A Short Recap of the Last Year

One year ago this week I lost my job. I was working for a non-profit behavioral health agency in Phoenix, AZ as half of the Human Resources department. It was an okay job, it paid well, I had a small office and a tiny bit of power but it was completely unsatisfying. I had just flown to San Diego to spend Thanksgiving with my family and took a night to stay at my friend's house. Early in the morning my phone rang and I saw it was my boss. This wasn't unusual for I had already taken a number of calls from him since I left Phoenix. He started the conversation by asking if we could talk and I said "Ohhhh, serious. Am I fired?" and chuckled. After a beat he said "yeah." I thought he was kidding and it took a few minutes to realize he was completely serious. My friend that I was staying with found me crying in the guest room. I was shocked, embarrassed, and terrified and I started slowly realizing I now had to face my parents and entire family and, oh God, ask for help. I actually don't remember how I told my dad I lost my job. Like, at all.

So, yes, like many other Americans I lost my job, and in turn, lost my apartment, all my savings, my health insurance, my self dignity and so on. And for a couple of months I went from the depths of sadness and self pity to highs of optimism and fresh freedom. Along the way, in May, I was in a car accident and the last piece of my fruits of my labor (my car) was totaled. On top of all that, the girl that ran over the top of my car in her giant SUV crushing my car so that I had to crawl out the passenger side of the vehicle decided to sue me. This is still in progress. More on this later.

I applied for jobs everyday, went to job fairs, scoured Craigslist for work and I couldn't get anyone to interview me. I then took to pounding the pavement and regressed to my high school days to find a retail job. My sister called me one day to let me know that a candy store she loved in La Jolla had a Help Wanted sign hanging in the window. I immediately got dressed and ran down to the store and met Melissa for the first time. I literally begged her for a job and the next day she called me to let me know she was willing to take a chance on me when no one else would.

And finally, this year I lost my dog Sadie. My parents were in Africa for a month and a few days before they came home Sadie fainted in front me on the patio during breakfast. I took her to the vet hospital and they gave me the news that she had a mass in her stomach. For the next few days after the fainting incident I went to visit her multiple times. I would lay on the floor in a little exam room with her and pet her and cry...just Sadie and I. She was my puppy and I loved her and I miss her even now.

These are four defining moments in my past year and these moments are peppered with heartache from unrequited love, father-daughter relationship issues, being my own worst enemy, etc. All things I'm sure will be covered throughout this blog. And hopefully, there will be good, happy moments that I can take some joy in. The times that add weight to the "everything will be okay" side of the scale. If anything, maybe someone will read this and know that they're not alone in having their world tipped upside down and see that even though things can be incredibly rough, at some point things change and you can be happy again. That I can be happy again.