This post is bittersweet for me. It represents a year of being engaged, a year of soul searching and a year of self realization and joyfulness.
Last year around this time the love of my life proposed on a day trip to Lake Calhoun in the Twin Cities. Last year, around the same time, I returned from my trip and came back to job cuts and I found myself out of work and it was devastating. Devastating because I had climbed the corporate ladder pretty quickly and it all came crashing down. It has taken a year for me to post about the reality of losing my job due to a corporate reorganization. It took a year, because I had outstanding performance reviews and all of a sudden years of stability turned to instability.
Some things I have been thankful for is that my parents have always instilled in me the concept of saving for a rainy day. I don’t classify myself as someone super frugal as I do indulge and on occasion, like to spoil myself with nice things. Despite all that, I heeded my moms words and over the years have saved up a very healthy sum in case the “rainy day” did come. It did come and I was prepared.
The second thing i’ve been thankful for was how work handled my lay off. Although I’ve only worked with them for two years, they were very generous with my severance payout. Suffice to say, I didn’t have to work for an entire year with a hefty severance package and EI. How I was let go was not like in the movies where the employee is watched with security and escorted out the building. I think they knew it would be hard and the fact that they gave me privacy and time to pack my own belongings while everyone was in a meeting in the boardroom allowed me to leave the premises on my own as I did leave with some tears. Project accounting is risky, and I knew that coming into the job two years ago. Especially knowing that half our projects were in a very risky area. Risky didn’t deter me as I wanted to learn and it was an opportunity that didn’t happen very often when at the time I didn’t have the right experience. So I didn’t leave angry, I left with a thankful heart that I was able to learn from some of the brightest minds in the industry.
The third thing I have been very thankful for is the overwhelming support from friends, family and my fiancé. I remember having a difficult time telling my future in-laws when I was asked how work was. I remember my future father-in-law telling me that it’s ok and that life will have its ups and downs, but the strength comes from picking yourself back up and taking the time to reflect on where we are and if that is the role we are meant to be in. He told me that I didn’t need to work and that as I enter marriage, there will be things that my husband will not be able to do that I’ll need to take over like the non-medical aspect of our lives. I didn’t quite understand it at the time, but I finally understood when I had an “aha” moment back in February while my fiancé and I were picking up my wedding dress. We were talking about the future and how he really wanted to get into a fellowship program and I realized that what I wanted was not as important as what “we” wanted to achieve as a couple. It was really eye-opening that as a soon-to-be married couple we need to be in the mindset of not just thinking about ourselves anymore but rather as one unit. This means that our goals needed to be aligned with future careers and right now that means I needed to be in the supporting role so that my fiancé can achieve his career goals for us even if it means I need to put mine on hold. We shared a moment of tears when I came to this realization and it was so up-lifting. It took almost a year for me to discern Gods plan for me and I have faith that Gods plan is on his own timing.
The last thing i’ve been thankful for is the free time i’ve had to plan our wedding. I feel extremely lucky that we have family that support us emotionally and financially. I’ve had time to do a lot of my own projects and to do a bit more DIY to help save some money. I know money is not an issue but even then, I feel as if we still need to be responsible for the resources we are given. I look at planning for a wedding as one of the biggest budgets we will look after; as a test to how we manage money in the future. I’m hoping that over the next several months before we tie the knot that everything begins to come together and hopefully my bridezilla moments will be kept at bay.