger, and they don’t have a quiet office to which they can escape a few or more days a week.

So tonight I tip my glass of boxed wine into the fading light and toast to my professional future…whatever it may include.

Cheers.

P.S. I typically enjoy wine that is high quality and value-minded… desciptors like black current, vanilla, plum, blackberry and coffee come to mind. But on a 93 degree day in Portland, it’s dry white whatever all the way.