On a tangent

SOCS: The Weight of Unemployment

2012-02-12T09:30:00.003-05:00

I was fired on Friday. I partially saw it coming, but was still a little shocked at the same time. I have been wanting out of there for a long time so I was a bit relieved. But at the same time the act of being fired is humbling and knocks you back a bit. I know I will bounce back and that things will be okay, but for the moment I am embracing this change of direction. I feel like a weight has been lifted. I literally feel 10 pounds later, and I don't feel my shoulders getting all hunched over and I feel the room in my brain being evicted by the useless information that was lodged there, and not paying rent.

But in the place of that weight comes the panic and paranoia over money concerns.

I can't even think about spending money right now. I literally have a physical reaction. I get a knot in my stomach and feel the urge to vomit. When I think about buying food, I feel almost paralyzed. In the same breath, however, part of me wants to go on a spending spree. But that would be financially irresponsible. Then there is a part of me that wants to stuff my face, but that would be nutritionally irresponsible.

Firefighter has assured me that things are okay and that we will be fine. It's so great to have his support. He isn't so good at the consoling of a crying female, but he is good with the comic relief. And we have been having quite the chuckle over this situation. If he didn't know how much I wanted out of there, I am sure his approach would have been different, but he knew I was miserable.

So I am taking this time to allow myself to remain free and unencumbered and to embrace me a little more. I am excited and feel free for the first time in a long time. I have many options and many paths to choose from now. I can go anywhere. I can do anything. I feel fearless.

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Blessing in Disguise

2012-02-12T08:00:00.000-05:00

I am looking forward to opening up space in my brain where the everyday mundane stuff once resided. It will allow me to get in touch with the creative part of myself and I am looking forward to it and I so want to embrace that. I want to embrace it and lose the fear that I have been hiding behind for so long and put myself out there. I am looking forward to getting out and taking pictures and trying to really embrace photography. I think this will be a great opportunity for this to help me find out who I am in a lot of ways.

Here's to embracing the unknown.

Please forgive my panicked rant...

2012-02-11T21:20:00.000-05:00

It's so surreal...

I am sitting on my couch, watching "Something Borrowed" and looking for jobs at the same time.

I can't believe I am here.

I can't believe this has happened to me.

Not that I thought I was infallible, but no one expects to get fired. I can sit here and say that I wasn't all that surprised and I wasn't really, but it still stings....it still hurts.

When I think about applying for a job now, knowing that this is going to be on my resume now for future makes me nuts and makes me question how I will ever get another job. How are potential employers going to get past that? How do I convince them I am worth their time?

Being fired, while partially relieving, is humbling. It makes you question your decisions, your capabilities, and who you really are as a person. It can force you to examine yourself and evaluate things and make decisions and some lifestyle changes.

I feel like I let Firefighter down. He obviously doesn't feel that way, but it's still hard to not feel like I let him down, when I clearly did something wrong to get fired from my job...

I am starting to wonder if I am going to have issues with the unemployment claim I filed. I wonder if there is any proof of my "disloyalty" that could be used against me. When these thoughts surface, I start to panic and then I get a knot in my stomach and feel like I can't breath or want to vomit. The thought of spending money now makes me want to wretch and at the same time, that's all I want to do.

So as an aside....I bought my powerball lottery ticket tonight. Fingers crossed. Here's hopin!

So this one day, I walked into work, and got fired...

2012-02-11T04:38:00.003-05:00

Yep, I was fired yesterday. And it happened first thing in the morning. They didn't work me all day. For my benefit or theirs? Who knows....

The reason given you ask? Lack of loyalty, along with multiple other things that were never brought to my attention. AT NO TIME WHATSOEVER was I approached about anything I was doing wrong.

I was there over 4 years and worked on weekends, stayed late and did whatever was asked of me.... real lack of loyalty if you ask me.

But... you know what?

Part of me is relieved. I was NOT happy there anymore. I felt inadequate and like I didn't know what I was doing or understand everything. It wasn't a good fit for me.

But .... another part of me is upset that this happened on her terms. I wanted to quit and leave her hanging, but now, she had the final say so i am just going to have to accept that. I wasn't even allowed to get things off my computer. I did delete some things earlier this week, because I had a feeling something was up, but I didn't get some other things I that wanted. And it was my stupidity for not moving the documents earlier.

I have filed for unemployment and I am hoping that there are no issues with that.

And to make it an even more interesting day.... the associate attorney in the office, and one of my bestest friends, was asked to leave when she got in as well. She called me an about 10:15am or so and told me how it went down for her.

And the BEST part? My boss didn't have the BALLS to fire me herself so she has the other legal assistant in the office do it for me and the associate attorney. An attorney who isn't confrontational... kind of an oxymoron right?

And I was watched as I packed up my things... and reminded of things to grab. It felt like they couldn't get rid of me fast enough.

So now what?

Well my mind is going in SOOOO many different directions. I could focus on school full time, I could focus more on here and getting this more established and getting myself out there, I could take a program at a vocational school and get a part time job. I will have more time to read the shelf of books I have that have been marked "to be read". I will be able to get the house more in order.

Firefighter is supportive and consoling in the way he knows how to be, we crack jokes. And I have a pretty decent sense of humor and considering that I wasn't happy there completely to begin with makes it easier to laugh. BUT Firefighter believes that I should just get a job, like it's that easy. But I am not in a place right now where I can get another job where I am going to be miserable. I can't just get a job to have a job, ya know? He may be able to do that, but not me. I want to be a little more particular about it this time, but in the same breath I know I need to get a job. But I don't want to get sucked into another situation like the one I just got out of. I would like to go somewhere and do something that I feel more confident about.

Then...when my mind gets going, I start thinking about bills, and food and well, I get knots, and have the urge to just hurl. But it's a fleeting sensation at the moment. I have some money in savings, so that is good, and I am hoping that I don't have to dip into it too much, but it may become a necessity. I will need to start cutting coupons for the things that I can use them for. I don't buy a lot of processed foods, so I am not sure what coupons I can use. I buy store brands for mostly everything I can right now, so that's already not going to be a problem. Firefighter is working decent hours right now and getting overtime almost on a weekly basis and he does still have some small income from the movie theatre, so every little bit helps.

I am glad, at this moment, that we don't have children or a house. I can't imagine this happening if we did. I don't think that we would have been financially sound enough to handle it if we did.

What happens next? How do you get a job when you have been fired? How do you get people to trust you and take a chance on you when that is on your resume? I am not a good ass-kisser or smoke up the ass blower and I am not a very good tooter of my own horn. This is something I am not sure how to deal with.

BUT... this is going to be a good thing. It was a blessing in disguise. Good things will happen. They are right around the corner!

Surrender to Softball

2012-02-01T08:30:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, Firefighter signed me up for softball without my consent and I kicked and I screamed, despite the adorable glove he purchased for me (it's brown and pink). And.... much to my disgust and yet not surprise... I think I may actually enjoy it. We played catch at a friends house last Sunday and I was hooked. I loved playing catch. It was a great workout. (I found muscles that had been in the witness protection program for years.) And I managed to impress Firefighter with my "gun". Hee hee!!!! Now he wants to get us matching baseball pants! Ummm... I think maybe NO!

Well... we'll see!

So here's to making an ass out of myself and laughing through every minute.

I don't need to get on a scale to know I've gained weight

2012-01-27T12:43:00.002-05:00

I noticed the weight loss hault in about June/July of 2010, 4 short months after starting Medifast. It was upsetting to me, because I had not changed anything that I was doing at that time. I was still eating the meals and drinking lots of water, but something shifted and caused the weight to stop coming off. It didn't seem to come back on, it just wasn't coming off. Can you say frustrated?!?!

A few short months after this, is when my father went into the hospital and then ultimately passed away.

Since then the weight has slowly crept back on. It's to the point now where I am scared to death to step on a scale. I so fear seeing those numbers that I believed would remain in my past, where I would have preferred to leave them. I KNOW I have gained weight, I don't need to step on a scale to tell me that I have. My clothes are a definite indicator that my weight has made an un-welcomed comeback.

I don't believe in using my condition as a crutch. I have mentally done that thousands of times, and I don't like it. I don't like blaming a condition for what has happened, but that is the only factor that I think could have affected the weight. I was staying on the plan and working out and not over indulging. I was doing everything right, or at least I thought I was. I know that my hormone replacement levels can affect things drastically, as well as the type of hormone replacement I take, natural versus synthetic. I lost most of the weight while I was taking Armor thyroid, which is the natural version and I have now switched to Tirosint which is a synthetic form. Needless to say, I am not happy. I feel like the natural hormone worked better for me, but the doctor is scared to put me back on it because it was hard to regulate. I agree, it was, but it made me feel better, it made me feel sane. So now I am having an internal battle. Do I really want to give that medicine another go? Or do I want to continue on the synthetic? UGH!

I feel like I have been all over the place emotionally, hormonally, psychologically, etc. I haven't felt like who I believe I am in a long time. I get paranoid over stupid things, I overreact to things, I get depressed and have waves of supremely negative thinking. It's overwhelmingly ridiculous at times. There are days when I wish I could just get in a car and drive away from it all, but that won't change anything. It will simply put a band-aid on the wound. I need to figure out how to stitch it back together. And I think that I may be on my way there.

I am learning to understand my condition better and make some changes to adapt to living with it, i.e. going Gluten free (which is harder then I thought it would be). I have been seeing a personal trainer who is also going to help me plan out my meals. Hopefully I will not have to rely on him for a long time, because I need to be able to do this on my own. I shouldn't need to have some one tell me how and what to eat.

I am headed in the right direction. Unfortunately my impatience will need some taming. I need to look at the big picture and realize that slow and steady wins the race!

Forced out of My Comfort Zone

2012-01-21T10:54:00.001-05:00

Firefighter decided to sign me up for softball.

WITHOUT ASKING ME FIRST! And when he DID mention it to me, it was in front of friends, who are also on the team, and that really put me on the spot. Um... PRESSURE MUCH!?!?!?

I can't seem to let this go.

First of all, I am not an athletic person AT ALL! I never have been. Nor have I even expressed an interest in becoming an athletic person. I have absolutely no confidence in my *ahem* "athletic" abilities, because well, I have none. So the very thought of running, throwing and catching a softball literally almost terrifies me. I think about it and get knots in my stomach and want to cry and hide in a hole. I do realize that is a bit dramatic and that it's only a softball game, but when you have no confidence in yourself at something, being almost forced to do it can create a paralyzing fear. Not to mention that I am playing with a lot of people that I do not know and they may be competitive. I also don't like the idea of these people making comments about me. I have enough insecurities in myself, I don't need strangers saying negative things about me too!

Firefighter feels that what he did was to help motivate me and get me active, and I am fully aware of that, and I appreciate his initiative, however, I would have appreciated being consulted first. He feels that asking me first would have resulted in resistance from me, and he is probably right, I would have been resistant. I mean it is my time that he has basically volunteered and lately I am all about spending my time doing the things that make me happy and to be honest, playing softball is not something I have ever wanted to do. I would never sign him up for a writing class, because I know he would hate it. All I am saying is that he should have had some consideration and asked me first. I realize that his heart is in the right place, and I do acknowledge that I could be seen as being ungrateful, but I really just do not want to do this. And to make matters worse, I will inevitably feel a crap ton of guilt for not playing if they have to forfeit a game simply because I do not want to play. What is the matter with me?

BUT....

I do have to say what annoys me MOST about the situation is Firefighter's ability to get me out of my comfort zone, which will almost inevitably result in me having a good time. Which quite frankly, pisses me off! And then I am apologizing for throwing a fit and yelling at him and being hell-bent against the idea. I hate that he has this knack of knowing me so well, and for some reason even after all this time, I feel like I don't really know him that well. (But that is for another time)

I will admit that I need to give this a shot before being so against it. And I do understand that I am being silly for behaving this way because of softball. However, my issue still remains with the way in which I was volunteered for this without being asked. I can almost predict with some certainty that I could come back here tomorrow and say that I played and had an awesome time but that doesn't negate the fact that Firefighter should have had enough respect for me to ask me first and to do so without putting me on the spot the way that he did.

So I need to look at this with a positive perspective... I WILL HAVE FUN! I WILL LAUGH AT MYSELF! I WILL NOT CARE WHAT PEOPLE THINK! IT WILL BE FUN TO DO THIS AS A COUPLE! IT'S JUST A GAME!!! (repeat as often as necessary)

Negative Nancy rears her ugly head

2012-01-06T22:48:00.001-05:00

I am in the worst frame of mind tonight. I went shopping and that has truly become something I abhor. I was really starting to love shopping and trying new things and now... I fear that I am falling back into my old patten of comfy clothes work best. I hate my clothes that I have right now but don't feel like buying new, larger clothes.

I hate where I am right now, mentally. I just hate it. Sometimes I think it would be easier to just give up and get fat. And I don't like that I feel that way. I hate having those thoughts. I don't want to backward. I want to go forward.

Ugh ... Hormones suck!!!

Scale Scare

2012-01-05T08:26:00.000-05:00

I am scared to death of putting even a tippy of a toe on the scale. I know I have gained weight, I don't need an evil machine to tell me I have... I can feel it. But I know at some point I am going to have to step on the scale and get an idea of where I am so that I can determine where I need to be. Based on my clothes and the way they are fitting, I am going to say that I need to lose about 30 lbs are so. But of course that isn't official since I haven't stepped on the blasted scale. I have read in places that the more you weigh your self the more likely you are to maintain your weight or at least pay more attention to what you are putting in your mouth. I can understand that, but that would require stepping on the scale, and I just don't wanna right now.

I came across my skinny jeans last night.... there was a pause and a sigh with a heavy heart... I want to get there again and I want it to be instantaneous. CURSES!! I will get there thought... it will happen, I can feel it!

Have a fab day!

Alicia