That Song By Kelly Clarkson, Part 1

The Good Doctor always said, "Point of view is a moral decision." I'm thinking about this as I add in today's blog. Peter Gabriel wrote, "Grab your things I've come to take you home." Sooner or later, someone would have said that to me. I was lucky enough to look deep in a mirror and see no other course of action.

I imagine, in terms of point of view, that my employees were just as relieved as I was to hear that I was to leave on April 15th, but their points of view are theirs to write. Perhaps someday they will be the subject of a short story, a collection of such stories, or a novel, where I can imagine that relief full-fledged. But this stream is my point of view, or POV, as the Good Doctor would call it.

How long did I know I would leave my last traditional workplace? In all terms I guess you could say from the first day of my tenure there, technically. Unlike my first two jobs, I never felt that this last one was permanent at any time--rather, I felt like I was a contract worker in both the sense that I could be dismissed at any time and that I was of a different make and model than the rest of the blockade. (At one point one of my employees asked me just when it was that I decided it was okay to eat from a shovel instead of a silver spoon, but he was referring to a different situation, so we'll leave that on the mantle for now and come back to it when I'm ready to pull that trigger.) I never stopped holding my breath. That may have come from getting laid off from the first two jobs in California (the last time I had been laid off prior to that was in Ohio--I had gone TWELVE YEARS without a lay-off in Missouri), but it was feasted on by my leadership. I have a feeling it started when I revealed in the initial in-person interview that I was looking for a position with a company that wouldn't lay me off in a year.

But, you ask, when did I know that I would have to leave? What pushed me over the edge? Nothing "pushed" me. When you are in a position of no family, no spouse, some money saved, and at least two people in your friendship circle who believe that you could accomplish amazing things if you would just go do what you were meant to do instead of, well, you know--WORKING IN A JOB YOU RESENT AND ARE PROBABLY SHARING THAT RESENTMENT WITH YOUR EMPLOYEES. The better question might be: "Why did you wait so cursed long to leave?" I had to wait for it to be right. And shortly after a shake-up of all kinds of leadership in the district, in the company, and in my heart, it was right. It was no longer a decision, but a path.

Could I have done what I wanted to do within my last traditional workplace? Yep. But I decided I wasn't going to get that opportunity in my workplace. And as the Airman would say, in translation: "The donkey wasn't born gun-shy. Someone made her that way."

So here's what happened after April 15th, in broad strokes. We'll come back to pieces of this in future visitation.

Month One

Week 1

Last Day

• Bailed early to meet my brother and sis-in-love in Las Vegas for four days. Forgot where I used to work in a flurry of shows, sights, drinks, and too much food. God bless you, fountains of the Bellagio.
• Came home and panicked. Money situation fine, but how to stop from waking up at 5 am and calling the old work-place at 7 to make sure that they were ok?
• No one calling me from the old workplace for how to do something. Another right hook from reality. Triggered hatred of the times where I got sick at work on nearly daily basis from shoving food down to finish lunch in 7 minutes, times I went into work soaking wet so that I could take care of a building with no power, times where I worked 50 hours straight to count a building in the ugly month of October.
• Started writing more than three pages per day.
• Started new blogs.
• Started going to writing groups, to try them all.
• Started liking people in general again.

Week 2

• Met with the Healer and with another friend, both of whom I hadn't seen in forever.
• Realized to my relief that the Healer wasn't going to change.
• Realized to my disappointment that the other friend wasn't going to change either. Damn.
• Kept going to writers' groups. Stepped in as facilitator on one of them. Realized I don't mind leading people if they are accountable for their success.
• Then realized, as though Dorothy-from-Oz, that all of these people had the accountability of their own success the whole time.
• Still didn't want to go back and lead people at the place where I left. Just felt that realization was useful going forward.
• Got job writing for money. Now even more accountable.

Week 3

• Started feeling normal. Example of normality found in that I could eat a meal without wolfing it and without concentrating on not wolfing it.
• Struggled with an exercise regimen. Decided best one is just to get out in fresh air. Stopped with the marathon training.
• Writing up to 12 pages, longhand, a day. Frustrated as hell that it hasn't turned into a novel.
• Sleeping weird at night. Have the energy to crank out entire empires at 1 a.m.; can't create a damn sentence at 2 p.m. Would probably have a third shift schedule if I wasn't concerned with waking an entire building.
• Building discipline based on advice from the Airman when I worked with him: "Show me your focus, your discipline." Yes, sir.
• Anchored by memories of not letting the Healer and Airman down by self-sabotage. Taking on a Zen approach to writing.

Week 4

• Writing.
• Writing.
• Checking for self understanding.
• Writing.
• Talked to the Airman. Felt better afterword, but not because I needed a pep-talk. Just liked the reset.

Week 5

• Removed the schedule to see if I could trust my imagination. Sort of like taking away a net on the trapeze. That would have scared me shitless on the trapeze if they would have done that.
• Writing.
• No gulping. No hoarding. Spring cleaning. Purging of all kinds of material garbage. Also discovering that I can't avoid the fact that I can only read ONE BOOK AT A TIME.
• Gaining encouragement from nooks and crannies, instead of all of the wide open spaces I gave my life to support.
• Have more followers on Twitter than on Facebook. Different party, different props.

And now, Month Two.

P.S. - This is where the title for this post of Life for Rent comes from.