Resignation Congratulations

So I didn't pass on the school district interview (see previous post). The principal called me twice and asked me to come in and see the school. I figured what did I have to lose, so I went. Put on the black linen pants and the black tee and a strand of pearls and hauled my old, fat ass into the biggest high school I've ever been in. Huge. Not one but two towers. Wings on either side and buildings in the back. A huge wood paneled reception hall with dual fireplaces right inside the front door.

Engery surging all over the place. Staff seemed very positive and competent. And friendly. In the other schools everyone had been pretty stand-offish. Lots of "hellos" and "how are you's" floating at me. Nice principal. Knew hubby from 25 years ago and knew my history with the school district across the state line -- and still wanted to chat with me about working in his school. Except he didn't, chat with me, that is. Instead he handed me off to the staff I would be working with. And I loved them. Real people. People who had been in the trenches but still weren't completed burned out. Many of them almost as old as me. Folks who understood life.

I was honest about all my deficients. I barely touched on my assets. But we clicked. School had already started the beginning of the week so I got to be in the hallways between classes and see the lunchroom first period. I liked the tone set for the kids and how they responded.

I fell in love with school building, built as a public works project in 1935 and now wonderfully restored and maintained. I found I really wanted the job they had open -- and they, in turn, wanted me, too. So it was a match. Maybe not a perfect one but good enough if we all try to make it work.

Today the school district officially offered me the position -- at a salary $10,000 more than I thought they would offer. I couldn't accept fast enough.

I've got some hoops to jump through. My life-time certification in the "other" state won't pass muster because I've been out of the classroom so long. However, they cut a deal to have it "exchanged" for two years while I gain certification. I also need to get certification for the specific area I'm to teach, so we can kill two birds easily with a couple of night courses. They already have me lined up with a state university.

Tomorrow morning I go sign official documents. Today I submitted my resignation to the construction company, effective immediately. Sweet! Really sweet! I floated out that trailer door, and on locking it for the last time, I clicked my heels in the air and flung my hat skyward.

New beginnings always bring a positive outlook. I know there are many hard knocks ahead. I've got a steep learning curve to overcome next week when I re-enter the classroom. When I left 16 years ago teachers didn't have own computers and were still using mimeo machines, students are more violent than ever (I've been warned several times about that), and I'm working in an area outside my expertise. Everyone, including me, is going to have to be patient while I climb the learning curve.

My environment will be lovely, though. My co-workers seem positive and friendly. My direct supervisor in the new teaching area is a close friend from church who has championed me through this whole process. My hubby thinks this is very good move on my part and is being extremely supportive. Many positives are stacked in my favor.

So the match, which isn't perfect, has the potential to be a really good one. I'm excited about this next phase of my life. And the satisfaction I got from walking out on the construction company will last for at least another month.

And the testing continues . . .

Hubby went to nuclear medicine today to have his knees examined. Somehow we jumped the gun and thought his knees were also going to be repaired at the same time, but it took five hours just to get a couple of pictures.

Because of the coil in his head, Hubby couldn't have the MRI that was originally scheduled in June. We waited this long to get into nuclear medicine at the local hospital to have "special" x-rays taken which also involved radioactive knee injections. Ouch! The several hours Hubby was required to lie flat on the exam table left him exhausted and miserable with pain. Still, we are more than grateful for all the modern machines and techniques that keep us moving forward toward a more healthful future.

Luckily this was not one of the days I was scheduled to work so I trailed along for injections and long hours in uncomfortable waiting room chairs, but still I wasn't as miserable as hubby, flat out on an unforgiving table.

On arriving home a medical company in the suburbs called to have me come for a job interview. Truth be told I wasn't all that thrilled. I really like working only two days a week. I know it won't support us in the long run, but currently having five days off inbetween two days of work is , well, sweet. Really sweet. Also the school district called and thought I might like to try for rejection number four with them. I told them I'd think about it but the reality is I think I'm passing. Three strikes and you're out, right?

Plus, interview clothing in 100 degree plus heat simply suck the big one.

Conflicted

Clearly, this time in my life isn’t meant to be easy. Hubby’s illness, dog’s death, loss of job, seems like that should be enough. However, just when you think life has shot her last load at you, it appears she has another live round in the chamber. My mother called in the middle of the night, 3 a.m. to be exact. We didn’t answer the phone but she left a message on our answering machine to call her.

For me my mother is highly problematic. Just when I think I’ve mastered myself enough to handle her, she inevitably proves me wrong. I’m an only child of an only child. In fact, she and I are the last of two family trees. Her line ends with me and so does my father’s. Sometimes that makes me very sad.

Mother drinks. I don’t honestly know if, at 81, she is still a falling down, mean drunk. But during my childhood and teenage years the drinking escalated, causing a rift between us that we can no longer mend. She loves me, as best as she can love, but she has no idea how to love really. What she considers love, I see as control.

The bad thing – and the good thing, too – is that she is very wealthy. She inherited an incredible fortune from her family which supports her very nicely now that she is old. She has no one to take care of her other than the hired help, but she can afford to live in an expensive resort community in Colorado with folks coming in daily to see to her needs and chauffeur her around to her various appointments.

Mother has never held a job in her life except for three months right out of high school when she clerked in an upscale store downtown. She was fired because she didn’t show up regularly. At 19 she got pregnant so a month after her 20^th birthday she married my dad, a very unworldly 42 year old who still lived with his mother. You can already see this wasn’t a match made in heaven. They remained together in a highly volatile marriage until my dad finally managed to die at age 73 from a disease that shouldn’t have killed him. It was clear to everyone but my mother that he just wanted some peace and this was the only way to get it. Meanwhile, he didn’t die nicely which caused her no ends of trouble. Payback can be a bitch.

When I took up with Hubby (we lived together five years before we married) she was irate. We used to live in the same city but Hubby was such a horror to her that she had to move 600 miles and two states away to escape him. She has never been back to visit me in the 34 years she since she moved. To this day Mother still refers to Hubby as “That Man” – refusing to dignify him by calling him by his name.

Of course, I have been disinherited a number of times. At first, there would be drunken calls asking me if I loved my family and if I did how I could have taken up with “That Man.” The carrot, of course, would be hung in front of my nose: give up “That Man” and you can be back in the will.

The thing Mother never understood was that I didn’t want to be back in the will. All my life I had been told by my mother that my sole purpose in life was to take care of the family. It sounds like one of those gothic novels, but Mother made it plain that I wasn’t pretty enough or smart enough to attract a husband. My career choice was a given. Women couldn’t really enter the workplace in any career other than school teacher, nurse, or secretary. I was to be a school teacher.

It speaks to what a good manipulator my mother was that I never questioned that choice until I was a senior in college and faced with actually having to teach. However, my parents had paid for my education, never asking me to work, so I clearly understood that my duty was to take a teaching job and begin paying my family back for my education. I got the teaching position, lived at home, paid rent, and followed the rules my mother set down. My clothes were monitored. My friends had to be approved before they could enter the house. I didn’t have a private telephone so my mother answered all my calls before I got them.

As Mother drank more and more, I grew restless and less submissive. Mother and Dad had a vacation home where they spent six months of the year and during that time I began to live a life my mother wouldn’t have approved of. When my parents came home it was harder and harder to fit back into the old ways.

Then I met Hubby and I knew I had to leave home. My parents moved to their vacation home and within two months I moved out of their house into my own apartment. Hubby had his own home; I’m not saying he didn’t spend most his time with me (and every night) but officially we did not move in together.

Mother threw a fit. She came back home and tried to have the police arrest me for stealing. Two policemen actually came to the school where I was teaching to question me. I had to hire a lawyer who eventually settled with her attorney that we would not contact each other.

Meanwhile the drunken, abusive midnight phone calls continued. We went on like this more or less for 25 years. When my father got sick, I spent the summer before he died with my parents at his request. Hubby came and spent a week with us. Dad and I were fine; Mother and I barely tolerated each other. Dad liked Hubby and told me, in front of Mother, that if Hubby made me happy, then Hubby was okay. Dad took Hubby to church to show him off; Mother threatened to boycott the church for eternity.

After Dad died, Mother asked me never to visit her again. However, she continued to call on a regular basis, claiming I didn’t love her and didn’t care about my family.

In 1993 I drove by myself to spend a week with her. In my heart I knew this was my last effort to make some kind of peace. She told me my life was a dirty mess. To prove her point she didn’t touch me the whole time I was there; even when I was leaving, she didn’t offer a hug or a kiss. If I reached out to her she would flinch.

So, I isolated myself from her. I really worked to cut off the feelings Mother could generate. The master of manipulation, she could make me absolutely furious within five minutes of talking with her. I needed to figure out how to turn that all off. I succeeded pretty darned well. I would write to her, rather than phone her. That angered her, of course. I was a bad daughter because I didn’t come on her birthday, and I didn’t even call her. If she was drunk I would refuse to talk with her on the phone. When she became abusive during her calls to me, I hung up.

Two of her friends on her 75^th birthday gave her a trip to see me. They made reservations at the Ritz Carlton, bought her first class plane tickets, and arranged limo service for a weekend. She wouldn’t come. They called me and begged me to come see her. I told them without Hubby I wasn’t coming. Hubby, of course, was not invited. I promised them, though, that on Mother’s 80^th birthday I would come celebrate.

For her 80th birthday, I arranged to throw Mother a party. I put together a memory book, rented a car so Hubby, dogs and I could drive to her home, took time off from work, and sent invitations. Mother went hysterical. First she had her friends call to tell me not to come. Finally she had the lawyer call and say she wouldn’t see me. At that point, I caved. This was costing a fortune and if no one, especially Mother, was going to enjoy it, so what the heck was I doing?

I now send flowers for birthday and special occasions. I have cakes delivered to her door. I send weather reports and church bulletins as letters. I do not share any portion of my actual life with her.

We understand that she is failing fairly rapidly. Fifty years of alcohol abuse and sixty years of cigarettes are bound to eventually take their toll. She is still in her home but has attendants with her during the day. She has written in brief notes tucked into the odd card here and there that she is happy but her memory is slipping. My birthday card this year came three weeks late; either because she planned it that way or she actually forgot (I still don’t trust that she isn’t manipulating me in some way).

After she called us at 3 a.m. last week, Hubby kindly suggested I return her call. My response wasn’t sympathetic: if you want to find out why she called, call her yourself. So he did. They had a pleasant chat. Seems she told him she was having a change of heart about our relationship. Gee, after 33 years, you think? She actually called him by his name, instead of “That Man.” She thought she might like to see us both before she died. She wondered, since she was going to have to give up her home and move into assisted living, if we would like anything out of her home.

Damn. My life feels complicated enough without my mother entering the picture. I honestly don’t want to deal with her. I know that she’s my mother, and I am supposed to love her no matter what. I just don’t like her all that much. I’m barely keeping it all together without this added burden. I don’t want to be the bigger, better person right now and offer her a loving hand. I want to just walk away and act like she never called . . . or never existed.

A Rough Time

Working only two days a week sucks. So does the pay for working only 16 hours but such as it is, we need the money, so I interrupt my life in the middle of every week to maintain the construction job that is now less than part time (so they don't have to provide any benies).

Last week and for the first three days of this week I interviewed at a school district across the state line. I finally got my head / heart in such a low place that it felt okay to accept a teaching position after celebrating for 16 years that I could actually support a life outside the classroom. Except now no one would hire me. Every morning I'd work myself up to be all positive and happy and sell my ass off as a really good teacher -- and each and every time I'd get beaten out for the position by a younger person who had taught a lot more recently than I had. So. After reaching the true bottom of my emotional barrel I said, "Suck you teaching; I'm not going to subject myself to this kind of defeat one more time."

Interestingly, through all the effort I was expending at trying to get teaching jobs, I was finding my e-mail and my home voicemail full of calls from construction companies wanting me to contact them as they'd seen my resume on-line. Right before I decided I would like to teach again (actually have a stable job that also had insurance benefits) I had peppered the internet job sites with my resume. I just downloaded a very basic resume overview to anybody that had a job listing that sounded reasonable -- without a cover letter and without any recommendations. Interesting that more than a couple of nibbles came from that when I couldn't get anybody to care that I'm a slam-bang great teacher, a far better teacher than anything I do in the construction industry.

Because I'd wasted three days this week vainly interviewing with any principal that would see me, I had to spend Thursday and today in my construction trailer, trying not to look like a thunder cloud who would bite someone's head off just for coming through the door.

Next week I'm going back to see what construction jobs are still open. A good friend has networked me into his company, and though the job wouldn't be intellectually challenging, it would be a stable job with decent benefits (and a sad but livable salary). Also I would be working close to home.

Wednesday of this week I thought I couldn't sink any lower emotionally than when my final teaching opportunity bit the dust -- and then Thursday I had to come to the construction trailer where I figured I was going to be met by an HR rep and finally fired (because they wanted me to work Tuesdays and Wednesdays -- and I'd called in sick so I could go interview with the schools). However, I wasn't fired and actually no one bothered to even show up for work except right after lunch when the construction crew found my car had a flat and they changed my tire for me. And then I went right home so I could buy a new tire.

Somehow this morning I got up and wasn't feeling so glum and defeated and knocked about.

This morning I could actually count a few of my blessings, and I have a lot of them to count when I can get my head off the ground and look around me. Next week I'll start again, looking for a job. I do believe that the things you need are eventually provided to you. I don't know what I learned from the past two weeks while I put my hopes and dreams yet again on a teaching position; I only know I won't do that again. Something new and wonderful must be waiting for me right around the corner, I've just got to get off my ass and quit feeling sorry myself and go find it. Easier said, of course, than done.

Endings

This Friday my employment comes to an end. My head has finally wrapped itself around the event and now I’m merely hanging in limbo wishing it would come sooner, rather than two plus days away. I want out. I want to stop going to my little construction trailer and trying to look like I care what happens to the business going on inside it. I’m done.

But, of course, financially, I’m really not done. I’ve got to start again, find something that pays legitimately well enough to support my little family and will bring me some level of accomplishment. Mostly, though, I’m working for the money and nothing else. Pay me enough and I’ll try to do the job. That’s some real motivation, isn’t it?

This job has been dreadful for the last 15 months. First came the boss who threw temper tantrums like a three year old. He actually threw things when he got really angry: chairs, pens, baseballs, books, notebooks, plans. He was also cruel, saying unkind, hurtful things. He actually once told me that if he had to spend a couple of hours in my presence, he’d probably "have to kill you."

In June 2005 the home office shipped off the pretty, slim, and very young bimbo that the married 45 year old partner was romantically involved with (and nearly ruined his marriage over) to the construction trailer, thinking she wouldn’t mind working "in the dirt." She minded very, very much and was gone within two weeks – promoted to a "friendly" contractor that owed my company a favor.

The asset management specialist (the guy who manages the property once it’s built) spent three months trying to get me to do his job every day because he couldn’t "make my computer work, darn it." He got caught trying to sell company secrets to the competition.

The tenant coordinator quit in a huff when management offered him a huge raise and then reneged when they found they had actually given him the salary offer of someone with a lot more seniority. He had signed the offer and told his wife about it – and he never even got an apology. This guy was never replaced so management thought I should do it his job, as well as my own. No increase in my salary, of course.

When the angry manager quit because his superior / best friend resigned to take a more lucrative offer from another company, in came the guy I’m working under now. Doesn’t trust anyone; believes everyone is out to cheat him / get him / shirk their job responsibilities. Runs 30 minutes to more than a day late for appointments. Misses planes and yells at the airlines. Doesn’t complete paperwork in any kind of timely fashion. Writes the English language phonetically but won’t ask for help.

All in all, I’m well out of it. Except I need the money. So, it’s back to the drawing board. The resume has been re-created and updated. I’ve looked on line and have been pleasantly pleased to see that my three years in construction may actually prove beneficial in finding new employment. I've even submitted my resume to a couple of construction companies. Aslo, I’ve got the web-site marked so Saturday morning I can apply for unemployment on-line.

Over the July 4th holiday weekend when no one was around I drove to the construction site and removed all my personal possessions that were invisible to management’s eye – the stuff in drawers and files. All my personal files on the computer have been carefully erased. I can be gone from this trailer in 10 minutes: grab the plant, the CD player, the wreath on the wall, and my purse.

Next week I spend 16 hours working here. That’s all I’ve been told I’m needed now that the job is phasing out. According to the company I can show up for 16 hours a week until probably Christmas. I plan to show up at least for one week. Then we’ll see. I don’t plan to quit. I may find that I can’t afford to put the gas in Big Mo (my Lincoln Towncar) to drive the 60 miles round trip it takes from house to the site the following week. The company has already told me they will NOT pay me any gas mileage. But I refuse to actually quit because I want that damned unemployment. I’ve never had it and this time around I’m figuring it can tide us over until the next job turns up.

Stay tuned. Who knows what I’ll be doing next to earn that almighty dollar. If you have any leads send ‘em my way.

Right between the Eyes

Hubby had an appointment with his new neurologist yesterday. We’ve never seen such an array of high priced, super educated, well-titled specialists before and we’ve been mightily impressed. In fact, we’ve met so many new doctors that we now keep a bound calendar with attached address book just so we can note appointments, places, addresses, specialties and try to keep them all straight.

First up, Hubby has a cardiologist. He monitors blood pressure and sends Hubby for extensive cardio testing. He also wears three piece designer suits, blue shirts with French cuffs, and very tasteful ties. Of all the doctors, he is the most handsome and stereotypically dressed.

To date, Hubby has spent 12 hours in cardio testing, stretched over a three day span. The cardiologist is unhappy that Hubby’s blood pressure stubbornly resists going below 140 / 90 (or thereabouts, fluctuating mostly up) so medications are routinely changed. Hubby doesn’t like the medications and if they make him feel lousy he stubbornly resists taking them. The prescriptions from the cardiologist made Hubby very dizzy so he happily resorted to the prescriptions his primary care physician sent home with him from the hospital. To counteract Hubby’s independent streak, the cardiologist has now set Hubby up with his own nurse practitioner that he is to call day or night if he has any bad reactions to the prescriptions.

Hubby also has a neurosurgeon, the one who operated on the aneurism on April 27. The neurosurgeon doesn’t demand the face time with hubby that the cardiologist wants. One post-op appointment and Hubby was released for six months, at which time, a "procedure" will be scheduled to check on the state of Hubby’s head. I took an instant dislike to the neurosurgeon, who was professional to the point of being chilly. He was extremely competent however and it was he who realized after four days of extensive testing and no clear diagnosis just what had happened in Hubby’s head the day after Easter.

Hubby’s favorite doctor is his primary care physician, Dr. Duran. He is young, cute, upbeat, caring, and funny. Hubby, who always believed that health was simply mind over matter, did not have a doctor. Briefly, when he found himself unable to overcome the symptoms of adult on-set diabetes, he saw a specialist and a nutritionist. His blood sugar was over 300 when he was first diagnosed. Simply by weight reduction and the elimination of sugar from his diet, Hubby brought his sugar into the normal range – 80 to 130 usually. He will remind you that clearly he had been correct all along – controlling his health was merely his mind controlling the "bad."

Dr. Duran was on call the night Hubby was admitted to our neighborhood hospital, at 3 a.m., after we had spent seven hours in Emergency waiting for ambulance transport. From the moment he and Hubby met, Hubby wanted him for his own doctor. Luckily, Dr. Duran was part of Hubby’s insurance program and wanted Hubby for a patient. We have an R.N. friend who claims everyone would have wanted Hubby for a patient because clearly he is a text book case, beating the odds in such an incredible way, and the medical community wants to know just how he did it. Several medical papers may soon be in the offing.

Dr. Duran is the most relaxed of the doctors, possibly because he's the youngest. He dresses in jeans and t-shirts under his white coat. He greets you exuberantly in the parking lot on his way into / out of his office. He calls after one of the procedures he's scheduled has been performed just to make sure you are doing okay. He talks with you before he takes your blood pressure. He is happy to include me in Hubby's appointments. We both like him exceedingly.

Dr. Duran has set Hubby up with several new specialists. The gastroenterologist performed a colonoscopy two weeks ago. The results were gratifyingly clear and Hubby doesn’t need to go back for 10 years. Hubby’s knees have caused him great pain for at least seven years, and Dr. Duran believes he is perfect for arthroplasty, the resurfacing or relining the ends of bones when cartilage has worn away and bone has been destroyed.

We had to wait the longest for the post-op appointment with the neurologist and I assumed that this would merely be a check-up and release. The neurologist, though, wasn’t about to let such a "test case" escape without a more thorough study. Consequently, Hubby has been scheduled for some type of procedure and the hospital has called to set it up for tomorrow. Hubby is not sure exactly what they are gong to do, but we know that no "pre-surgical" activities are required.

Hubby was far more interested in the diagram the neurologist drew for him. We had always thought that the aneurism was just off to the side and behind Hubby’s right ear. Nope. He was struck "right between the eyes" where two arteries meet and branch off. We had been warned repeatedly in April that the surgeries on Hubby could leave him blind or mentally impaired but we never pictured something so close to his eyes and the front of his head.

Tomorrow we’ll learn how well the repair on the aneurism is holding. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Looking for the Silver Lining

Right this minute my life seems so overwhelmingly out of kilter that just getting up from the bed uses up all my reserves of energy. Suddenly my usually overly developed coping skills have reached rock bottom.

A long time ago during one of those god-awful corporate sessions where people are forced to gather into pre-selected groups of mismatched coworkers, a very astute man who had known me at least ten years said in response to needing to say something nice about me, "You cope. No matter what happens, you always cope." I had expected to hear I was super-organized or good at structuring group process. Instead I was surprised that someone actually realized that probably my most dominant, and usually best hidden skill, was my ability to cope when things go wrong.

And I have coped. I have coped with divorce, parental and family strife, financial problems, major career changes, marital troubles, disinheritance, death, weight issues, theft and fire loss, friendship betrayal, the disappointment of never having children, as well as all the little disappointments we all face daily.

I think coping is probably a skill most children of alcoholics learn very early. Both my parents drank too much, but alcohol turned my mother very mean and she was a binge drinker. Consequently my childhood was very unpredictable and I was always watching out for the event that could set up a drunken night and the resulting ugliness.

Currently, a series of unsettling events has lead up to the depletion of my coping reserves:

• Wolfie, my beloved dog, died suddenly in October; one minute he was romping in the park and the next he suffered a massive bleed into his gut and we had to put him down.
• Hubby on the day after Easter suffered an aortic, cranial aneurism. Though he is now working toward a full recovery, he was hospitalized for ten days, six in the ICU. We have since learned that only one in five survives this type of aneurism and of that one in five, only one in four suffer no long lasting effects.
• Now the medical bills have begun arriving. The hospital bill itself has billed for over $117,000.
• I’m being "released" from my job at the end of this week and will no longer be a full time employee, entitled to benefits and insurance.
  

Here’s the thing. Intellectually I know that every one of the above "traumas" has a silver lining.

• Wolfie was 19 years old. We were so lucky to have him live as long as he did. He enjoyed his life with us and he died in my arms, knowing he was deeply and lastingly loved.
• Hubby survived, against all odds, he came out weakened but "in tact." He now has a wonderful array of doctors fighting to bring down his resistant blood pressure and to help him with the other indignities of that being 71 can bring: bad knees and diabetes.
• Hubby had really good insurance. Sure, a much bigger portion of the medical bills than we would like are ours to pay, but the largest portion is being paid by insurance. All the medications now required to return Hubby to health have so far only been five bucks a pop. The hospital is willing to work with us on setting up a reasonable payment plan for the amount we owe. Our primary care physician is exactly the one we wanted and he understands that medical costs must be kept down.
• I have come to hate the job; it was fun and rewarding up until May, 2005. The past 14 months have been awful. I dread getting up in the morning, my stomach is always tied in knots, and the pay sucks.
  

I know all these things mean I’m not doomed. I know that in my head. My stomach, tied in awful knots, refuses to listen to my head. Many of the signs of depression are the ones I’m exhibiting now: laying in bed all day with the covers over my head; sleeping during the day and staying up all night while worrying about finances; the inability to motivate myself to do anything beyond stare glumly at the TV (and watching movies/shows that are beyond boring).

I can’t write and my resume needs updating desperately. I can’t read and I certainly need to be proactive about finding a new job. I can’t think beyond, "Oh no, I don’t want this to be happening." Combined, all of this has left me bereft of my usual coping mechanisms.

For the past two weeks I’ve avoided church. I don’t want to have to explain that I’ve lost my job and I have no interest in the resulting sympathy pats and hugs. Plus, I know that secretly most everyone will be silently thanking their lucky stars they are not in my shoes.

I e-mailed my sister-in-law that I would eventually cope because it’s what I do in life. It’s just that right now coping appears to be later rather than sooner.