And now for more depressing news

Is it just me or has January gone on forever? Seriously, my carefree trip to New York feels like it happened sometime last year. Christmas feels like it was 4 months ago, not 4 weeks.

It’s been a rough month. The most obvious reason is the weather. Detroit and much of the midwest has been covered in snow and gray skies. Nothing new, but still, this is why January is my least favorite month.

The weather’s bad enough, but then there’s all the death.

The last funeral I went to was in 2006. This month, I’ve been to two. Two of my coworkers lost their mothers; my best friend lost her future mother-in-law.

Death is hard to hear about. But then there’s all the layoffs.

My organization is making cuts, just like every other organization in Detroit and like most across the nation. We don’t know when, but we know it’s soon. I couldn’t tell you what my chances are of staying, because I honestly don’t know. I know I was just promoted, why would you layoff someone you just promoted? I know my work is valuable. But I also know everyone is expendable.

Ironically, I just finished reading Then We Came to the End, a novel about, well, layoffs. When I finished reading it, I felt oddly at peace. No one’s life ended. And everyone I know who has left my organization has also gone on to better things. It’s come after hard times, but they’re all happier now than they were when I worked with them.

I know if something happens to my job, I’ll be OK financially for awhile. If I had to, I could move home. I am worried about health insurance, because I need it and I only have myself to rely on for it. But what worries me more is the prospect of finding a new job. There just aren’t any around here. I think that if my job goes away, I will have to look out of state. DD has told me he would follow me; but telling and doing are two different things.

There’s a part of me that is ready to face a layoff. To maybe make some life changes and end up happier like my former coworkers and the fictional characters I just finished reading about.

But there’s a bigger part of me that really likes my job. For the first time in awhile. And the prospect of losing that job satisfaction after working so hard to get it frustrates me. Not to mention the paycheck, the health insurance, the day to day routine.

On some level, I’m in serious denial. I’m going through the motions and don’t always feel an impending sense of doom unless someone else brings it up. But with that denial comes fear because deep down, I know what’s possible and at the same time I don’t know what that means because I’ve never been through it before. 

I do know that I’m looking forward to June. In my mind June holds green grass. Blue skies. Longer, lazier days. And if I am able to stay at work, it means being past all of this. For this year at least.

Then again, if I don’t, June means hitting the pavement. Unemployment. Deep questions and a dwindling savings account.

Geez, I can’t even look forward to the future. Obviously, this post gets a big ole “glass half empty” tag.