Turning The Page

I can still remember everything that happened that day.

After months of feeling overworked and underappreciated and having that intensify exponentially on a daily basis for the last two weeks, I needed to get away. So I decided on Monday to visit a friend of mine the next day to take advantage of my second day off that week and also as a good excuse to take a long drive where I could be alone with my thoughts. Cell phone off.

I left for Santa Barbara, some 2.5 hours away from my home, met up with Alicia for some California Pizza Kitchen and talking about life. Everything seemed so stagnant on March 2, 2008. The job I thought was perfect for me went to someone else some time around when the crystal ball dropped and I was ill-equipped to deal with how not getting it would affect me. It's ironic looking back on things and remembering how badly I felt. I had no clue what was to come.

Following lunch, I went to the pier and just walked around with my iPod blaring, not making eye contact with many people. I found a bench on the side of a novelty store and sat down, making sure not to go near all the bird droppings. As I watched two seagulls fight over a fairly large piece of pretzel, a man parked his boat and climbed up the side of one of the beams. I sat there for another hour, just listening to music, thinking about the future of which I knew little and wishing the tension in my chest would vanish.

That night before I went to sleep, I prayed that I didn't feel that way anymore.
The next day, I awoke to a phone call.

Hey Sean, it's Grace.
Hey Grace, how ya doin?
I'm...OK. We need you to come in as soon as possible.

At that moment, I knew what was up. The newspaper chain had been laying people off left and right, but it was at some of our sister papers. Apparently the wave had hit us, sweeping me away with the undercurrent.

With that (and three weeks' severance pay) I was a member of the jobless...before that became a sign of the times. It'd be difficult to find another job, sure -- especially in the newpaper business -- but I felt relieved to not be working where I had been. For months my spidey senses had been twitching with every open job posting. Well after operating with a nice, comfy safety net, now I'd have to tightrope across the chasm with nothing but my resume and cover letter with which to balance.

Applications went out again and again and again and again and again and again and the lack of early success like I'd predicted started getting to me. I pressed on and eventually came upon what looked like a great possibility (not to mention the view). But at the end of the day, I chose my conscience over employment. I just couldn't do it. I'd be lying if I said there were times since then -- it was late May, after all, that this happened -- that I didn't second-guess my decision, but I just couldn't do it. I just didn't feel like giving up my soul for the riches of the world. Unfortunately for me, things got a little tougher after that and I voiced the difficulties quite a few different times.

That last one, which simply states, "Let this be the one," wound up being prophetic. Turns out, it was the one. I got a call today offering me a job. I accepted without hesitation, fully embracing all that it means for my future: a new zip code, a new county, a new state, a new time zone.

As one chapter ends, nearly a full year after it began, so starts a new one.

Praise be to God.