New Beginnings

As of today, I was hired for a new job. This was the result of all that testing I wrote about in the previous post. I start training on Monday.

My daughter went to her new preschool class for the first time today, and was very excited to do so. Tomorrow will be her first solo day on the bus. My son began 1st grade today, and was extremely excited to do so. My husband is officially done with the job he's had for almost 10 years, and began his first day as a full time college student today. He was also extremely excited to do so. We had so many long awaited new beginnings begin today.

A while back, there was a discussion at Threads (www.threadschurch.org) about where we're each at with the condition of our sails. In its more basic componants, it was looking at your life as being in a boat, and how you were going about steering it. Waiting on God to do his thing with your life is a lot like raising the sail of a sailboat on a windless day. You don't know exactly when that wind is going to come, but if you're going to keep the sail up, you better be holding on to your boat. When that wind comes, you don't want to be left behind.

Being asked if I would accept this new job on this day of firsts is meaningful to me. See, I'd been a bit in denial about the whole process, and had fallen behind in the original plans my spouse and I had made about what steps I would take in searching for a job. I've been very focused in the search in the last month, but I wasn't as far as we'd hoped I'd be by this time. Of all the different places I've submitted resumes, this is the one place that was actually excited about me from their first contact. They were the only place I didn't have to sell myself to, they were already buying. At each stage of the process, they mentioned that I'd likely be contacted within a week or so, but each time they ended up calling me back to confirm the next stage that very same day. In this economy, that's unusual. But the timing of it all coming together today, on this day of firsts,...seems very symbolic to me.

We still have one part to figure out, with making some daycare arrangements on the days that my husband's classes fall. Normally, not having this all figured out ahead of time would leave me in a state of panic attacks. My spouse and I will be going over our options to figure this out, its just weird that I'm not in my usual familiar state of anxiety. This is very odd for me, but I think I just don't have the space for the worry this time.

I'm too busy just holding on to the boat.

Tiny Steps

Happily, my freak out factor is lower today. I have my first interview set up for Monday, for a job that would be missional relationship building in addition to bringing in some money. Of all the jobs I've applied for, this one really sticks out (and I'm less worried about the interview on this one, because it deals with something I already have strong opinions about; its more likely that I'll be able to explain myself, even though, on paper, this is a job that I'm less qualified for than others I applied for,...regardless of how it goes, this state of calm is definitely a God thing).

Even though my children will both be starting school this fall (at the tender ages of 3 and 6), its still hard for me to wrap my brain around the idea of not being home with them fulltime, anymore. Both of my children have special needs, and for the last three years, my biggest focus has been on how to help them learn how to learn. My "job" has been being their advocate, communicating with teachers and therapists on how to translate what my children were feeling, since it took such a long time for them to begin to be able to say it for themselves. They needed me to be completely involved to help them communicate, especially at first. Maybe I'll make a separate post on what all this entailed, later.

Now, after much hard work by my children and everyone involved, they've both made tremendous progress. They are working on being more independant and learning to focus on what their teachers are trying to tell them. It means its time for Mommy to step back and let them try out what they've learned in a safe, controlled environment. This is very hard to do. Our world isn't "back to normal", by any means, but we've adjusted and are well versed in what to pull from our bag of tricks to help keep our kids on an even keel. Now, we're setting aside more of the tricks and seeing how they can cope. Soon, I'll be juggling family duties and work duties, and I'm not overly gifted with coordination. Like I said, this isn't easy.

But I'm not as freaked out as I was.

Well, here we go,...

I'm a little freaked out. After more than three years as a stay-at-home mom,... I'm actively looking for a job outside of our home. See, my husband is phasing back into college and in less than a month, he won't be working outside the home, either. I'm not studying to be a math teacher (that would be my husband, instead), but even I can do this equation. No income is difficult to use in paying for daily living needs, so the job search begins. Both children will be in school this fall, but I'm still having a bit of difficulty wrapping my head around this.

This wasn't a sudden decision, by any means. John's been trying to prepare me for this for months,... it's not his fault that I'm extremely skilled at blocking out that which is unpleasant to me. The "queen of denial" would be an understatement.

It occurs to me that I haven't had a job interview in over 12 years. In a weird "just how old am I, now?" moment, it came as quite a shock to realize that technology has changed our culture's way of hiring since I did this last. Very few jobs are actually posted in the newspaper, anymore. No one mails resumes on fancy resume paper now, its all attached to emails. There's a virtual cornucopia of job search websites. The sheer limitlessness of it all is extremely overwhelming, actually. It's really hard to know where to start.

I'm dealing with my panic by just focusing on making resumes. Many resumes, each tailor made for each job posting I find that sounds like something I've done before. At first, I was really overwhelmed with the fear that I have no skills, so what will I put on a resume? Reducing myself to a sheet or two of paper is a particularly unpleasant process, and I've always felt like I had to "sell" me, like a product (which just gives me the willies). The word "interview" will spark a panic attack, so they don't exist yet in my mind. Tiny steps. Without having to physically fold hundreds of paper resumes, stick them in envelopes, write addresses, get stamps, lick stamps (yes, once upon a time, we had to actually lick each stamp, or cough up the money to get a "moistening tool", usually equipped with some kind of sponge,...back in the days of yore,...) and dump them all in a post office,... it's certainly easier to pretend that there's no such thing as an interview.

See, twelve years ago, I was notoriously bad at interviewing. Months after being hired, if I reminded supervisors about when we interviewed, they tended to glaze over in shock. "Oh wow, I'd forgotten all about that,... you're like a different person than who I originally talked to. I had no clue what your personality is really like, and I almost didn't hire you. I'm so glad I did, and you do such a good job, but wow,... you do not interview well,..." If that were only one response, it wouldn't be that big a deal,... but every job I've had generated that reaction from the people who hired me. Doesn't exactly spring forth confidence. I seem to have a hard time getting past the notion that, after they have my resume in hand and they ask questions that are already answered by my resume, my brain seems to interpret that this means they either A.) don't believe said resume or B.) what's on the resume isn't good enough and I need to come up with something better, on the spot. I can understand that this isn't normally the case, it's just where my brain goes with it. And thus begins the torrential flow of words. It's like the floodgates open, and I can hear this odd rhythm around me,... eventually realizing that I can hear myself talking, but my brain is no longer involved in the process. Its like a weird, steady background music that I can tap my foot to, and I can see the person I'm supposed to be talking to just sort of listing to the side a little, looking a little glazed.

Other times, I try to compensate by keeping myself entirely reined in (like my last interview, at National City Bank). This is successful in stemming the tide of my speech, but unfortunately leaves me with about as much personality as a parsnip (and yielded the most vocal backlash of "you really don't interview well" than any other job I'd had). There has to be a third option,... I just haven't figured out what that is yet. Tiny steps,...

So, yeah, I'm a little freaked out.