The View from the Other Side

Last week was a bit emotional for me. A lot of changes, some expected, some out of the blue. I packed up my life - again (amazing how much stuff I can live without!) and drove south to the Bay Area. My day to day life has a surreal quality about it now, packing up my stuff, driving two days through mountains, snow and olive trees - just another day. It is easy to fall into that routine of no routine and begin to believe that this here, this is normality.

As I settled into yet another spare room, battling with a cold (sniffling and sneezing and gasping for air are hardly the foundations for insight and inspiration), I began to question if anything was ever going to be even a pale imitation of what my life has been for the last decade. Not in a 'woe is me' kind of way, but more in a 'hey I wonder if that shirt comes in any color other than mustard' sort of way. Philosophical, detached, neither sad nor despairing, but not motivating and uplifting either.

Then it happened, a friend dropped a line - she had just been laid off. This is a lovely woman who has done her level best to keep in touch since my 'separation' from the company. One of the only ones to have done so. I was floored. She is a fixture, or was fixture. And now she too is on the bread lines, as it were. What was interesting to me was my reaction. I felt happy for her. Happy? Really? She just lost her job.

Yes. Happy. Because she was good and truly stuck there. A smart, savvy woman capable of so much but allowed only to function in a very narrow window. The curse of being an admin. But now she is free. Free to find someplace that values her for her myriad of skills, a place that will be thrilled to have such a person and will do their damnedest to keep her. But wait - that applies to me as well. I was set free, too. Free to do all those things.

This morning I find that I have a renewed energy to look at those job openings. I find that I am more willing to be assertive in my cover letters. Looking at her layoff from this end of the spectrum has been enlightening indeed. Invigorating, even. Maybe we all need to be on the other side of the mirror every now and again, to get that view of ourselves.