#anyway my coworker went back on medical leave and also is retiring in six weeks

[pride-of-storm]

i know doctor's office wants me to call to try and get me in earlier than the appt i scheduled online that was the earlist listed spot and over a month away, but also it's another thing to worry about and now i'm crying on the bus

[bettsfic]

hi, i was reading your years in review and i noticed that you quit a job of many years to go your own way. i was wondering if you would mind talking about this decision/if you struggled with it? idk i've always told myself that i wouldn't let the idea of a "career" get in the way of what i want (e.g. writing) and that one day (shortly after 30?) i would just quit whatever job i had and go my own way, but as that deadline comes up i find it harder to imagine how i could just uproot myself...

yes, i very much did struggle with the decision to quit (what i thought was) my very stable and lucrative career in finance to get an MFA in creative writing. it’s a bit of a long story so i’m putting it under a cut.

warning for suicidality and sexual assault.

i used to believe i grew up poor, but it was the 90s so poverty looked very different. my dad didn’t work for a long time, and so we only had one income, and we lived in an apartment that was kind of a lowkey hoarder home. as a kid, all i knew was that i didn’t get to have toys, or my own space, and i wasn’t allowed to have friends over. the concept of an allowance was totally alien to me. but it also wasn’t like i ever went hungry. the food we had wasn’t particularly healthy but it was always there.

i didn’t really realize how much that instability affected me until much later, when i noticed other people hadn’t lived their entire lives aware of and obsessed with money. i used to compulsively count the change in my piggy bank and beg my mom to take it so she could pay her taxes (i didn’t know what taxes meant, i just assumed they were the reason we couldn’t afford nice things). 

my safe haven was always my grandparents’ house, which was clean and had semi-healthy food and the door was always open. my grandpa was a high school chemistry teacher. my grandma worked at a bank. growing up, i had no idea what she did at the bank, just that it sponsored all the fun things we did, like going to amusement parks and baseball games. my parents never took my sister and i on vacation, but every year, my grandma would drive us to visit our family in missouri, which, even though it only cost the gas to get there, seemed like a wild indulgence to me.

i started working at 16 so i could have my own money. by 17 i was working illegally full-time and getting paid under the table. then i bought my own car, and shortly after i turned 18 i got my own apartment. even though i could pay my bills, i was still terrified about money. i thought about it all the time. i checked my bank account multiple times a day. i was a cashier at a restaurant and i would often open my drawer and just stare at the money or count it when i was bored.

but i hated working at the restaurant, and one day i thought to myself, how can i keep the money part of this job but lose the food part? then i remembered my grandma’s career at the bank (from which by then she’d retired), and that afternoon i sat down and applied to be a teller at the very same bank. obviously the bank was very large and it wasn’t like my grandma was in management. she worked in ATM operations. nobody on my hiring committee knew who she was, and honestly i have no idea how i got the job.

i stayed a teller through college, working 25ish hours a week. it didn’t pay very well and i was still nervous about money, so i picked up a job altering bridal gowns on evenings and weekends, and also an admin job at my university. so i was working 60ish hours a week, plus going to school full-time and trying to keep up my 4.0. in retrospect, i can’t remember how necessary all this was. i know i was living in an apartment whose rent was higher than i could afford, and i lived with my boyfriend who was struggling to find a job. anyway, it was definitely the lowest time of my life, and i was so exhausted that every day i hoped something horrible would happen to me so i could be hospitalized and rest. 

then something horrible did happen. my dad died. and even though everyone in my life was telling me to please dear god take a break, i did not. 

i got promoted to business finance, which paid what seemed at the time to be an ungodly amount of money. i was still part-time and finishing up my undergrad degree. once i graduated, i got promoted to full-time. for the first couple years, i really did try to be a banker. i was good at my job only insofar as someone who is left-handed can write with their right hand if forced for long enough. it felt very much like i was in the wrong place, but by that point i had so much unchecked trauma that i had convinced myself the highest human ideal was misery and deprivation. i wish i was kidding. i was the definition of ascetic and martyred myself. i didn’t believe happiness existed. work was all that mattered to me.

then i bought a house. so at this point, i had student loans, a car loan, a mortgage, and credit card debt. after my dad’s death, my mom had to file for bankruptcy because of all the medical bills. she abandoned her house. by this point i was 23, single, in six figures of debt with no familial support net, but i was making decent money at the bank, so it wasn’t like i was drowning. in fact i was doing pretty well. the bank was a rock in my very turbulent life. i got a lot of vacation time that allowed me to travel a bit. i had insurance and a matching 401(k). it was really a decent job.

but the bank was also in many ways an abusive relationship. i don’t mean that metaphorically. i had bosses who manipulated me, insulted me, humiliated me in front of other people. i had one boss who went so far as to look at my checking account and ridicule my purchases. i didn’t have any idea what it meant to stand up for myself or say no. in fact i wasn’t allowed to say no. my job at the bank involved solving other people’s problems. i could never say “i can’t solve that problem.” i could only say “i’ll figure it out.”

i had convinced myself working at the bank was a stable career because it was boring and i hated it. but actually it wasn’t stable at all. after 2008, there were mass layoffs and restructures every year while the bank tried to recover from the recession. i worked for a sales team, and so my job was dependent entirely on whether or not the salespeople did their jobs well. if they didn’t make goal, they’d get fired. if they got fired, i’d get fired. 

i started trying to date again and was sexually assaulted. after that i really struggled at work because i was dissociating a lot and couldn’t focus. my team, despite my having worked there for years, instead of being concerned for me decided to start complaining about me to my boss. finally i had to tell a coworker what happened and that i wasn’t doing very well. my team started being a little nicer to me but ultimately they didn’t care about me, they cared about how effective i was at my job. my boss didn’t want to fire me, so instead i was pushed onto another team.

that move came with a raise. then that team was dismantled and i was pushed onto another team. that was a demotion, but i got to keep my raise from the previous move. by then, i was working from home, and even though i was more comfortable i was also very isolated and miserable. my “fulfillment through deprivation” attitude was destroying me. i wasn’t eating well or taking care of myself. i was isolated and lonely. i still didn’t believe happiness was real and i constantly thought about killing myself. 

but i had started writing fanfiction, and even though i didn’t think i was any good at it, i was beginning to see a way out. i was beginning to learn how to dream, and want things, and give myself the things i wanted. i just couldn’t imagine leaving the bank, or selling my house, or moving out of my hometown. all of that seemed impossible to me.

then i had to go to a business conference where my team had a retirement party for one of my coworkers. she’d done what i was doing for 45 years. by that point i was at the 9 year mark. i’d spent my entire adult life at the bank. and i realized: the bank benefited from my fear and passivity, and nothing in my life was going to change unless i was willing to make sacrifices. 

but i still wasn’t entirely convinced. and then came the day i had to physically hold onto my desk to keep me from killing myself. i didn’t end up trying it, because i had another realization: this was a life or death situation now. if i kept working at the bank, i knew i would die. i knew eventually i would get low enough to do it. i didn’t actually want to die; i wanted an escape and didn’t know what else to do. suddenly i was off the hook. my options were not “financial stability or imminent poverty” but “live or die.” 

those were the big epiphanies i had, but the process of actually leaving the bank was a slow one. i wrote a bit about it here. i got into an MFA program basically by telling myself repeatedly i would figure out the money stuff later. when it came time to quit the bank, my boss convinced me to stay on working part-time, with the assumption i would move back to full-time once i’d graduated. i agreed to it, because just trying to quit was enough to convince me i could, and that better things were ahead of me. for a year and a half, i stayed on working two days a week while doing my MFA, which involved both coursework and teaching, and it felt a bit like it did during undergrad, having too many jobs and no time to breathe or think or feel anything.

between my first and second year, i had a looooong overdue mental breakdown. there were a lot of causes, but one of them was spreading myself too thin. shortly after, i quit for good. by then it didn’t feel like a big deal at all, i was so far removed from the work and my team and so focused on my degree. one day i turned on my work laptop and the next day i didn’t. i shipped it back to HQ and it was over.

then i graduated from the MFA and suddenly had to face the consequences of this life i’d chosen. my school kept me on as an adjunct, but it felt like being a ghost. i no longer had the community of my cohort. i had no health insurance. i was given my teaching schedule and a contract to sign, that’s it. there was no guarantee i would be getting classes the following semester, and after a year, that was what happened. i remember sitting in my favorite coffee shop trying not to cry when i got the email that said the department had nothing for me to teach the following semester.

i really wasn’t the same after the breakdown. i went from “i can do anything i put my mind to no matter how hard it is or how much it hurts” to “i have to step carefully, and treat myself gently.” i hadn’t fully realized that yet, though, so i tried to get a Real Job. i got the first and only job i applied to, because i am bad at nearly everything but somehow i’m exceptional in interviews. it wasn’t a bank but it offered the same sort of benefits package. it was a full-time salaried position at a non-profit. if i had found it earlier, i think it would have been my dream job. it was the kind of work you throw yourself into because you care so much about doing good. 

i lasted a month. during the first week something happened that triggered me in a way i’m very rarely triggered. i realized i needed disability accommodations, but i needed to go to a doctor to get an assessment and i had to be on the team 60 days in order to get insurance. i thought i could white-knuckle it, and i could, sort of, but every minute i was at work, it felt like i was forced away from the thing i should have been doing. i was constantly trying to write a few paragraphs here and there on my phone when no one was looking. i had to find excuses to take breaks and go to my car and breathe. at one point i told a volunteer i was an english instructor, and she looked at me very confused, and i realized i’d said it in present tense, like it was part of who i was and not a job i did for a while. then finally, my breaking point was an after-hours function. when i left i saw a field full of fireflies and thought about how, if i’d just stayed home, i could have sat outside and enjoyed them all evening, not just a glance at them on the way to my car. i liked the job but it was making me miss all the things i’d learned to love about being alive.

i quit the next day. i’d sold my house by then (which was its own feat) and moved in with my grandma, which hadn’t been a possibility until my grandpa passed away the previous spring. i paid off my car. i figured out finally that i would probably never be able to work full-time again unless it was teaching, and that the downside to this life would be accepting fear and instability, only being able to look ahead one semester at a time. staying open to the opportunities that arise. being a little selfish. 

i wrote a bit more about the financial realities of the writing life here. i can’t tell you what you should do, because the path i took definitely isn’t the path for everyone, but i do believe we all owe it to ourselves to pursue our best and happiest lives, because we only get one, and there’s no reason not to live it the way you want to. 

[thelastyearinmyforties]

T-Minus 2 Weeks: January

Two weeks from today is the day. The move from the 40s to the 50s. It’s starting to seem a little surreal. I don’t feel like I’m about to be 50. What would that feel like anyway? I’m pretty certain I don’t look 50...maybe I do. Maybe this is what someone who’s almost 50 years old looks like. Who’s to say? I’m positive I don’t act 50. I mean the very real fact is, I may have already lived more than half of my life. That’s weird. All I know is, it’s coming and I can’t do anything to stop it. Now, let’s talk about January...

Where do I even begin? January has never been a favorite, but for most of my life I tolerated it. But something happened in 2011 and January and I have been in a fight ever since. But this year...this year January is playing dirty and I am so ready to be done with it that I will sprint into February just to get out of it.

January 2011

First day of work after the holiday: Employee resigns, totally unexpectedly.

Second day back: Left my purse at home - mind you at that time I was commuting 32 miles to work.

Third day: Fell down the stairs at my house.

Last day of that first week back: Employee who resigned in December worked her last day.

I honestly had to take a couple of days off work and fly out of town for the weekend in an attempt to regroup. It mostly worked. But then the next January rolled around...

January 2012

During the first week of the month I had to have surgery to fix some girl problems that had been plaguing me for more than two months. I’ll spare you the details but suffice it to say, it wasn’t the most delightful way to start the year. A little over two weeks later I was diagnosed with pneumonia and had to cancel a trip to New York City and miss two weeks of work. In addition, in the middle of that, an employee resigned amidst some legal allegations.

Yeah. All of that sucked.

January 2013

Things at work went haywire and someone I trusted and respected threw me under the bus and then just stopped interacting with me completely. I honestly wasn’t sure I was going to have a job when things were over. In addition, a previous employee filed a lawsuit in which I was named. It was truly one of the most stressful times I’ve ever had at work and in my personal life.

So yeah. That January sucked even more than the one with pneumonia. 

January 2014

I decided to fight the next January by not being here for part of it so I planned a short trip to Denver to see my mom. That was all well and good until the weather delayed my flight back and I spent hours upon hours in the Denver airport. By the time I got back I was so sick that I thought I might die. But I had training the next day at work - a 4-day training to get certified in something - so in I went. It was a horrible day, one where another employee and I had a bad interaction, partially due to me not being 100% myself and partially due to me not understanding how to work with her. I went to the doctor the next day and was diagnosed with two separate infections, loaded up with drugs, and told to stay home the rest of the week. So yeah, I missed the training, felt terrible about how things ended with my coworkers, and could hardly function enough to even turn on the TV. 

January 2015

This was probably the least traumatic of the Januarys since 2011, likely because The Mother took things into control and came here. Still, work was unbearably stressful and I kept looking around the corner to see when the shoe was going to drop.

January 2016

The month started once again with an employee leaving, which is frankly just the worst way to start a year. But I took things down a different path that year, deciding to host an early birthday celebration for myself by flying in one of my favorite musicians to play a house show. My mom and Frank came out and frankly, now that I’m reading this, it seems clear I need The Mother to be here in order for January to be okay. If only I’d come to that revelation sooner...

January 2017

Once again I took some time at the beginning of the year to visit Colorado and spend time with The Mother. That was all good, and actually, things were going well until I went to the doctor when I got home. This was a new doctor since I’d just switched to Kaiser and seeing someone new is always a little stressful, but it had to be done. During the course of that meeting I was told how overweight and unhealthy I was so yay! Happy New Year to me! I was put on new medication, told to eat better and to lose some weight. Meanwhile, when all my test results came back a few days later I was as healthy as I knew I was. But whatever. 

Later that same day I had to deal with the DMV, but I had an appointment so it wasn’t actually terrible. After that I had some lunch, did some shopping then came home. Sometime in the middle of the night is when the food poisoning hit, and quite honestly, it was the third time I’d had food poisoning in a year so I was wholly unamused. I was supposed to go back to work the next day but that didn’t happen and I ended up home the rest of the week. I mean really...

Oh, and did I mention? Two employees resigned before I even went to Colorado...because of course they did...

And now here we are in January of 2018...

I was really trying to have a better attitude about it, thinking maybe last year was the worst...that food poisoning was the real low point...oh how wrong I was.

I took the whole first week off this year thinking that if I didn’t even step foot into work until the second week it would be better. But to be fair, it was already stressful because my boss retired in December and I didn’t have a new one - still don’t. So the higher level boss (VP) is managing us on an interim basis and the unknown factor of that was already adding a level of stress I wasn’t excited about. But honestly, it was pretty okay when I went back to work. We had a great first meeting and I was feeling pretty good. Silly me.

One of the worst weeks of life began Thursday, January 11. I left work early to head to a concert in San Francisco, a concert that had been rescheduled from December. I was barely on the freeway when my Check Air Pressure light came on, and moments later I felt the tire going flat. When all was said and done I had a new tire and didn’t make it to the concert. Not fun. But I was mostly okay. I was able to get a refund on the concert and I didn’t get hurt, nor did anyone else. 

But the night wasn’t over. It became a joke, to be honest. I decided to get a good dinner, sit and relax, and move on from the tire drama, but that was just ridiculous thinking on my part. I couldn’t find a place to park between two parking lots for the first place I wanted to go so I changed my path. I parked at the next place only to get to the door to find it closed due to a plumbing problem. Because of course. I decided at that point to just get Chipotle and bring it home. As i was standing in line one of the workers announced that they were out of chips. Seriously?! I mean, that’s the primary reason I go there! I got right out of line and sat in my car for several minutes before deciding to go where I should have gone in the first place, my favorite local Mexican spot. Thankfully the food was good but even it wasn’t normal. They never brought me chips and salsa until I was already eating. I didn’t even want it at that point. It was just ridiculous.

Two days later, when the Sharks won the game in overtime, the guy sitting next to me somehow elbowed me in the head so hard that I got a concussion. Having had one before, I knew it instantly. It was certainly not intentional but man, did it hurt. I’m still not 100% recovered from that. If you’ve ever had a concussion then you know how it feels. If you haven’t, be thankful. It’s not fun. I’ve had a headache since then - yes, still even this morning - and my eye is still not back to normal. I had to cancel plans with two different friends a couple of days later, and also had to cancel going to another event later in the week. 

And then came Wednesday, the night of the event I decided not to go to because of the concussion. I felt crummy, the weather was gross, and I should have just taken myself home and gone to bed. But no. That would have been too simple. I went to one place for dinner and decided to sit in the bar because there wasn’t a wait. Except there was because I waited almost ten minutes and no one even said boo to me. One server walked by my table five or six times and never even looked at me. I left. Irritated. And hungry. I decided to avoid any other restaurants and decided to just go to the grocery store, a place I don’t enjoy. 

The store was pretty busy but I did self check-out and headed home. Part way home I realized I didn’t have my ring, the ring that was my aunt’s wedding ring, given to me by my grandparents about ten years ago, the ring worth more than all my other jewelry combined. I told myself not to panic, that it had probably fallen in the trunk, or one of my bags, so I carefully got out of the car, checked all around, emptied the bags, and looked around the trunk as much as I could in the dark. There was no ring. 

So I drove back to the store, parked in almost the same place and walked back in, looking as I did. At this point I was panicked. I talked to an employee to ask if anyone had turned in a ring and she directed me to another employee, a store manager. When I told her I’d lost a ring she asked what it looked like. I told her it was gold with diamonds, and she said she’d seen a gold ring on the ground and another woman picked it up as if it were hers. It was at this point my heart sank. I remembered the woman. She’d been at the self check-out in front of me, and she had a stroller filled with all kinds of things. She was kind of all over the place and I’m not sure she was all there. 

The manager went and looked at the security footage but couldn’t see enough to confirm it was my ring, but the timing was too coincidental for me. I gave her my contact information and told her I’d send her a photo of the ring when I got home. I walked all around the store, checking in all the sections I’d been to earlier, then walked to the car and made the hard call to my mom. 

As she can attest, that’s when I completely lost it. My aunt was her sister, her only sister, my only aunt. She died more than 20 years ago, far too young, and the ring held great sentimental value. My mom, of course, told me it was an accident but I was spiraling and could hardly breathe. January had played the worst hand of all this time and I wasn’t even sure I could drive home. I decided to call the police and report the ring as lost/stolen then waited for them to arrive so I could relive the whole thing again. 

Almost an hour and a half later, after there was no conclusive evidence that the ring had fallen off there or that the woman had stolen it, I was left with nothing but emptiness. I realize that sounds dramatic but that’s how I felt. I came home and found the photo, sent it to the woman at the store then posted it all over social media in the hopes that somewhere, somehow, it showed up, knowing deep in my soul that it was gone forever. Here’s the photo one more time...just in case...

I was calmer the next day but still felt empty. I couldn’t believe I’d been so careless. I blamed the concussion. I blamed January. But really, it was my fault. And even if the woman took it knowing it wasn’t hers, it was my fault for losing it in the first place. It’s been a few days now and I know it’s gone. I know it’s just a thing, and that no one blames me. I know people lose things all the time, many more valuable than this. I know I can’t replace it and I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that maybe that woman needed it more than I did. But it’s not easy and that’s why it’s taken me so many days to write about it. January has nearly destroyed me and there are still 10 days left. Honestly, it would just be cruel if anything else happened.

So there you have it. January is the actual worst and next year I literally may have to take the entire month off and hide away in a cabin in the mountains. We’ll see...