After losing an entire night worrying about my family’s Dwindling reserves (and having a long convo with an old friend with a financial background) I settled on giving things a few weeks, then cashing out my smaller retirement account and taking time to finish projects and let things settle down with the Wife and her upcoming surgery. Having a concrete plan has always given me comfort during uncertainty.
The next day, I came across my old Rejection Letter from Hillsdale Hospital. It was a good reminder that, as my Pastor has framed it, ‘you only go through a valley for so long’ and eventually you start making your way up again. Getting that rejection letter was the lowest, most desperate feeling in 2007 (fresh out of college) but it ended up being a symbol or a flag to indicate that I was at the lowest point and things were soon to turn around.
I am feeling like that night spent awake, pulling my hair out, and crying into the phone was the low point of this ‘valley’ now and I’m starting to see the next rise.
After taking the kids to school, I spent yesterday morning snuggling with Wife and largely ignoring the world. We’ve both been stressed and it’s important to make time for self-care snuggles. Around 10 am, I noticed my phone had a missed call and, upon calling back, I was offered an awesome job in an “Operator/Controls” position with my local township’s Utilities Department. I’m excited about this because it utilizes my IT knowledge and stretches me into learning about electro-mechanical controls, while also giving me things to do outside and with large industrial equipment. I tentatively accepted and, as I always do, indicated I would have to pass the details along to my wife for discussion.
Among the many details I was given about the new job was one that stood out: “health insurance starts day-one.” That was quite surprising considering even at the hospital I had to wait like 30 to 90 days before I was covered. That also means that our deductibles would start over and Wife’s next surgery would cost another $4000 or so. We were fortunate enough to get COBRA credits from my last job so everything is still covered on the old plan (and, I’m a bit ashamed to say, I take great pleasure in making the old company pay out as much as possible).
Wife and I couldn’t figure out exactly how we should play this. Typically you want to ride the momentum of excitement (on the employer side) and not make hiring burdensome but we really can’t afford to drop thousands of dollars more for this process and we can’t really push her surgery back since she’s got a job lined up that’s expecting her eyes to be healed by winter. That and I’m sick of being the sole driver of our family. Anyway, I called back the very nice lady in HR who gave me the offer, explained that I was excited for the new job but also my reservations and SHE SUGGESTED that we simply push out my start date to October 2nd. She said, “we’ve waited three months to find someone with your set of skills, so the excitement will not wane in two extra weeks.”
So here we go! I can see some light at the end of this tunnel! Surgery will be paid for, money should last, I don’t need to cash out retirement account, and I still have some time to wrap up some personal projects (I have a lawn mower I hope to finish rebuilding for next year).
Mood: Optimistic
Something else that I have to be reminded of is what I learned a few years ago from my church: our weakness brings our community together as much as our strengths. We are a social, interdependent species and having times of frailty allows other people to train and use their God-given strengths to help us.