I Got a Job!

It’s been 19 days since my last post, and as you can see, I finally have something nice to say. This job is one I’ve been striving for for a while now. It’s a big one, and while I’m not entirely prepared for it, I think I’ll be okay at it.  

What is this new job, you ask? 

Well, I’m going to be a mom. 

The salary is quite crappy—non-existent, actually—but I hear the benefits are amazing. 

Currently, I’m 15 weeks along and we’re due April 5, 2014. I’ve actually known about the little bean since August, and so hopefully all my faithful readers now understand my random bouts of bitchiness and anxiety-induced whining about still not having a “real” job. Thank you for bearing with me. 

One thing’s for certain, though: this wasn’t unplanned. It’s something Jay and I had discussed, and part of what I hoped would make 2013 my year. When I lost my job in February, we talked about putting our plans on hold, but we ultimately decided there’s no time like the present. Like the chorus in the prolific Jimmy Eat World song “23” goes, you’ll sit alone forever if you wait for the right time. And if I’ve learned anything in the last year, it’s that trying to control Life and make it perfect is no way to live. Mostly because Life won’t let you live that way. 

That much is evident based on how Life bestowed me with this great gift but at the same time didn’t give my stress levels much of a break. (Welcome to the rest of my life, right?) I will elaborate on all of it in a later post answering some FAQs I’m quite certain a lot of you may have, but for now I’m intent on keeping things positive. (And if you’ve got a Q you'd like answered, feel free to throw it at me in the comments.) 

Now the pragmatic among you may be wondering what, in fact, I plan to do to earn money now that we'll have another mouth to feed. Until very recently, I had these horrifying visions of myself being a pregnant woman on unemployment, but Life finally decided it was time to cut me some slack and I’ve been offered a full-time job at the place I’ve been freelancing at for the last eight months, which I’ve gleefully accepted. Hooray! So I guess, technically, I now have two jobs. (When it rains it pours, the squeaky wheel gets the oil, and whatever other apropos clichés I can throw at this bit of news applies here.) 

Thank you all again for your patience with my whining as of late, and for your emails and notes of support. I promise that for the time being, the tone of this blog will change for the better—mostly because Life finally seems to be headed in the same direction. 

Two Years

That's how long experts say it takes a person to get over an unexpected, traumatic event, like a divorce or job loss.

TWO YEARS. 

That sounds so long. And depressing. (It's worth noting that death is not included in this estimate. Getting over something like that typically takes longer.) What's more, these experts say you shouldn't try to expedite or deny this two-year process because that only postpones the inevitable day of reckoning. "After all, it takes time to rethink all the things that may be disrupted by emotional trauma, such as one's living situation, finances, professional goals and—maybe most important—how a person sees him or herself," Elizabeth Bernstein writes for The Wall Street Journal. (Ed note: I had no idea the Journal did these type of touchy-feely stories.) "There aren't any shortcuts. 'The whole sweep of your life has to be reassessed and rewoven,' Dr. [Prudence] Gourguechon says."

Makes sense. But still. Two years? That amount of time shocked me. That's 24 months, or roughly 730 days. Talk about dwelling on the negative.

I guess the good news is that given my crappy year-and-a-half, I'm halfway done with the drama.

I wonder: Do you agree that it takes two years to get over a traumatic event?

Randomonium

Because when I did a Google image search for "random," this is what came up.

Aaaah, it has been sooooooooo long!

I've missed this blog, and even recently found out that I have a few dedicated readers who I've been disappointing with my absence. (Hi Emily, Katie and Janet!) My excuse? I've been busy. Even with only working part-time. (I'm always sort of blown away by how running a few errands can eat up an entire afternoon. How did I do all this with a full-time job? And at a startup, no less.)

But alas, today I have some time, and feeling inspired by my friend Ilyse, who recently started her own blog chronicling her adventures in her new home base of D.C., I made a point to write today. There's actually been a lot I've wanted to write about in the last few weeks (month, really!), but never managed to fully form thoughts about. Here are a few of those thought-provoking topics: 

5 Things Parents Need to Stop Saying to Non-Parents 
I've heard some of these comments, and always thought I was being overly sensitive in being annoyed by them. It's nice to know I wasn't.

Women Who Keep Their Maiden Names Aren't Necessarily Feminists 
I just like my given name, okay? It has a certain ring to it.

Temporary Jobs Becoming a Permanent Fixture in U.S. 
This one hit home, because being in a temporary gig -- as much as I enjoy its flexibility -- is stressful for a Type-A personality who always needs to know what's coming next. It's a bit frightening to me that this could be the future way of the workplace.

Are Suburbs Where the American Dream Goes to Die? 
I like city life, but there are elements of suburbia that I miss. Like Target. A patch of grass that's all mine. Driving. (Until I drive, and then I hate it.) I'm known to sometimes romanticize suburban life, and this news doesn't make me feel good.

And so that's it. Hopefully one day soon, I'll actually have time to read an article, form an opinion, and then write about it.

But until then, it's been nice catching up.

I wonder: What's been on your mind lately?

Enough Already

Yeah, I know it's been a while, but there's nothing like disgust to get one blogging again.

I saw something today that made me sick: Trayvon Martin’s dead body.

The photo, posted by Gawker, was allegedly meant to spark anger, not pageviews. The Root has a great rebuttal to this rationalization, and my cynicism in Gawker’s motives is why I’m not linking to it. (As if I have that many readers!) If you really want to see it, I’m sure you can find it.

I honestly didn't realize that when I clicked on the link from another story that that is what I would see. Though I should have known better, knowing how Gawker Media operates. My immediate reaction was to look away, scroll down so it was out of sight, and close the page. What his family must feel like, knowing this image is out there, open for commentary, I thought. 

The whole thing reminded me of another recent occurrence that involved a graphic photo. A man recently committed suicide by jumping in front of the elevated line in Astoria. The event got very little press, despite the fact that his body parts wound up strewn all over the street. At 4 o’clock in the afternoon. A time that, as some of my Astorian Facebook friends noted, children where headed home from school. Gothamist linked to some tweets that had images of the severed body parts on the street (which is a whole other outrage). My morbid curiosity got the best of me, and I clicked. Then I shrugged. It looked like nothing more than a scene from a horror movie. Yes, I was disgusted with myself for several reasons, but was most struck by my “meh” reaction. Had I become that desensitized to violence?

That image of Trayvon Martin showed me that I had not. Sure, I wasn’t prepared for it, and unlike the Astoria man, Trayvon didn’t choose to die. But by clicking to see either photo, what I showed was disrespect. If I need to see gore that badly, I should go see a horror film. And so the next time I’m confronted with a graphic image of a dead body, I’m not going to look at it, morbid curiosity be damned.

Also, I’m never reading Gawker again.