I don’t want to sleep at night.
I lay down and play on my phone- one more round of a senseless game.
One more peek at Facebook.
I’ll nod off and wake with a startle, then push down with my thumb to wake the phone and start all over again.
I don’t want to go to sleep.
I don’t want to wake in the morning.
Quickly press snooze and drift off on some mornings, grabbing seven more suddenly asleep minutes before the clanging buzzer starts again.
On other mornings I quickly open my eyes, pull the covers up, but just stay there.
I don’t want to get out of bed.
If I can just stay there then the day doesn’t start.
Then nothing has happened yet, everything is still a possibility.
No errors.
No issues.
Nothing starts until I get out of bed.
It’s just- that’s not the right way to go about it, is it?
I’m an adult with adult obligations.
There are… things.
Places.
Duties.
Stuff.
The weight of it pulls me under.
I haven’t been able to talk about it.
To write about it.
Can hardly bear to think about it.
But the pull of it all MUST be broken because I can’t stay here anymore.
No more than I can stay in bed forever and pretend everything will wait, will stay the same.
I am not the same person now as I was 12 months ago.
12 months ago I was working for a company that was struggling but seemed as if it would be victorious and turn things around.
It didn’t.
During the height of the initial COVID-19 panic it closed.
Closed in a horrible, terrible, messy, and frightening way.
Angry and frightened people screaming angry and frightening things.
Tears, confusion, panic, pandemic, unemployment.
Two months later I took a leap with a start-up.
Its mission was one in which I believed.
I chose it over the possibility of working with a non-profit in which I still fiercely believe.
I chose it because I believed in the jobs it would bring.
In the way it would operate.
In the promised truth and transparency.
In the way I could use all of my experience and skills to ‘put my fingerprints’ on this new company.
So that it would provide a place for people to work and support their families long after I retired.
I chose it to make a difference.
I, as did many people, worked harder on this than in any other job.
Seven days a week, week after week- up at 5:00 AM and asleep at 1:00 AM.
For days, weeks, months.
While the world was huddling and cocooning.
While people made posts about how BORED they were in quarantine,
While folks moaned about needing to ‘stimulate their mind’- I worked.
Zoomed.
Called.
We used our own computers and phones.
(I STILL use my own phone. Who runs a business with out phones?)
We cleaned buildings ourselves.
Took trash home because there was no garbage service.
Taught ourselves how to conduct virtual learning courses.
Did virtual interviews.
Hired.
Trained.
Documented.
Met impossible deadlines.
Exhausted but buoyed with purpose.
I lost the year.
The year that barely was.
And eight months from the start we are in Chapter 11 and seeking a way to reorganize and reinvent.
And eight months later I force myself to stand up each morning and MOVE through the grief and clamor that almost deafens me.
(I can hardly believe you don’t hear it.
The words and cries ring through my head- a claxon that thrums through my blood.
It screams at me and demands I justify my decisions)
I willingly traded those days with my husband for this.
I willingly and deliberately walked away from a cause in which I still believe.
I believe.
I believed.
I don’t know what to believe.
Because once again there are people in pain.
Once again without a job,
and some of them walking out of the very same building in which they worked before,
and again not knowing what will happen next.
I feel them, even if I don’t hear them, even if I try not to read the posts they make.
These people that worked so hard to create something new,
to master new ways,
to plow through the challenges.
Angry.
Assuming…. I don’t know what they assume… that everything in that lost time was a crafty trick?
Designed to fail?
I told you so- I told you-so- I told you so?
I don’t know what to believe.
My husband does, though.
This man that welcomed me home from long days,
that kept silent during conference calls,
that watched me grab the phone at all hours,
that tucked me in after a call that didn’t end until 1 AM.
This man that says he is proud of me.
That says he knows I am talented.
That smiles and holds me when I cry.
That reminds me that I have learned so many new things in this past year that I will never be the same.
That tells me the year was not lost.
That tells me I have nothing for which to apologize.
That tells me nothing can really be wrong when he has me in his life.
The man that still- dear Lord bless him- asks me everyday ‘how was your day dear?’
And listens while I tell him.
Years ago- I did not know this man.
Years ago- I was the wife of another man.
Years ago- there was a reorganization and I came home and told this once-husband what had happened.
Years ago-that man responded with ‘You didn’t really believe it was going to work, did you?’
It would be very easy to fall back on that memory of years ago.
Especially in the mornings when the weight of what was worked for, prayed for, sweated for, and even bled for drags me down down down.
Many things are different now.
The price paid for where we are now is too dear, too great, too stunning.
The lessons learned
(If I EVER am told to ‘Stay in my own lane’ when I question a decision… well; that will tell me I am in the wrong place and with the wrong people.)
are not lessons I am keen to learn again.
I don’t know what will happen next.
I am both older, and while bruised, also wiser.
I know to trust my instincts.
I know that I have value.
I know that some time soon I will feel the pull of the new day and greet it with gladness.
Until then- it is enough that he believes that the days we spend together are never lost.
Until then- I choose to believe he knows best.
Pocket Change 