This Camel's Final Straw

Monday morning, Baroy called. He had taken N back to the doctor for a recheck of his hernia scar, and to have them take a look at this 'new' bump we've found. The verdict: it's either a dissolvable stitch that's traveled a bit and is causing a local reaction, or it's another hernia, either newly grown or previously missed because the original one was bigger and hence hiding it from view. We're to bring him back in two months' time for a recheck, and if the lump is still there, we'll discuss options.

Monday at around eight, my boss called. I knew something was up as soon as I heard her voice. Not because she never calls me at home--she does, usually to tell me some funny or juicy tidbit from the office that she just knew I'd appreciate--but because she had "news." I knew what it was as soon as she said the word "news" with such forced cheerfulness. She's handed in her resignation.

We talked for about fifteen minutes, me stammering in shock most of the time. Just as we hung up, Baroy returned from picking up Em at her "twilight camp" for Girl Scouts, which runs from 3 to 8. I started to stammer to him as well, when I smelled something.

"Shit! The London broil!"

It was like a sitcom, except without any comedy. I opened up the oven, and smoke poured out, setting off the smoke detector immediately.

Crack. My knees buckled, Baroy grabbed me, and I started bawling. I cried for a good 15 minutes, thoroughly scaring both kids. When I'd finished, and Baroy had headed out to Weinerschnitzel for a replacement meal for N and himself, I opened the refrigerator door and grabbed the bowl of vanilla pudding I'd made for the kids the night before, took a spoon, and plowed through all four portions of the stuff in about five minutes flat. The kids just stared.

I am quite the role model, no? This is what we call emotional eating, children. Take note. Oh, and N, please be sure to finish up all your nitrate-laden hot-dog on its bleached white roll before you eat any of those oil-soaked fries, OK? You can see how I'm all about the nutrition.

The crying didn't scare me. I knew why I was crying: because I'm crazy about B, because I'm going to miss her, because she's just the latest in a line of people moving on with their lives and thereby moving away from me. But mostly I was crying because this is going to force my hand, make me decide what I want to be when I grow up. It's going to make me finally do what I've been whining about wanting to do--get out of this job. The only thing still keeping me at this particular job was B; without her, there's no good reason left to hold on here, unless lightning strikes twice, and I find myself with another incredible boss. And, actually, I don't think it's in my best interests to stick around and find out; I need to take advantage of this opportunity to make a move.

But all of this means change, which I hate, and getting my shit together, which it isn't. It means being able to hold a thought in my head long enough to impress an interviewer. It means trying to figure out just what I want to be when I grow up. This is my chance to make a huge change if I want, but I don't know what I want that change to be--outside of the options that aren't available to me with an un/underemployed husband--and there's so much else on my plate that I just feel like...well, like crying.

And so I did. And yesterday I spent the day acting as if someone had died. And now, today, I need to be done with it. I need to move on. I have about a billion ideas of what I can try to do next, and I don't know which direction to go in, but at least I am starting to see the light of the situation, rather than the dark of my friend and mentor "deserting me."

Last week, in therapy, I talked a lot about how I feel as if I'm not getting my 'reward' for being a good girl. I kept talking about how, in the past, I've always had this incredible luck of things sort of coming to me, happening to me, and how upset I am that it feels as if that force, that feeling that there will be a sign telling me where to go next if I just wait and trust, has disappeared.

Apparently, it's back, only in a guise I couldn't at first recognize. (Be careful what you wish for...) Now I just need to remember how to listen to it, interpret it, trust in it.