Tonight I am too tired to write, but not too tired to be grateful. Sometimes when I arrive home in the evenings I should get out and kiss the ground, grateful to have safely made it home after nearly an hour’s commute. A few years ago I could get from my front door to my office in 1o minutes, 15 if there was traffic. Now getting home in under an hour is a miracle. But I am oh so grateful to have work that I can drive home from after nearly a year without having a job after having been laid off.
I am grateful that the organization for whom I have been doing contract work over the past six months was willing to take a chance on me. The work that they do is very different from the work I’ve spent my career doing, and the learning curve has been fairly steep for me. But they have stuck with me and I’ve been able to contribute positively to the work their doing in the community. I owe a lot to my friend Mary’s husband who introduced me to the organization and recommended me as someone who could do a good job even though it was well outside of my area of expertise. The leadership of the organization took him at his word, trusted his judgment and hired me on. It’s been a very valuable growth experience for me, allowing me, among other things, to recognize that I have transferrable skills–abilities that are valuable across a wide breadth of different types of agencies, institutions, and organizations. That has been very gratifying.
It has been interesting being a statistic, but then in one way or another I have spent most of my life being a statistic. Being among the large number of people who are unemployed or underemployed is not one I had anticipated for myself, and to be approaching the statistic of chronically unemployed (over two years) has at times felt demoralizing. One begins to wonder after so long a time without full-time work if they have any skills or competencies left that anyone would want and if they would ever find a place where they could demonstrate that they still have them. For too many people, they feel that the work they do is a reflection of their value as a person. So if they find themselves not working or not engaging their gifts and talents doing what they were trained to do, studied to do, were naturally gifted at doing, then somehow their sense of self worth is somehow diminished. I have struggled a bit with that over these months, but keep managing to bring myself back from it. I am not defined by what I do, what matters is who I am at my core. And that essence is definitely transferrable to whatever I might choose to do in my life.
I look forward to soon being able to demonstrate once again what I am capable of, doing work that is aligned with my background, experience, training and expertise. But until that time, I am faithful and honoring the work that I’m doing now and give the tasks that I do the same attention to excellence I would anything I might put my hand to do. It doesn’t matter what you do, what matters is the attitude and the energy with which you do it. My mother used to tell me, “I don’t care if you dig ditches for a living as long as you give it your best.” Now I would contend that my mother certainly did care about what I did for a living–I don’t think she had aspirations for me that I would be a most excellent ditch digger. But I understood her point and do my best at whatever endeavor I’m engaged in. I am grateful to be earning income working with an organization that does good work out in the community. My hope is that I can continue to engage in work that allows me to work for the good of others. In that I know Mom would be proud.
