A Farewell to my Thirties

Today is the last day I will ever be 39 again....thank goodness.  This was a really difficult year that I am glad, glad, glad to see the backside of.   That doesn't mean however, that I am embracing my soon-to-be life as a 40-something.  On the contrary, I have anticipated this day with no small amount of dread.  Why?  Because I am no where near what I thought I would be by the time I turned 40.  I am more than halfway through my life expectancy...blerg!


We all have dreams, wishes and fantasies of who or what we will be by the time we reach a certain milestone in our lives, and I can tell you that this is not what I had envisioned.  To me, being 40 means I am really a "grown up" and it's time for me to stop dreaming. When I was a young girl, my goal in life was to be a backup singer for Michael Jackson and marry Jack Tripper from Three's Company.  As I went through my teenage years, I swapped out Michael Jackson for Bon Jovi and Jack Tripper for Johnny Castle from Dirty Dancing.  I wanted to be a singer, an actress, a ham radio operator (don't ask), a pilot, a mechanic, a fashion designer, a veterinarian.  I had dreams, aspirations and hopes that really didn't need to be plausible, they just needed to be a possibility.

Then I got older, got married and and had children.  Suddenly, I stopped having dreams for myself and began dreaming for my children.  Who or what were they going to be?  I poured out all my energy and love into them with the hope that my love would give them the foundation they needed to be all they could.  It wasn't until Brennan was 12-years old that I began to think about my dreams again.  This is why I went to college-a little self discovery was in order.

Fast forward eight years.   My older kids are on the verge of moving out and finding themselves and I still feel lost in a maze of "DUH".  I have two degrees, I have no job. I have no idea when or if I am going to get another job.  I have no idea what I am going to do professionally.  I have no definitive plan to set my cap on because it's all just too much up in the air.  I  fretted over this quite a bit until it occurred to me that maybe my dreams and plans aren't what is important, it's who God wants me to be that is.  Maybe it's time for me to say "goodbye" to my dreams for myself and fully embrace that God has a purpose and a plan for my life.  I mean, God said so right?  We all know the verse that people have tattooed on their calves and arms:

"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord,

“plans to prosper you and not to harm you,

plans to give you hope and a future." 

 Jeremiah 29:11 

Awesome isn't it?  What a promise!  What assurance!  But, there is more to this passage.  So much more to the story than God just having plans for me.  I am learning that I have a part to play in this promise and plan: 

Then you will call on me and come and pray to me,

and I will listen to you.

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 29:12-13

You see, it isn't enough that I know God has a plan, I have to seek His plan.  I have to call on Him, pray to Him, listen to Him and seek Him with my whole heart!  This for me, is what growing up really is: deciding to follow Jesus and letting go.  I have to decide to allow Him to be the only one I listen to. 

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.

When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me."

1 Corinthians 13:11

For me putting away "childish" things doesn't mean that I have to give up my adoration for sock monkeys and all things Snoopy.  It doesn't mean I have to stop singing in stores, playing practical jokes or hiding in the closet when my kids are looking for me.  For me, becoming a grown up means that I need to take myself off the throne, say goodbye to my dreams of being a therapist, a counselor, a social worker or any of the things that I envisioned when choosing my career.  Becoming a grown up means embracing that God's plans may not be mine.  I may never get to sit in a chair, furrow my brow and nod my head understandingly during a therapy session.  I may end up at Lowe's garden center.  Growing up for me means that I am letting go, and if God wants it for my life, I am going to be best darn Lowe's employee I can be because His ways are not my own. 

I bid my 30s a fond farewell.  I am resolved to make my 4th decade one defined by obedience and seeking the Lord.

And if someone wants to get me a sock monkey for my birthday, I am down with that.

Unemployed

I, like 12.7 million other Americans am unemployed.  It's so surreal, finding yourself a part of a statistic that you are almost completely helpless to change.  Think about it.  Everyone knows how "tough" our economy is.  For a single receptionist job paying minimum wage, an employer may receive over 200 applications!  Day after day, I comb through the virtual world of want ads hoping to find something, anything to apply for that could result in a job for me that would pay me more than I am making on unemployment.  Since losing my job 50 days ago, I have applied for over 25 positions.  I have only heard back from one (didn't get it---ha ha).  The rest of the jobs just hang out there in the realm of "maybe".  Believe me when I say folks, living with "maybe" isn't easy. 

Being unemployed is disorienting for someone like me.  I like a certain orderliness to my days.  Get up, get ready for the day, do my bible study, have breakfast, leave for work by 8am.  Do my work, come home, make dinner for my family, visit with my hubby, bed by 10pm.  Sounds so monotonous doesn't it?  You know what's even worse than monotony?  Boredom.  Endless days of no where to go and nothing to do.  I don't tell people that I am bored any more.  I have learned the hard way that people reject the notion that I could be bored in a knee jerk fashion.  Do you know how many people tell me they would love to be bored?  I remember when I was working, I was always wishing for more time to_____________. Fill in the blank with any of the million little things that need to be done as a working mother.  Think about having eight hours dropped into your day to get all of those million little things done.  And done they are.  Now what?  No laundry to do, it's all caught up.  Toilets are cleaned.  Cat is brushed.  Lint picked off the snuggle blankets.  For a while, I tried watching television during the middle of the day. It just felt...unproductive. I feel guilty for sitting there knowing that Rene' is out in the heat working his tooshie off and I am sitting on a couch watching reruns of Mork and Mindy.

Why go to bed at 10pm when you don't have to get up and go to work?  Why get up at 5am when you can sleep until 9 and no one cares?  It feels so wrong to me.  I sometimes feel embarrassed for sleeping in.  As though staying up late and sleeping in makes me a "slacker".  The interesting thing is that when I was a "stay at home" mom and not "unemployed", I never had such guilt.  I would sleep in with my kiddos, watch "Toy Story" in the middle of the afternoon, stay up super late catching up on my reading and all with no guilt.  In the past few years I have shed that freedom and become weighted down with the guilt of the working woman.  

I have read a lot of books.  I cannot afford to buy them any more so I make a bi-weekly journey to the library, load myself up with 12-14 books and go home.  I get excited when I have new books.  Something new to look forward to.  I read and read and read and read.  I read until until my eyes hurt.  I find a lot of solace in those pages.  I have time to read long, sweeping novels again; Beach Music, The Tea Rose, Sepulchre, Water for Elephants have all captured my imagination for a time.  I have no desire to live in the worlds I read about, but it is nice to be an unseen observer hovering above someone else's tragedy for a while.

Unlike most of my other blogs, I have no overarching "lesson" I have learned to offer.  I am writing this because I want to share what being unemployed is really like...I always have had a desire to people to learn from my experiences.  I don't want to end this blog without saying I have hope.  I do.  Why I do is plain; I am a child of God. 

Living Through a Lesson That Isn't Mine to Learn

The phone call left me crestfallen. He didn't get the job---again. Confusion, sadness, frustration, anger and fear overwhelmed me with in an instantaneous torrent of emotion. How could this be? It seemed so promising! It seemed so---right. It just didn't make sense!

As I sat at my desk, helpless to do anything to comfort my sweetie, I struggled to even find the words to reach out to God. Pain had blunted my ability to articulate my feelings to the Lord and I could do nothing but shut my office door, lay my head on my desk and cry. With the tears, the words "Why God?" flowed from my heart. "Why are you doing this to me? To Rene'? What have I done wrong? I prayed, I sought You and yet, I am suffering and Rene' is suffering. WHY!!??"

As I struggled through the rest of my work day, I pondered my feelings and replayed my failures. Maybe if I had gone to Bible study last night, Rene' would have gotten the job. Maybe if were a better, more faithful Christian, Rene' would have gotten the job. Maybe, if I had not been backslidden last Fall, Rene' would have gotten the job. Maybe if I were more faithful in my church attendance, Rene' would have gotten the job. I should have prayed harder, I should have fasted, I should have, I should have, I didn't, I didn't. It's ALL MY FAULT!

Needless to say, it was not an easy weekend for my family. Rene' was upset and frustrated. I was sad and hurt. Rene' withdrew, I reacted. In an effort to quiet both the internal and external chaos, I popped in my headphones, tuned out the world and finally tuned into God. I cried to Him, begging Him to open my eyes, to understand what I needed to do. I quieted my spirit and God spoke.

I read the story of David's shattered relationship with his son, Absalom. This breach in love and trust between father and son came not from David being overbearing or even cruel to his son, it came about because of David's ineffectiveness as a father. When David's other son Amnon raped and humiliated Tamar, Absalom's sister and Amnon's half-sister, the Bible says David was "furious". That's it. He was furious. It doesn't say he was furious and held Amnon accountable. It just says he was furious. (II Samuel 13:21) As I read this passage, I kept waiting for David to do something....but he never did. How disappointing. The man who stood up to giants, conquered nations and who begged to be delivered from deceitful and unjust men (Psalm 43) had himself become deceitful and unjust. Absalom waited for his father to avenge Tamar's disgrace for two years before taking matters into his own hands and murdering Amnon. If you know your Bible, you know that this story ends very badly. Absalom is exiled, returns, plots his father's demise, David abandons his throne, battles ensue, Absalom is defeated, David mourns.

I tell you this story because I want you to understand my thought while reading this. I couldn't help but wonder what David's wife or better, wives were thinking as they watched all this unfold. Did they blame themselves for the wilderness David's disobedience had brought them to? Did they hold themselves responsible for the fact that God was using hardship in their husband's life to strengthen him and grow him? Did they question their walk with God because their husband was going through a trial and they were collateral damage?

Life lesson for Jessica: Because we are one, what Rene' is experiencing, I am going to experience as well. Maybe what we are going through isn't my lesson to learn, it's for Rene's sake. Perhaps God is using this time of unemployment and financial stress to strengthen Rene's faith in God, to grow him closer to the Lord, to teach Rene' to trust and rely on God in every way. Why am I so quick to blame myself when things go wrong? Honestly, because by blaming myself, I am giving myself the illusion that I can control this situation. If I am to blame, then can't I change the circumstances that brought this hardship about? How foolish it is to believe that if I can change the circumstances, the suffering will end! I should know by now that the suffering stays until the lesson is learned.

Honestly, I don't know why we are going through what we are. I don't know if it's for me, Rene' or, more than likely, for both of us, but I do know that God is going to use it. I do know that this time has challenged my concept of what a supportive wife looks like and what a Godly woman does in times of trial. This time has fundamentally changed how I pray as well. Gone are the prayers of "Please God, give Rene' a job" and "Why are You doing this to me?" Through this painful time of reflection (which, by the way is far more productive than recrimination) I have learned yet another life lesson---it really isn't "all about me."