Silver Lining

As we already know all too well, life is full of unexpected surprises- some good, some bad. This past Friday about an hour before Max & I boarded our plane home I learned that due to corporate cutbacks my position was being eliminated at the end of the day.

Yup. Got the ol' pink slip on the last day of the month and convenient end of the pay period.

Thankfully, my dad was flying out west on a flight two hours after ours, so he had been able to go through security with us and we'd been having lunch at the cafe court when I received the message. He immediately took over Max Duty (thanks, Dad!) and I was able to sneak away to a 'Quiet Area' upstairs to return HR's phone call.

I won't go into the mundane details, as I'm sure everyone knows how this kind of phone calls goes. It was typical, but shocking nonetheless. I feel silly because I thought I was 'safe'. I dropped consistent numbers for my team and still lost my job. Ahhh, life in the corporate world...

It turned out that Michael was online in London as I was learning of my heave-ho and was fantastically calm and supportive through cyberspace. I am so fortunate to have such a level-headed husband because I was A MESS. A typing, Google-chatting MESS.

We're doing our best to see the silver lining in this situation though. I mean, look at the picture at the top of this post- how can I *not* be thrilled to spend true quality Mommy time with that little man?! It's already such a relief to have a break from the constant cloud of "Am I going to get my work done?!" looming over my head. Because I worked from home, it was often (okay, most of the time) impossible to leave work at work. Not to mention that I worked half of my shift in the middle of the night in order to have 100% 'quiet time' while the house slept, which wasn't even always the case. (Hi, teething 11 month old.)

I truly believe this change in situation will benefit my family. I can be a better me for them. (P.S. Thanks to my husband for putting up with me during the 'bitchy spells'.)

I'm also considering going back to school. This would be a huge step for me, so I don't want to say too much at this point. I'll keep you posted.

So even though it's a big suck to get laid off at this point in time, we'll get through it. As one of Michael's classmates reminded him the other day- if we could get through this past fall, we can get through *anything*.

Thanks, Amalia!