Once more unto the breach...

Thank you all for your kind words of support on my last post. It was a looooooonnnnnnggggg week, and by Friday night, I was utterly exhausted. :p 

Needless to say, it was not my most productive week at work -- thank goodness we are not overly busy at the moment. I told my immediate manager and a few others about what had happened, and before long, word had spread.  Everyone has been very kind. My senior manager has been checking in on me and how I/we are doing, and my director called me into his office on Friday to say he'd heard, he was sorry, he understood if I felt less than kindly toward the company at the moment (since it's also the same company that fired my husband), and to feel free to take a mental health day if I felt I needed one. It's nice to know that MY part of the organization, at least, is being supportive. :p

Dh said that Friday that it was just starting to hit him that he's effectively retired -- "now what?"  I was struck by the parallels between now and that period of our life, 12 years ago, when we realized we were done with infertility treatments and, most likely, would never be parents. "Now what?" indeed?  The scenario is very similar -- grieving a major loss (of a child/of the dream of parenthood/a longtime job/routine/relationships with coworkers), grieving for the future we thought was ours (parenthood/early retirement on our terms). Trying to come to terms with the new world & life situation we've been suddenly thrust into (permanent childlessness/extra-early retirement/commuting alone).

Losing a job, like losing a child and winding up childless, is one of those things that you know happens in this world -- more often than most people think -- but always happens to someone else. Until one day, it doesn't.

Of course, although losing a job is shocking, difficult, unpleasant and life-changing, it pales in comparison to losing a child. As I've said, we've survived worse situations than this one. We'll be OK.  But it will take time to adjust and figure out the lay of the land.

(To add insult to injury, we had our air conditioner serviced on Saturday, and learned it's on its last legs and should probably be replaced -- sooner rather than later. And earlier last week, we mailed in our income tax filings -- along with our cheques. Yes, we both wound up paying. If bad luck comes in threes, we've surely reached our limit, haven't we?? :p )

Three more years... three more years... ;)