A Month Later

I’m not sure if anyone will read this, but I thought I’d throw a blog post out there since, right now, I have some quiet time.  June 24^th was my last post so I’m almost one month later with this one.  Oh, and what a month it’s been.  I’d look back into my date book and see what all we’ve been doing for the last month but unfortunately I’ve been too busy, exhausted and mentally broken to even write in it.

 

Our strike ended on June 30^th, but unfortunately it ended because our corporate office has chosen to close our facility effective immediately.  Well….it was immediate back on June 30^th, but we’re only just actually going through the closing motions right now.  It’s awful.  It’s depressing and anxiety-making and sad and frustrating.  It’s a bad day at work multiplied by 50 and then continued on every day, day after day.

 

Up until last Monday I was working 10-11 hours a day, continuing my day at home via phone and email.  A week ago last Friday I was on a conference call and they told me in passing that they would be sending me to Portland, OR the next day.  Uh….what the hell?  No one even bothered to ask me if I had a valid passport and/or was willing to go.  As it was, I did go, spent 4 days in Portland with two other co-workers and then came home.  It was a stressful, busy, frustrating and absurd trip that cost a buttload of money and accomplished nothing.  They want me to go back the first week in August but I’m not.  Not.  Going.  No.  It is way too disruptive to my life at this time and I’m not going.

 

When I got back from Portland I had a personal epiphany regarding my situation and now I work 7:30-3:30, take coffee and lunch breaks, leave my work cell in the car/bike when I get home and I have stopped packing my work laptop back and forth to work, it’s now stashed in my desk drawer.  Why?  Because there is absolutely no benefit to me to work myself to the bone.  I’m tired and SOOOOOO unhappy.  I’m fattier than fittier and I hate it!  My clothes are all a bit snug and I have to think about what in my closet I can wear.  NOT okay.  I feel awful.  And Portland was just the icing on that horrible, toxic cake.  I tried my absolute best to choose wisely and healthfully.  And honestly?  If you aren’t in on picking the restaurant, sometimes that can be an impossibility.  I felt so awful when I came home. 

 

Ray still is unemployed however he is still being “paid” on his severance and banked vacations so we’re not really feeling the stress hit on that yet.  It’ll come though.  We’ve done up an amazing resume for him though and his daughter is searching and feeding us with jobs for him to apply for so we’re getting about 6 applications in each week.  Haven’t heard much yet, but we have back up plans (involving his retirement and our renting out of our basement suite).

 

In happier news (bright side, baby!), in three days I’ll be on holidays with my motorcycle and my husband going to our favorite place in the entire world.  We’ll be gone riding and camping for 6 days and then back for three days before I have to return to work.  I’ll have no cell phone, no laptop, no email.  No technology of any sort from 3pm on Friday until 7:30am the following Tuesday.  Almost 11 days of being completely out of touch, baking in the sun, riding, drinking, swimming, napping and whatever the hell else I can put my mind to. 

 

I think that’s about it.  My sweet fur-face is in fine health, my hubby and I are solid in our relationship (don’t scoff, stress like this is brutal for relationships!) and I’m working on getting back to where I should be, rest-wise, size-wise and mentally.   It’s been a slide into a hellish environment since about mid May and I suspect it’ll take awhile to come back out.  That trip to Portland (as well as my upcoming holidays) was really a line in the sand and I’ve been doing my best to make conscious decisions to ensure that I’m doing what is best for me and us.  It’s a rocky road.

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