I didn’t get the job. I found out during resource today. I was in shock at first. The immediate thoughts in my mind were as follows: How can I handle It’s Just Lunch now, when I’m crushed? How can this be, after doing everything I could to draw TowneBank’s management training program to me? Does this mean I’m stuck at
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And there was another thought that skipped through my beleaguered mind: I had thought that last night would have made a difference. Let me explain.
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Last night, for no apparent good reason outside of idle curiosity, I picked up some old journals and read a couple of the entries, all dated summer, five years ago. I was smack dab in the middle of my Master’s program for teaching and with practicum still a fresh horror in my memory, I was feeling stuck. I couldn’t see myself going through with teaching but I had nowhere else to go. What else was I to do?
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Along with that fear of a real life at last being one I abhorred, I was also dealing with my spiritual status. I had been back with God for two years, since giving up the ghost, so to speak, of my unchecked imaginings, and was all about church and the Bible and so anxious about doing God’s work. I was living at home still and feeling trapped by that even as I was feeling apprehensive about carving out a whole real life for myself for which I would be accountable. The circumstances of my life at the time were not pleasant for me, but what really struck me about that time was ME. The me I used to be who was spewing out such angst and anger and frustration and longing struck me as so young. So immature. And though that person at that time had been made a woman through the fire of grief and pain, she still was yet so untempered. That girl – for I cannot quite call her a woman, despite her trials – had not yet held a job, started a career, or maintained her own home. She had not embraced friends or known how to handle imperfect people with equanimity. She had learned a lot about herself and her limits through what God had worked in her since she laid down her harmless-seeming madnesses, but she had not yet learned about self-confidence and the strength to admit her true desires.
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And as I sat in bed reading these journal entries, I was aware of a sort of breaking open, a breaking free within me, whereby I was able, for the first time, to really see my life through clear eyes. The scales fell off and I saw what I had been trying to see for the Secret for some time now: I was grateful for my life. It was no longer any litany, empty words I had to recite to myself. No “fake it till you make it.” No, I could finally see what my misery these last weeks had blinded me to. As difficult as my days had been lately. I had a real life. This is a real life I’m living. I am standing on this particular, unique spot on earth, enclosed by these walls of my home. The home I bought with my own money and my own merit. I live in this beautiful home because of choices I made in my life. And I learned so much about life and people and myself because of this job. This job which had become a crown of thorns bestowed on me so many blessings. And me! I was the thing I was most grateful for after reading those entries. It was right that I never feared aging, but rather welcomed it with open arms. While friends of mine were hyperventilating at 20 about wrinkles, I sighed at the prospect of wisdom, serenity, peace, confidence, strength. I looked forward to all those things you earn with age that no amount of youth can teach you. And the me in those journal entries was yet so unstable. She was so angst-ridden and consumed with pleasing others. She couldn’t stop herself from whittling God down to a few frustratingly distant, cold platitudes as she tried desperately to please him, to be the best Christian woman she could be. And I love the me I am now. I may not be perfect, but my life as a general rule (these last few weeks notwithstanding) is not ruled by dread. I know who I am and what I want and I can stand, uncringing, for both. I have a real life for which I am accountable. And this job is part of it. I may be ready for a change, but I can wake up every morning, and get ready in my beautiful vanity, and drive in my lovely, reliable car to a job I know well and can do. I earn a paycheck that maintains my model-beautiful home. This is a real life and I stride into it every day knowing exactly who I am, even on those days when I’m bent over with stress. Such lessons I have learned in the intervening five years since these entries, and some of the most important of them I have learned at my job. And I was gripped with such a gratitude! A gratitude for this good, real life. I went for my run, straight for the night-lit water as on every other night, and everything looked different to me. I was a little star-struck by my peace and happiness. And I came home and thought if I just knew I had the job, I could do this teaching thing for longer than the two weeks’ notice I was begrudgingly ready to give. And I got dressed today in very sharp clothes and accessories, standing tall, and ready for my day.
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So it is not incomprehensible that when I got the news this afternoon that I in fact did not get the job, I was, beneath the shock and crushing disappointment, confused. How could this have happened? Was last night not evidence that I had more perfectly aligned myself with the Secret? Had I not finally unlocked the full measure of gratitude within my heart for a life I had struggled to find worthy anymore? Was I not in the most serendipitous place in my life for lightning to strike? How could everything have fallen apart? I felt so stupid, so foolish for all the measures I had taken to draw TowneBank to me, even as I knew all the way through me that it was not all for naught. But how was I to pick up these pieces? It seemed to me that just when I had found a way to go on, the rug had been pulled out from under me, and that it had been happening like that so many times since I had decided I wanted to leave this job.
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Then Dad invited me out for a Daddy-Daughter dinner to share some “thoughts” he had on the subject since he heard the news, I agreed but I thought, oh, please don’t let his thoughts be a new game plan, some tips on my forthcoming job search. Let the burn ease first! I drove home and as soon as I got in the car, let the tears flow. Groaning sobs that curled me over the steering wheel. I still don’t quite know how I managed to avoid a wreck. But what a found interesting as the tears fell and slowly subsided was that I wasn’t wallowing. I was ready for whenever I was done with them so I could get back on track. I thought, let’s be done with these tears before the commute ends so I don’t have to cry all over Dad again. I knew I had to cry, but I was going to recover as soon as I could so I could resume drawing the life I wanted to me. I wasn’t sure what that would look like now that this thing I had been counting on so desperately had splintered away, but I was going to figure it out. And when Dad showed up at my door, I was remarkably composed.
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The thoughts he shared with me were nothing like I expected. Rather than brainstorming with me on a new game plan, he showed that he had been considering the patterns in this whole life of mine that is unfolding. He believed that the timing of all this was too close to be coincidental. I hadn’t even gotten near the point of considering the timing. He pointed out that the next business day after deciding that It’s Just Lunch was a sign, I get news that TowneBank doesn’t want me. His interpretation of that is that I have already decided what I really want, and it’s not an outside job. It’s not TowneBank. And I had to admit I didn’t want TowneBank for its own sake. I wanted it as an escape from this job and as a sort of placeholder until my real life started, that real life being my roles as a wife and mother. And Dad thought that maybe it was really the universe bringing me what I want. The management training program was going to run 15 or 16 months before segueing into the actual management position for which I will have been training. And learning not only a new job but a new profession would have necessarily taken my focus from what I really wanted. I had thought this before but had been so desperate to get out of my current situation that I couldn’t let that influence me. But I thought back while I was talking with Dad on all those times I never put into words when I thought on the commitment I was ready to give to TownBank’s training program. And every time I thought of it, I thought to myself of all those months, will I have to wait that long to be home with my family? I didn’t want to wait two years for that dream. Through our conversation, I came to realize Dad was right. Wisdom was dripping form his lips.
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And that threw a whole new light, a refreshed perspective, on last night’s revelation. Yes, I did come into a more perfect alignment with the universe by finally feeling the gratitude for the life and job I have. And yes, that did yield some benefits to my pursuit of my dream: after all these months of waiting with no word, it was as if the next step was waiting for me to decide on It’s Just Lunch and to feel truly grateful for this life. As soon as I did, my dream got another jumpstart. And now, I am even happier and more at peace than I was last night or this morning. My friends won’t know what to make of it! They were quietly commiserating with me this afternoon and now I’ll be walking in with a smile on my face and dawning love in my heart.
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My life is coming!
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