December 9 Challenge. Something that really made you grow this year. That made you go to your edge and then some. What made it the best challenge of the year for you?

————————————————————————————-

I remember seeing the number that day come across on my caller ID. A 312 number. A Chicago number. But it was opening day of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament (my favorite holiday) and an hour before my friend Brooke left after visiting for a few days and the second to last day of my furlough week, and I was not about to answer that phone.

Until it rang again. And I knew.

Hey Laura, it’s Karen. Listen, you’re aware of the position our organization is in. This is extremely difficult for me to do but——————————————

I’m not sure when my ears stopped ringing. I had to get off of the phone before she heard me cry. I had to e-mail HR to find out what my severance even was. I had to e-mail them an hour later to find out about COBRA. It took everything I had not to call my HR rep a bitch as I signed off…but I knew it wasn’t her fault. I just wanted to take it out on someone.

So Brooke left. And I cried, and watched basketball. My mother told me that everything woud be okay and I pretended to believe her to get her off of the phone. My friend Chris brought me ice cream. I wanted to die.

This lay-off had been coming for three weeks; I knew this because of an unfortunate statement made by our CEO during a conference call. I knew my position would be eliminated, although I was already doing the work of two people and staying until 7 pm every night. But I still hoped I could convince them to keep me. I did extra work. I worked at night, at home. I worked on the subway in the morning on the way to work. But it didn’t work. And for a long time, I thought it was me.

No, it was them. I know that now.

The next day, I woke up with a very good, hopeful attitude (uncharacteristic of me). I watched KU play in their first round and then drove off to the unemployment office. It took about two hours and wasn’t a totally unpleasant experience. I remember tweeting about it and my friend Joel replied with something like, “I am impressed with the way you are taking this layoff. I certainly didn’t react this way when it happened to me.”

I was impressed with myself too. I thought losing my job would be like a really bad break-up, that it would take time for me to get over it and return to normal. It didn’t really hurt that bad. Sure, it was a shot to the ego and definitely a pain in the pocketbook (ouch). But planning ahead (my mom talked me into applying for jobs the day I heard the CEO’s message loud and clear), knowing ahead of time (as crappy as it was), having great support and (completely out of nowhere) having a good attitude made it a little easier. It was definitely a challenge, and it was the best challenge for me in 2009 because of the way I handled it and the end result (I was hired at Green City Market exactly three weeks after losing my job).

December 8: Moment of peace. An hour or a day or a week of solitude. What was the quality of your breath? The state of your mind? How did you get there?
—————————————————————————-

My entry for this one covers not quite a moment of solitude, but instead a peaceful moment that I really needed to share with the people I love. I don’t know how many of you have been able to experience death when it “happens.” I have. As I wrote on my blog about four hours after my grandmother died, “I gasped and then yelled and ran out of the room. I crawled into a corner and started to hyperventilate. I’ve never felt like that before. Once I finally calmed down, I felt so much relief. Her pain was gone.”

I mean what I said about relief.

The two hours I spent in the hospital room were stressful. I cried so much that I ran out of tears. I got angry at selfish family members. I looked at my dad and hoped that, for once, I’d be able to comprehend what was going on in his head. My step-grandpa left about four minutes before she died, and once she left my dad ran to get him. He walked in slowly on his walker and said, “Is she gone?” We nodded and he screamed “PUDDIN’!” and collapsed in a chair next to her bed, sobbing. My dad cried (and I’ve only seen him cry twice before) and whispered,  “I’ve lost my best friend.” In the middle of all of this, I had the most intense panic attack of my life. It was like something out of a movie— but hey, I come from a family of actors and we do drama right.

Once the room cleared out and my wonderful great-aunt Ann made the arrangements to have her body taken to the funeral home, I sat in the room with my Mee-Maw and my dad, his sisters, my mom and my sister. And we just sat, in silence and looked at her. My grandmother had been slowly suffering for the last two years of her life and we all knew. And it was finally over. My head was clear. And (especially after the two most intense and painful hours of my life) I just appreciated the quiet and the peace and the amount of love in that room. And the relief. We just sat, waiting and breathing, with heads on each other’s shoulders and hands squeezing each other’s hands. And we loved.

Moving day was today. It’s interesting being in a different apartment, different set-up, different neighborhood. My room is smaller but feels bigger. I can’t explain it. I do have to say…I have a lot more stuff I have to get rid of, but I need to work on that when I actually have time.

My “productive” blog entry for today is a blog recommendation. For those who don’t know me that well, I am very interested in architecture (and in fact, planned to go to architecture school through most of my high school career). I wish I knew more about architecture because right now I see things and think to myself, “that’s cool. That’s ugly. That has some nice lines.” I really would like to learn more about technical terms and be able to actually know what I’m talking about (which reminds me, if you’re in Chicago anytime soon let me know and we’ll go on the Shoreline Architecture tour— very informative!).

Anyway, the blog Bright Lights Dim Beauty of Chicago is one of my favorite Chicago blogs. I like the Chicago treasures highlighted on this blog and the personal stories that the writer ties into the entries about her discoveries. The most recent entry (Sept. 21) shows one of the coolest houses I have ever seen. If DiDi doesn’t find a way to purchase this house, I will!