Sunday, March 8, 2009

Nine days

Well, it has been nine days since I was laid off. What have I done in those nine days?

I updated my resume. I started hitting the jobs sites most popular for technical jobs and submitting my resume to these sites. I have applied for nineteen jobs that I found on these sites. And I have applied for unemployment, which is a first for me.

I have already received a call for a job that is seven states away from where I am now. It probably won’t work out, but it makes me face a question that I have been avoiding – will I relocate for another job? A
posting on Anita Bruzzese’s site was very timely for me, and I posted a comment there, which she was kind enough to answer. Basically I said, I am the sole support of my family, so…

I suppose I will. My technical skills fulfill a rather specific need so I will probably have to go where the need is. Assuming someone somewhere needs my particular skills at this particular time.

But I don’t want to.

For the past ten months I have been living in another state, in a city that is 300 miles away from home. It’s a nice little town, with one mall and one movie theatre, with the next closest ones about three hours away. But since being told THE NEWS I have been feeling absurdly optimistic about going home. Where there are three malls and four theatres within a twenty minute drive of my house. And (probably) no jobs.

But little bubbles of happiness keep working their way through my brain anyway. Some part of me keeps thinking that, once I’m home, everything will be all right. Of course, the practical part of me has to chime in and remind the optimistic part of me that going home doesn’t mean I’m going to find a job there. And the fearful part of me, the part that keeps my stomach churning and the good ol’ acid indigestion going, doesn’t care either way; it just wants security. “Too bad, that doesn’t exist right now,” I tell my stomach, “get over it.”

So for now I have declared a moratorium on the job search to prepare for going home next week. Lionheart with stay here and handle the big move, in about two weeks, of everything back to our home. Which my daughter Bar (and her husband and their new baby – my first grandchild, which, since I am going to be Nana, I have been calling nana-baby. Sorry, I digress.) is renting from us. While we’re here. Living in another state. Which we won’t be, soon. Unless I get a job somewhere else, in the next three days.

I don’t want them to move from the house; after all, presumably at some point in time I will get another job and it probably won’t be within driving distance of home. So my daughter and I have discussed it and come up with a sort of way to divide the house into our own living areas. Although neither one of us had the courage to discuss the kitchen. It’s hard to divide one kitchen between two women. But I’m sure we’ll work something out. Eventually.

Until it’s time for us to move again. But I’m not going to think about that. I’m just going to enjoy the thought of going home again. And holding nana-baby. We’ll see what the next nine days bring.

What experiences have you had with relocating for a job? Did you actually own a home when you had to face this question? Was it hard for you to "leave home"?

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