I Have a New Job, and Other Stuff

So the past few weeks have been chock full of activity. I was offered a part-time position that barely pays any better than my current contract job, but offers benefits and more chances for growth. At the very least it will tide me over until I find something better.

I found out just before being offered the position that my current boss did not want me to continue working part-time once I found another job, and I HAD to find something else to supplement my income if I accepted the position. My boss encouraged me to negotiate a better salary while my boyfriend encouraged me to ask for 50% more hours per week. So I asked the person who interviewed me what could be done. His response was not very optimistic, but he called me back last Thursday and was somehow able to rearrange some things and pull some strings and was able to give me 8 extra hours per week (2 hours less than what I asked for). That was enough, more than I expected to get, and I accepted the job.

That same day, an hour or so later, my boss and I went up to human resources to see about renewing my contract another few weeks, until my new job started. It turns out that my contract couldn’t be renewed at all. I had been working under a contract for one year, and contracts were not renewable after 12 months. Neither my boss nor I knew about this policy and it took both of us by surprise. It is actually a blessing I didn’t know about my contract not being renewable! My God, the freaking out that would have occurred before finding this job!

So this is one of those examples where things seem to just work out. And I feel like it’s that time in my life where things are going to change dramatically.

This ALWAYS happens. It’s some kind of pattern that emerges every once in a while: chaos and disorder followed by things working out and falling into place. I’m sure this happens to everyone, but for me it seems to happen to the extreme.

Aside from the job situation, my current primary relationship is going through a drastic transformation. Because of some life directions my boyfriend wants to pursue, I can’t continue being in a romantic relationship with him and will probably be moving out later this winter. We are still friends and he has been extremely supportive of me, even during my worst moments. His kids will be here for Christmas and I’m really looking forward to spending it with him and them. (This is the first time I’ve ever planned Christmas for kids and I’m really loving it!) Things have been really tough at times emotionally, but we’re working through it and making the best of the situation. For the most part, we still get along together great, and I am really proud of that.

So new beginnings are on the horizon and in the back of my mind I’m thinking Wow, here we go again.

From past experience I know that much of what I’ll be expecting from this new chapter of life won’t come to be, but that I will also be experiencing things that I can’t even start to imagine. There will be struggles that I can’t foresee, but I know these experiences will ultimately be in my best interest because my life struggles ALWAYS force me into growing somehow. I will also grow in unexpected ways, and things in life will happen even better than I imagined them. It always happens this way. The good, the bad, the expected and unexpected.

This makes me wonder about choice and emotion. These situations that are put in front of our faces. If we were all just OK about it all, then we wouldn’t have any impetus for growth then, would we? The job negotiation, for example. It’s the first time I’ve ever negotiated the conditions before accepting a position. I feel weird and kind of guilty asking for more than what I’m offered, but if I weren’t freaking out and stressed about the situation I probably wouldn’t have asked for more hours. And then I wouldn’t have learned the valuable lesson of asking for what I want and deserve.

If I hadn’t felt so unhealthy and yucky about myself 7 years ago, I wouldn’t have quit smoking, which then led to exercising more, which led to eating better, which led to losing weight and being healthy.

If I hadn’t passed out at work and fallen flat on my face 3 years ago, I wouldn’t have realized how sorry I really felt about myself and worked on improving myself, which led to significant personal transformations.

If I wasn’t so stressed out by my boyfriend’s unhappy ex-wife this past summer, then I wouldn’t have made that decision to focus only on Inner Peace and Enlightenment, and go through a huge inner shift in my perception of what’s important.

And so on, and so on, and so on…