One Year Later...

I didn't realize that I had an "anniversary" until an abrupt comment from a former co-worker.

It was a meeting of a board I belong to - one of three, to be precise. On this board, I serve with a former supervisor - from my prior employer, just to keep it in perspective. She was discussing how several people were leaving, and mentioned that, "There's such turnover, we're losing people....we lost Gordon..."

And then it hit me - one year ago last month, I had left my prior employer.

It was...to put it bluntly, it was a tough, but necessary choice. I enjoyed what I did, but had way too much put upon me. (Luckily, the agency has now split my job into two pieces - and I have met both the new "tobacco dude" as well as my second replacement. My first replacement stayed about as long as Christopher Eccleston's tenure as the Doctor). However, there was no growth, no real ability for me to move beyond...and in retrospect, I seriously underestimated my lag time.

Six months of unemployment, temp work, eating store brand food....worrying about bills (oh, like I've never done that). Looking back, however, it helped build character - developing strong discipline, leaning on friends emotionally, and more importantly - being single-minded in pursuing my goals. This is the next logical step career-wise; now the time comes to deal with learning what I need to learn, and deciding where I need to go from this point forwards.

And six months into the job? It's not perfect, but what job is? I'm no longer tying my existence or my self-worth into my performance. There's still office politics, a heightened sense of responsibility (I am a director now), and despite whatever other issues I may have, I am grateful to be working. Things aren't easy, but nothing's forever - not even work. I'm redeveloping a social life (major goal - start actually dating), learning to take things one day at a time...in other words, life as usual.

Coming soon on this blog: a Record You Should Own, more posts about pop culture, more snarky comments about Mike Sterling, and - of course - the first ever Dalek/Cyberman verbal smackdown.