Re-directed

This quote has been so true for me, and I need to keep it at the front of my brain and continue to have faith in it for the next journey in my life.

This journey, as most of my journeys, is still unknown, a little scary, and filled with more questions than answers, but I am keeping an open mind.

I have been in corporate America for many years. I know how things go down when you have a regime change, so while I anticipated some shake up to occur due to a recent change, I hadn’t really expected to be hearing these words that were said to me last week. “Due to the company reorganization, your current position is being relocated to the corporate office. We value you and would like you to stay with us in your position, however, you must relocate in order to keep it”

BAM! I felt like I had just been kicked in the gut…really... hard...

My stomach churned, my pulse raced, and my face felt like it was on fire. I worked hard to maintain my composure, stay professional, and keep a poker face while I listened to their offer. Sadly, an offer I could not accept. I couldn’t just move away from my family, my home and my life, but what would happen if I didn’t accept it?

They went on to explain that if I didn’t accept the offer to relocate, I would be offered a severance package.

Wait… what??!!

A severance package? Me?

Yep, me.

So I sat and listened as much as I could under the circumstances, to the details of my severance package. My stomach churned even harder and threatened to retaliate against me. Oh, how I cursed my nervous gut!

I would get a package sent to my home the next day with all of the details and documents that were discussed in the meeting. 

I took notes as fast and as legible as I could, while trying to comprehend all that they were saying. When they were done talking, they asked me if I had any questions, to which I quietly replied “No, not at this time”

I thought to myself, you just gave me life changing news, and you seriously think that I can come up with a clear thought?

I then gathered my composure and my things and quietly slipped out of a company that I had worked at for over 23 years. I wasn’t allowed to say goodbye to anyone as there were others that they were going to talk to, and they didn’t want me to tip anyone off. I wanted to be sad for whoever else that this was going to happen to, but could only focus on my own news.

The drive home was agonizing and a little surreal. What was I going to say to my family? Had I made a rash decision not to accept the company paid relocation offer without consulting them first? Surely they wouldn’t want me to move, but still, this was a big decision to make without hearing them out.

Ugh, what did I just do?

Finally home, I was numb, except for my gut which was still feeling the nerves.

Okay, what’s next? I finally got the courage to tell my husband, who at first was in disbelief, and then, encouraging to me. We would talk about it more when he got home from work, so I sat alone in a quiet house wondering again; what’s next, why me, what if, and all of the other what’s and whys that could possibly enter a mind when you get that kind of news.

With the never-ending thoughts consuming me, I decided to run my weekly errands. After all, I wasn’t working, so I might as well get that done, plus, I was hoping that the distraction would give my overloaded mind a break. Getting out did help with that, but it didn’t keep the tears from stinging my eyes every time I relived that meeting.

I tried to see the positive in it, and told myself that everything happens for a reason. I truly believe that, and wanted to be optimistic about what might be next for me. I reminded myself that this was better than being told that someone I loved was no longer around. That actually helped me to put it into perspective in my strong moments, but I still struggled in my weak ones.

Corporate America was good to me, and this was going to be a change. Not that I ever made my job my identity, but it helped me to make a nice living and this was a good company to work for.

The package was delivered as promised the next day. I read and reread it trying to comprehend it all. It was hard, to say the least, and it took a couple of days to really understand that their offer was very generous. It would give me the financial security needed while I figured out next steps, so I felt blessed for that.

Next couple of days brought a lot of soul searching and discussions with my family and closest friends. “It will be okay”, I reassured them, as I was secretly reassuring myself, not really sure if I was believing it. Luckily, no one thought that I had made the wrong decision in turning down the relocation offer and agreed with my reasons for doing so.

So, here it is a week later. I sit at my computer writing this with many feelings and thoughts going on in my body and mind. I still don’t know where I am going, or where I will end up, but I do know that if the future is anything like the past, then I must believe and reiterate this:

“As I look back on my life, I realize that every time I thought I was being rejected from something good, I was actually being redirected to something better.”

I am hopeful.

Goodness

I haven’t written much in a while, quite a while actually. Not that I haven’t felt the need nor desire to, or have had a lack of things to write about. Truthfully, I could have written my thoughts in a thousand different blogs on what’s going on in the world, and more near and dear to my heart, the issues with our beautiful, but oh so suffering, USA.

My mother always said that you shouldn’t talk about religion and politics to anyone, as everyone has their own opinion and you aren’t going to change that. So, I have lived by that advice, and I am not going to start now, but I will say that I am sickened by what is going on in what seems like everywhere, with everything, and everyone. So much that it’s hard not to think that there is more evil than good in this world.

 I have lived through threats of wars, real wars, bad politicians, and just plain bad people, but I cannot ever remember so much going on all the same time! Maybe it’s always been this bad, and I didn’t realize it, but do now in our age of instant information. Or, maybe there really is this much evil, selfishness, and hatred out there, but I hope not.

 I know some really beautiful, loving and giving people, and those are the ones that I surround myself with. The kind of people that really just want to have love, peace and happiness in their lives. Simple really, but lately, if you watch the news, it feels like that is hard to have. Luckily for me, I know many good people, and two people in particular that I am blessed to have in my life are my mother and father in law.

They are the epitome of hard working, giving, beautiful, and loving people. They restore my faith in human kind in so many ways, including a couple of weeks ago. While my 89 year old mom in law was in the hospital for a fairly serious infection, her family gathered in her room waiting for the doctor to advise the options for her recovery. Some of the siblings stepped out of the room for a moment, but I stayed behind and witnessed a beautiful moment between them that I have to share.

 Mom in law looked over at her husband of 67 years with fear and sadness in her eyes. Dad in law (a gentle giant mountain of a man) came over to her and reached down to kiss her. They kissed, hugged, and both had tears in their eyes as she softly assured him that she was not going to leave him, to which he replied that when she did take that journey, he would be going with her. True love, and one of the most beautiful things that I have ever seen! I thought to myself, if we could all experience that kind of love and devotion, wouldn’t this world be a better place with less hate, evil and anger?

Yes, there is a lot going on out in this world, and a lot of it is scary, and very sad, but I also know that there is still goodness and good people out there too. Maybe we have to look a little harder to find it, or open our eyes a little wider to see it, but if we all live by example with the goal of love, peace and happiness, maybe we too can experience that same kind of pure love and devotion that took place between two scared, beautiful people in that hospital room a couple of weeks ago.

Farmers

This time of the year, in the early fall, I love the sound of the combines taking off the soy bean fields.  Its not that the actual sound of the machines sound like song birds or an angels harp, but still, there is something so soothing and comforting to me in hearing those machines purr, while they carefully go through each row of beans, early in the morning, throughout the day, and  sometimes, even pretty late into the night. I even like seeing their trucks sitting on the sides of the roads, waiting for the farmers to finish up and put more beans in them to be taken on to the grain mills. The now stubbly brown field, freshly cut, left with maybe a few fallen beans, waiting for a hungry deer to come by and gobble them up, look bare, but also like an accomplishment.

I wonder if they ever think about how many products their beans are going to be made into, and where all of these beans will end up. I know I would be thinking about all that, but maybe that’s just me.

And the farmers, oh, how I admire the farmers for doing what they do. Truly unsung heroes in my book!

All farmers are hardworking people, keeping long hours in all weather, at Mother Nature’s mercy, yet, they keep on doing what they do. Some of them make farming their full time job, but many cannot afford to do that, so they keep a regular job, and then farm on the weekends or whenever they can, hoping and praying that the weather, and their equipment will cooperate with them to get the very important job at hand done, in the sometimes very small windows that they have to work with.

 I don’t think that they do it for the money, as many that I know sometimes just break even when all is said and done. No, I think that they do this for the same reasons that I raise a garden each summer, regardless of how exhausting it can be. They do it as a labor of love, a comfort knowing that someone will eat because of what they did.  Strangers from near and far benefit from these hard working, good people that we call farmers.