First, I am writing with the presumption that God cares about us and how we spend our lives, and therefore, the place we spend most of our daylight hours must matter to Him as well. Think about how many graduation speeches are about "making a difference," "having courage to move into the unknown," and "helping people." Those three items are very much related to God and His business.
Second, I believe that because I am not Moses with a nearby mountain, that God is going to communicate with me in some place and some way that is intelligible to me. Even though my life has a certain degree of solitude to it, I do have to pull-back and get a sense of what is happening in my own heart. That is where He speaks to me: in the core of myself, the Inner Sanctum, as it were.
Then, I look at my circumstances and assess their value to me. I consider possibilities. I throw proverbial lines in the water, and then I do what makes sense when things unfold. And so it was with the last big change in my life.
Not that making important decisions is easy; it is not. Nor is the process without pain; it can test the strongest of hearts. But as someone once said, anything worth achieving may involve some struggle. Well, if someone didn't say it, then I just did.
So, here's what happened: (now I sound like Adrian Monk, the tv detective) I had every intention of spending only a couple of years working at the hospital when they hired me back in July of 1999. It wasn't my field, but it is where the door opened up, and I settled in as best I could. Then over 20 years seemed to pass by and I started to finally feel I had a handle on what I was doing. New tasks no longer made me anxious. I learned to take on responsibility with a sense of confidence that you only earn through maturity ... which typically only comes with age and proving yourself. I weathered the typical work related issues and learned a few people skills in the long run. And yet, for some reason, as I neared the last decade where one thinks more about retirement, I didn't feel like I was getting the consideration I needed to retire with any level of monetary comfort. I was thinking I was going to be financially struggling in retirement.
They have this deal where they take the last few years of your salary and average it and blah-blah-blah, to get a figure to base your retirement money on, you get the idea. But it was more than money. I had been stuck at Salary Grade Level 1 for a long time. It mattered to me, and I said so. But no one seemed to hear what I was saying. My responsibilities grew and grew and grew, and nothing else grew with it: Well, something important like my Sense of Satisfaction. So there was this lingering thing in me that was marinating, something like discontent.
I had come to the hospital in 1999 under interesting circumstances. I had taught high school for a few years, and then left full-time teaching, and was doing some temp work at a neighboring University. I was dying of boredom in that job. There was so little to do that my boss at the time literally said, "Go play on the Internet." And the Internet was brand new then so all I was doing was shopping for birds, which was an interest of mine at the time. (I raised cockatiels and sold their babies.) At work, I used to look out the window of the office, across Route 81 to the mountain where the hospital sits and think: "I'd like to work there some day."
Before that time period, at some point I had sold a cockatiel to a man that lived in the Valley near the hospital. Then, in 1999, the guy gave me a call and wanted to return the bird and a second one to me because he and his wife were down-sizing. So I drove to their house to pick up the birds, only he didn't show up. He was out golfing somewhere. His wife pulled in the driveway from work and I introduced myself to her and asked her where she worked. She said, "the hospital up the hill." I remarked, "I'd like to work there someday." She said, "Bring me your resume." And I did. A few weeks later I interviewed and was hired. My new friend Trudy had opened that door. She also introduced me to one of my closest keep-forever-friends, for which I am so grateful.
Fast-forward over 20 years to last year. We were in year 2 of the pandemic. Work was busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest. But I had time on my hands after work hours, finally, for some reason. I felt a yearning to take a class and was aware that we had a union benefit that would cover tuition for ONE class a semester. FINALLY I was not working a part-time evening job, or tending a litter of puppies, or dealing with something draining: I could have the time and focus to take a class. Hooray! I poured-over the classes offered in the area and was choosing between Native American studies and Criminal Justice. I felt a strong pull to learn more about justice, so I signed up for a class online at a community college and was all set to start when they sent me the bill. I reached back out to the union and they said, "Oh no, we don't cover classes at the community colleges, only at the 4-year schools because those faculty members are also part of the union." So I had to pull out of that online class :( ... and I missed the deadline to sign up for a course at a 4-year school. I was bummed. The semester moved by without me taking a class, and my attention turned to other things.
Meanwhile, the radio broadcasts relentlessly pelted everyone with messages about getting vaccinations. I am not anti-vaccination. I just was not sold on whether or not they were effective. It seemed like vaccinated people were still getting sick, and still getting hospitalized. The people with underlying co-morbidities ended up in the Intensive Care Unit. People were saying this, that and the other thing about the efficacy of the vaccines, the science, as in: "are we following the science," and a very uncomfortable culture of pressure was forming. Everyone was talking about It, but not everyone was talking NICE about It. People were speaking to each other in tones that were unkind and belittling. I felt like every time I turned around I was justifying to someone or other why I had decided against taking the booster. I never knew who wanted people like Me around and who didn't. Not everyone understood that if their vaccines were working and they were wearing masks, me wearing a mask and being only 66% vaccinated was no threat to them... IF their vaccines and masks worked like they thought they did. It was just all-around uncomfortable, illogical, and quite maddening.
Then at work a mandatum came out from on High: Get the booster by February 21 or you will be suspended without pay ... which would lead to either using your vacation accruals, resigning, or being fired. We were given less than three weeks to, excuse me for saying it, crap or get off the pot.
I realized that accepting This Booster, was not a final act. It would be the beginning of many small acts of the State taking away the freedom of its people. There will be more boosters - whether or not they are proven to be effective - there will be more mandates... and there will be more pressure.
I thought perhaps I could ask one little question about possibly retiring and that one email took on a life of its own. It was sent right up the food chain to the head of H.R. I kept making it clear that I was not certain what I was going to do, no decision had been made, I just had some benefit-related questions. Then the culture pretty much became a "Here's your hat; where's your hurry?" thing. I felt myself in the river being propelled out the door.
Meanwhile, I was looking at jobs online left and right. I could not leave where I was without a place to go to, a safety net. I was applying for this, that and the other thing. I found a dream job in Western Massachusetts, but they refused me the courtesy of acknowledging my application or returning my subsequent follow-up phone call. One Thursday night, I sent an email to a company I had been working for on the side. They interviewed me the following Monday, but their offer came in significantly lower than what I needed to feed me and the three dogs and keep the roof over our heads. Sadly, I turned them down. Their counter-offer didn't help. I was crestfallen, I really felt that job would be a good fit for all of us.
Then, as the deadline was coming closer I looked up to the heavens and said to my hospital friend who had passed away last year, "Trudy, you helped me get into the hospital, now please help me get out." Next came the phone call with the second offer from the job. I crunched numbers and realized that a few things changed in my circumstances that would make that possible. Namely, the difference between that salary and the one that I was going to leave was a gap that almost exactly matched what my final paycheck would be from the hospital. That's what I call "God's Math." You don't question it, you just say Thank You and go with it.
So I gave notice and moved into the future. Apparently my hankering towards criminal justice was not about taking a class, it was about the nature of the next job I would have (which is in that field). I took a week off to let the dust in my brain settle. The weight of the pressure of the previous month did not lift immediately. But I was able to pull myself together with God's help to start training for the new job. The first week I did a lot of talking to myself to get me into a space where I could start something completely brand-new and move into it with some sort of confidence and poise. I like it. I have no regrets at all. Even when the unthinkable happened, the Friday before the mandate would be imposed, they LIFTED the ban at 4pm. Why? Because they must have realized it is unconstitutional to demand someone to take a foreign substance into their body when there were so many questions about side effects, efficacy, etc. and not end up with a boat-load of lawsuits. In some cases, people who were on the fence, proverbially, just caved-in and got the booster. I am glad now that I did not.
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It doesn't say here who the author is. It's very nice. Do you have more writings? Can you accept a donation?
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