Tearing it all down

Sometimes you just have to, to start anew.

When one door closes, another one opens. 

We're told it's going to be a new hotel.

Roadtrippers

Nothing characterized my twenties more than roadtrips - figuratively and literally. 

Therefore there is perhaps nothing more apt than to start off this year with a long-awaited roadtrip before I turn 30 later this September.

Seven days. Three states. One and only Roadtrippers app that pulled everything together in one nifty, optimized itinerary based on every destination handpicked from old-school travel books.  

Marketing Consultant for hire

Welps. 14 days into the new year and I got laid off along with some other colleagues across various departments. 

I knew it was coming and yet I still reacted fairly strongly to the experience; anger, betrayal, sadness. 

But then, once those emotions passed through me like an initial bullet searing through skin and muscles and body, barely just missing my heart, I found myself breathing again, slowly, less heavily, with more and more relief.

Happiness, even. Happy for a new beginning, another chance, a different perspective.

Funny, because <a href = "http://money.cnn.com/pf/best-jobs/2012/snapshots/2.html">CNN Money</a> ranked "marketing consultant" as the #2 best job back in 2012, with a projected 40%+ growth over a period of 10 years -- and a loud and clear warning that "there is no such thing as job security" here.

Severance and unused vacation hours aside, 2015 is going to be my year for an even better hustle. 

Let's go.

Short and tiny.

I am having such a great reading week so far. Thank you to my husband and my blogger Secret Santa friend.

The Other Language by Francesca Marciano

There is something to be revered about the successful short story writer - I am convinced it's a mix of part art, part science, part innate talent. Many of the characters were better developed, with more personal depth achieved in a few pages, than entire chapters from some novels out there. From a never-before worn, yet endlessly adored Chanel dress to learning a new language to sharing an intimate experience with thousands as one, I am a big believer in books finding their way to you when you need them the most. This one was exactly it. 

The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories (Vol. 1 & 2) by Joseph Gordon-Levitt

As if any of us had another reason to love on JGL, he mentally architects this creative concept series and then collaboratively engineers it into fruition with the beautiful, brilliant, poignant works of anon writers and artists everywhere. I just sat there, in wonder. 

Day 5 - Your dreams

I remembered today, while we're still in National Letter Writing month:

I completely fell off the bandwagon with my 30-day letter writing challenge. For years now.

This was an incomplete, private entry from earlier this year, when I got laid off 14 days into the new year. I am coming up on my third month at my new job soon, and when the senior marketing coordinator piped up, What? You've only been here for two months?, It was exactly what I was thinking. 

What a difference a change of season makes.

* 

Dear Dreams,

This isn't exactly how I wanted to start off 2015, unemployed and unsure of where life is taking me. It being the year I turn 30 and all later this fall, I thought I was finally going to settle in and put my tumultuous twenties behind me. Mainly because I am so ready to turn this page already. 

And yet here I am, struggling with feelings of inadequacy and acute anxiety this week, trying, trying, trying, trying to snap out of this depressive fog I've mentally created and enveloped myself in.

There have been moments throughout these last few days where I am overwhelmingly grateful that we don't have a child to care for while I am job-searching, wondering what's next. I know it's a process - and yet this in-between place. It feels dark and scary and lonely, making it hard for me to think about my dreams. 

My dreams. They seem like a luxury now, a defense mechanism I am hanging on to in order to forget about what's at hand, the reality that my share of our household income will be next to zero after this month.