Last day of May.. can't be over soon enough

It's been a rough month.

As evidenced by the hail  (hail?  in Florida?) above... which fell in as much as 1/2" diameters on my home the Sunday before Memorial day.   In general, the last two weeks of weather here have brought deluges of various durations... all around the 5-7pm timeslots.  In addition to the hail, I have left work soaked to the knees from the depth of the water as I'm walking (the drainspouts just can't handle sudden, heavy downpours and parking lots and roads flood).   I'm driving a rental car (more on that later) that is larger than my own.   Lucky thing as I found myself driving through an intersection near work on Thursday night, and as cars hydroplaned through the intersection I could look out my driver's window and see the water rise nearly 3-4 inches below my side window.    If you get caught indoors when it starts, it is best to stay trapped and not try to go outside.  Currently, the rental has elements of the trees (from my work parking lot) trapped in the wiper wells.   I'll need to clean them out today.   The rain comes so hard and fast that it denudes a lot of the growth from the trees.

It is an unusual May.  Generally in this part of Florida in May we have drought and brush fires, followed by flooding rains in June.   Not so this year.   When not raining, the greenery is lush and fine and we have seen literally dozens of rainbows.

Those rainbows are the good things about May in my life.   Otherwise.... nothing dreadful, nothing drastic, but just one of the most "down" months I have had in a long while. 

Started with the death of a love affair.   Ended with the death of a close friend.

At my age, you hesitate to say, "my relationship".   And I prefer love affair.   Started with a good friend about 5 years ago.  Worried that by entering into it, if something went wrong ... would our friendship not re-engage?   Would I lose a good friend by trying for more?  And so, that has happened.  And I must lean into my loneliness, no voice on the phone or the voice mail, no funny texts, no shoulder to lean on.  I must say that I don't expect to love this way again in my life. 
And while I want it back, the mind tells the heart that it probably will not find another situation that I term bashert... English has no word for the sense of rightness, the feeling that you have a sense of landing where you're supposed to land with someone.  But sometimes you are meant to leave a partnership, and so I guess I have.   But I wish I could have the friendship back.  

Followed the breakup about a week later ... on Mother's day, with having a large floater appear in my left eye.   Eye issues are scary for diabetics.   I breathed a little easier when my retinologist pronounced it a PVD... something that happens to most of us when we age.  Told me within 1-3 months it would most likely sink with gravity, to the part of my eye where it wouldn't be so pronounced in front of my retina.   And little by little I've gotten used to it.  When I crack my never ending stream of self-deprecating jokes at work, I blame my "floater" for my goof ups and forgetfulness.  We laugh....but we worry a little about aging and the changes it will bring.

Topped off the month by having a somewhat minor car accident in the middle of a work day.   My fault I got ticketed.   So I've had a rental Malibu for about a week and a half now.  My car is a lease, but there is only about $4000 damage, so they will repair.   Not a scratch on me or the other driver... just an endless stream of time wasters filing claims, going for a work comp analysis, peeing in a cup (yes, the ultimate indignity).   Flash.  I wasn't drugged or wasted at 9:30 in the morning.   Just careless.  Frankly, I was lucky. 

So when my good friend succumbed to breast cancer on Thursday night, it did stun me.   Too many little shocks in one month.   And, we all choose to believe it is completely curable now, since we have come so far with the treatments.     That it won't be caught too late to metastasize and cling to one's lymph system or spread to one's other organs.   But sometimes, it still does.  I came to expect that she would die.  But it doesn't make it any easier.  Nope.

June will be better. 

This Magnificent Invitation

Poetry excerpts from the lovely... "The Luxury of Failure" by Maya Stein.







....After a poem had slipped through her fingers.

After she had broken someone’s heart.

After the taxman had taken her savings and the rain

had wiped out the garden. After the apology

didn’t come.......



....She did not despair but instead

welcomed the luxury of failure,

the velvet of it warming her skin,

how easy it was to slide into its open arms,

and nestle against its breast.

She thought it would take everything she knew

to fling her weight against it, shoulder it

from her path, sandbag the corners of her house

to keep it from leaking in and drowning the furniture.....



She had armed herself against the possible wreckage,

kept the medicine cabinet replete with bandages,

left a surreptitious trail of breadcrumbs behind her.



But no.

It turned out failure

was a tiny slip of a thing,

a drop of water that could topple

an army,

a clear-eyed note slicing a thousand cacophonies,

a single seed offering this magnificent invitation:

Again.

Begin again.





So, in February, after 2 years and 3 months with my company, I got a bonus of 70% of the total I would have qualified for. Everyone below me on my team got 100%. I was never told why my total was less. I wondered, but I didn't stress. All around me were the signs of my success...in the input from my team and from the directors and managers I saw daily, from all the people I hired. I was working for a new person, and chafing a bit from the smell of micromanagement. I had been working under her and her boss for a year. I had never met either of them...they didn't come to Tampa and they didn't invite me west to see them.



Still, I labored in self deception that things were fine. In April, they began to fall apart. I received a harsh criticism of my efforts and a message that I needed to improve my performance. 2 people left my team for surgery and we toiled through 6 weeks without them, short resource, pressure increasing. When I returned from vacation in June, I was abruptly told they would be moving to other teams and that I needed to do the job with the remaining people only... those remaining looked at each other sort of emptily, knowing that there was little we could do to keep the onslaught of too much work for too few people from drowning our efforts.



In June and July, I threw myself against the wall, "flinging my weight against it". Suddenly, last week, it was over. I am 56. I just had a kidney stone removed. I missed one day of work while that happened. I live in a place where there is 13% unemployment, and I am the breadwinner. For more than two years I was successful. Suddenly, people I had never even met told me my services were no longer needed.



And yet... to leave a place where nothing you could do was ever right....suddenly. Nothing was good enough. Everything was suspect. One false move and...you are done. It doesn't really matter what those around you think, because strings are being pulled in other geographies, and people who have no idea what you do every day suddenly find you wanting.




No one really knows as much as I do, how hard it is to get a job in Tampa right now. A major company just announced 500 layoffs. I have decimated the internet, reached out to people I know, looked all over the state, and come to terms with the fact that I might need to move to Louisville or Minnesota...somewhere where I could find employment and stay for free with relatives until I do so.



I am fortunate. I just landed a temporary job with no benefits at about 50% of my former pay. But it is good work. I start sometime next week when I clear the background screen. I can supplement my expenses from my sacrificed 401k balance. I may be able to find part-time work, in addition, to avoid draining it too fast. I know that this is a reprieve, and that I might need to move after the end of the year, if nothing turns up and the temp does not become permanent.




I'd like to be bitter, but who has time? I have had an onslaught of shocked phone calls, of people telling me how much I'll be missed. I know it, too, but am helpless to change the events. I just thank God for people being unafraid to let me know what they think. It has heartened me.



Still and all... a magnificent invitation. To begin again.