The thing about a job is, it’s sort of like a heartbeat: you either have one, or you don’t. It’s hopeful when former managers phone, expressing sympathy and saying they’ve got their ears open; it’s heartwarming to hear how hard the boss tried to save the contract. But in the end it doesn’t pay the mortgage.
I worry sometimes that this might be the universe correcting course, that I am somehow responsible for dragging our family east by the sheer force of my will, an act so pushy the universe could not allow it to slide. I won’t let it happen again.
If the lesson I’m supposed to take away from this is to live and let live, then I’m in a crash course not of my choosing. Allan is home all day now, which means the house is adapting, in ways subtly and … not. He’d rearranged the kitchen (the horror) before a week had passed, and is now eyeing the rest of the house. The Christmas tree came down in record time and for the first time since we moved in there is food in the cupboard that I neither had to purchase myself nor will be responsible for cooking. We share pickup, and dishes, and vacuuming… I don’t know which has surprised me more: how much I used to accomplish each day, all by myself, or how miserable it actually was for him to be gone from before sunrise to after sunset every single day.
If this is in fact the universe correcting course, then the universe clearly has a thing or two to learn about balance.
Which it’s welcome to get on with: the sooner, the better.
