Cheeky Sweetie

So, I fucked up royally at work and lost my job.  I don’t want to talk about what or why or how, and some of those questions I couldn’t answer anyway because I just don’t know…let it lie with I screwed up, and the natural consequences of that suck, but are necessary, and deserved.

I’m actually relieved.  I haven’t been effective for months.  And the guilt and pressure of KNOWING I was falling short of not only what others expected from me, but what I expected from myself, was like a concrete block tied to my ankle as I sank deeper and deeper into the mess I created.

So, that’s over.  People are disappointed in me; I am disappointed in myself…..but it’s over.  Now that I am jobless, I will qualify for medical coverage and I can see a therapist, which I have desperately needed for at least all of 2010.  The irony that I couldn’t get help that may have saved my job *because* I had a job is not lost on me.

Like anyone, my next thought was, what do I do now?

I spent a bit of time job hunting, getting a resume sorted, etc.  And when I did not get the job I was most interested in, I realized that my options are severely limited in my county, which has the highest unemployment rate in the state, and with my educational background.  After much thought and prayer and discussion, the next step was decided.

I’m going back to school.  I have 22 credits.  An A in every class I’ve completed except one B, that *should* be an A because it was a 90, but the damn professor died before I could discuss my grade with him. Fucker.  (I’m not that big of an asshole..just trying to breathe some levity into the situation.)  But, I also have LOTS of F’s because I kept dropping out when I was younger, and though I have two fantastic terms in 2008, when the Fall term began, it was just a month in when the troubles with Christian began.  I was missing classes every week…for court, or lawyer appointments, or Juvenile Justice meetings, or psychological evaluations, or school conferences, and so forth and so on.  So I dropped out again.  I didn’t know until last week that I could have asked the Dean to grant me late withdrawals.  So, yet another round of F’s on my transcript.

Only this time, I was already on a financial aid and academic suspension appeal, so I was actually dismissed from the school for the spring term.

This decision was made less than a week before summer term started.  I felt like the chances of getting both re-appeals approved AT ALL were slim, much less in under a week, when everyone and their sister is scrambling to get things sorted for their own registration.  So I went up to North Campus in Brooksville with a folder crammed with an inch thick pile of documentation of ‘The Trouble,” some samples of my papers, two appeal letters pleading my case, and a heavy heart.  Five or six hours and one run home to get my ‘08 tax return, and I walked out with two approved appeals, a Pell Grant, part time classes for summer and two textbooks.  Providing that I do well in these two classes, I can go full time in the Fall.

I’m a student again. I can’t hardly believe it!  I should be graduating PHCC with my AA in May of 2011.  And then on to my BA.

And in the meantime, I will be developing a business idea I have had for over a year now.

PS As much as I have bitched about Brian’s lack of responsibility for this family in the past, I want to make it clear that I couldn’t do this now if it weren’t for him.  It’s hard to depend on him, as that never panned out well when we were married.  But to be fair, he’s been reliable with child support for years.  So I’m trying to think of that when the panic sets in, and have Faith (hee!) that he will be similarly reliable now.  So far, so good.