My wife is older than I. This is not something that has ever disturbed me or mattered in my love for her or my appreciation of our live together. However, it is likely, probably even, that she will die before I do, leaving me alone for the final portion of this lifetime. I am not looking forward to being alone once again. We talked about this yesterday as an outgrowth of a discussion about my career. At 43 I need to start seriously planning for retirement. Since my career is lucrative we both feel that as long as I am working Michele can semi-retire or completely stop working when she wants. However, without a retirement plan that starts very soon, I will not be able to stop working.
I am not blaming anyone but myself for this situation. I have made choices that best navigated the chaotic employment landscape of the past few years in the technology industry. And I am content to live with the results of those choices. However in a powerful and emotional discussion yesterday, Michele helped me to see that continuing to pursue the “right” job may not be in my best interest anymore. I have pursued jobs with an ever-increasing set of skills or ability for several years now. While these have improved my resume considerably, none of the employment situations have aided my ability to retire someday. In fact given the financial disaster that was working on contract for the State of Illinois, you could make a strong argument that I have actually lessoned my ability to retire.
So I need a new set of criteria for evaluating my job. No long can it be solely about the latest technology, or staying current with new trends. It must also include a strong potential for longevity. I need to stop thinking in terms of 6 or 12 or even 24 months, and start thinking in terms of 10 or 15 or 20 years. In twenty years I will be 63 years old. Given that three out of four grandparents lived to see 90 or greater, and that both my parents are easily going to see 80, I have a better than even chance of seeing 80 or 90 myself. Without a retirement income I could be forced to spend the waning years of my life working or living well below the level to which I am accustomed.
Looking at the present employment iteration here in Kansas City I see a potential for long-term employment with the client. Becoming a federal employee may not be sexy, especially in the technology field, but it does offer long-term employment. The opportunity I am considering in Springfield also has a potential for long-term employment. In the initial phone interview they were adamant about wanting a resource that was willing to make a 5 or 10 or 15-year commitment to the company. The company has been in business for over 60 years, which is encouraging. However, never have made a career choice based on retirement criteria I am somewhat at a loss as to how to make an honest evaluation. And following close on the heels of three months of unemployment, where I started to question my ability and I lost faith in myself to some degree, it is very hard to face a choice that may very well determine what my life will look like in 20 or 25 years time.
And larger than the career choice I am facing is the need to build community for myself so that I am not alone at the end of my life. I do not regret my choice to not have children, but that coupled with geographic distance from my brother and his family, and an overall lack of personal friends, leaves me facing a future that could be very lonely indeed. As I look at my employment choices I need to consider the location in terms of our ability today to make friends today that will continue to be present in my life, as I grow old. To put it very bleakly, there is a strong possibility that by the time I am 70, I will still need to work and Michele will be dead or dying. Facing that future without a community of friends and family to support me would be impossibly daunting.
I have reached the mid-point in my life without every really planning it or placing expectations on the future. However, looking ahead now I see that I need to step up to a new level or responsibility so that the final years of my life are comfortable and filled with meaningful fellowship and love.
It has been almost four years since I was last an employee. In that previous iteration I was working for a company as an actual employee, consulting was not a part of the mix. There was a small, dedicated staff in the “front office” who dealt with our benefits; you could walk down the hall and ask questions about benefits, costs, et cetera.
In the current employment iteration, I am once again a consultant. I’ve never even seen the “home” office. I only vaguely know where it is located. I’ve seen my “boss” three times. The first visit was post-hire but before I started work, to hand in paperwork. It was a pleasant enough visit; both Michele and I found the company president personable enough. The second meeting was my first day on the job. It lasted all of five minutes. The third was equally short, he just dropped off my first paycheck and left.
I have had no real contact with him or the company since. Recently there were some layoffs at my site, including two fellow consultants working through the same firm. I expected to get some kind of email or phone call assuring me that I was okay. Nothing.
This afternoon a total stranger, a woman I have never met or heard of before, showed up and presented me with a health insurance form to fill out. I explained that I had already done this once before, back in June. She replied that our company was thinking about switching, and that I needed to fill this out and submit it no later than tomorrow. Lovely. No prior notice, no information, just fill this out, and oh, by the way, do it right now.
Also today, I got a series of cryptic emails about a new account I had signed up for. I was almost ready to hit the “report as spam” button on my gmail account when I saw that the URL contained the name of my company. Hmmm. It appears we now have a rudimentary intranet. Again, no detailed information, no heads up, just an abrupt message in my in-box.
I understand completely that being a consultant, working for someone else’s company, means you are just a set of billable hours. I have worked in this capacity on and off for several years in my career. I had just forgotten how cold is was out here on the pointy end of the consulting stick.
I realize I currently feel out of control about my situation here. Layoffs a mere six weeks after the start of the project do not bode well. And the assurances that everyone is okay now, coming from the same people who engineered the layoffs in the first place, do nothing to ease my concern. Having two poorly communicated changes in my employment context, on top of no communication about my status in light of changes at the client, is only adding to my anxiety.
I realize that no employment situation is safe and stable anymore. Certainly not one in the high tech consulting industry. Even so, it makes the opportunity percolating in Springfield look all the better. That job maybe just as out of control feeling as this one, but they haven’t had the chance to keep me in the dark. Yet.
In the past few days I have been setting up and configuring a new statistics page for zanshin.net from Shaun Inman. In the course of testing the page I had occasion to visit several of the larger search engines to search for myself. On a9.com, altavista.com, lycos.com, alltheweb.com, and of course google.com, putting in “mark nichols” results in zanshin.net being listed as the first site, or first non-sponsored site.
I’m just saying.
Remember the posters that show some cute animal, usually a polar bear with a paw over its eyes, that have a caption that reads, “Just when I figured out the answers, someone changes the questions.”? That poster pretty much sums up my life this weekend.
A Brief History In April 1998, Michele and I moved from Springfield Illinois to Vancouver Washington so I could pursue my career in the Pacific Northwest. Living in that region was a dream we both held, and my skill set provided a means to relocate. Thirteen months later the bottom dropped out of the semiconductor wafer industry and I lost my contract.
Fearing the unknown of abandoning my speciality of Forte, I chose a job at a pre-IPO company in Charleston South Carolina next. Moving cross-country, buying a house, enduring flooding, lighting strikes, and three hurricanes; all within the first 90 days there should have been a clue. Nine months after arriving the IPO failed and I scrambled to find local work. Our dissatisfaction with the whole “deep south” thing drove us to secure a contract in Illinois.
Returning to Illinois as an independent consultant, working for myself, seemed like the way to go. The next three and a half years would be ones of constant cash flow difficulties as the State took its time paying their accounts. It was also a time of diminishing returns, as the budget crisis caused a nearly 45% cut in my rate. In the end they cancelled my contract.
After 99 days of searching, sweating, worrying, and nearly giving up, I found work in Kansas City. Once again I am an employee. The transition to this new place hasn’t been awful, but following on the heels of this spring’s trauma, it hasn’t been easy either.
The Set Up Last week I got an email from a recruiter looking for java development people in Springfield Illinois. My first thought was, where were you three months ago? I responded, more out of curiosity than anything else. Our initial phone conversation was good, and after seeing my current resume, he was excited about my chances with his client. The position is a 6-month contract to hire for a private company. I must admit I was very intrigued.
Meanwhile, Michele has secured and is loving a position as adjunct instructor for a local community college. The part-time nature of the position, combined with teaching and working with interested adults appeals greatly to her. She is signed up for training in administering and leading online courses, which would allow her to work from home.
Then on Friday, as I was leaving for the day, I had a conversation with Tom and Doug, two of my fellow consultants who started just days before I did here in KC. They had been given their two-week notice. September 3rd will be their last day on the project. My stomach dropped in the now familiar free-fall that comes with impending employment disaster.
The Quandary I haven’t received any phone calls, good or bad, about my current position. The sub-phase of the project I am coordinating is very active and I am quite busy these days. In talking to Tom and Doug I got the feeling that mismanagement of the project, that is causing delays in getting needed requirements artifacts to the design team, is what drove the decision to let go of resources. The thread that is keeping me employed this weekend is the fact that my assignment isn’t dependent upon the requirements delivery. However, I am rapidly approaching the completion of this task.
So, we moved and moved and moved in the last few years. Each time as a result of economic forces beyond our control. Each time we thought we’d found a better situation, one that would insulate us from outside forces. Each time we have been proven wrong. This summer we moved once again, we were willing to start over again, in an apartment, with little or no savings, in order to survive. The project seemed long-term and secure. We felt that over time we’d regain what we’d lost, and that we could move on.
Now we have an interesting confluence of events. Our house in Illinois hasn’t sold. My job here in Kansas City may not be secure much longer. I have a potential job in Springfield. Most of our belongings are packed away. A week’s work with a 28-foot U-Haul would see us back in our house. Michele might be able to teach online classes at a college here, regardless of where she currently lives.
We honestly don’t know what to think or do at this point. The anxiety of the past few months had finally started to subside. Now my insides are all knotted up again.
I know that the only constant in all these events is me. And it is very hard not to wonder if I am somehow causing all of this drama and turmoil in our lives.
The recent news that my cousin has a form of cancer has stirred up old feelings, and awakened new fears in me. My sister, Amy’s, death from cancer cast a long shadow over my family. For years I couldn’t understand why that one event seemed to define and limit the rest of our lives. I know now that the members of my immediate family, myself included, didn’t grieve enough. Moreover, we never grieved together in any meaningful way.
My mother and I have talked about Amy, and cried about her many times in the years since her death. But I never got a sense of relief from this crying, or the connection it provided between Mom and I. There was always a sadness in our house, one that was present all the time. As Christmas approached the tension would become thicker and heavier. The Christmas holiday itself become a perfunctory exchange of gifts and a rigid set of events, year after year after year.
Even today there are still traces of the “tradition” that became our Christmas. Amy is never talked about, and certainly never brought up in front of my father. When she died my parents couldn’t afford a grave site for her, so her remains were interred in Pennsylvania with her paternal grandmother. She was gone, ripped from our lives and we didn’t even have the ability to go visit her.
My observation is that it altered and forever damaged the relationship my parents have with each other. Their individual styles of grieving were incompatible, and rather than seek a common ground to resolve their emotion needs, they, through inaction more than anything else, left their grief for Amy lying in between them. I am sad to say she lies there still. Chris and I, as children, had our own struggles with losing Amy. I know that true cognitive ability doesn’t manifest until a child is about 12-14, and then it takes time to develop. I was just at the verge of being able to comprehend what had happened to my sister, Chris was still at an age when death was too abstract. Neither of us had a healthy outlet for our grieve, nor did we have a place to move forward.
My parents were stuck, they didn’t know how to console themselves, much less Christopher and I. Over time the collective wound we all shared scabbed over, but it hasn’t really healed. In my late twenties I sought out counseling and started to address some of my issues of anger and guilt over her death. It wasn’t until I met Michele that I finally had a safe, loving, nonjudgmental place to sort out the complex stew of emotions I had for Amy. I was shocked to discover I was very angry with her, and more shocked to discover the tremendous amount of quilt I had that she had died and not I.
The work I did, and continue to revisit from time to time, has given me Amy back. Her memory is now a happy one, I am content with my relationship with her. I still grieve her dying, and I still miss her everyday. But I am no longer stuck in time 31 years ago. I believe we all have a purpose in life, and I know that once we complete our task for a given lifetime we move on to the next. Amy completed her life goal very quickly and she moved on in a manner that left us all a gift. The way to receive the gift is to work through your grieve over her passing. Once I found peace with her life, her whole life, then I get her last gift. I regained the warm feeling of love and companionship we shared. Amy was, is, a wonderful sister, who cared very deeply for her family. Even as she lay painfully dying in the hospital her thoughts were of us - she made sure we got a small Christmas present from her. She was selfless and loving, an ideal I try to live up to even today.
Amy is a part of my life today. Not just her dying, but her living too. I still have her favorite stuffed animal, Myrtle the Turtle, she always has a special spot in our home. Myrtle smiles her wise, knowing little smile, and she is infused with the goodness and joy that was Amy. After I release my anger and accepted my quilt about her passing, I was able to start reconnecting with my parents in a truer way. I cannot imagine the sense of loss and horror losing a child must produce, so I will never fully understand what they continue to go through. I have seen a rebirth of happiness in my mother in particular, as she dotes on and beams about her granddaughter, Riley. I think too, that having daughters is helping to heal my brother. Having a family is hugely important to him, and he has blossomed into a strong and caring father.
In the end it isn’t that failing to understand our past dooms us to repeat it, it is that our emotional life is shaped by all that has happened to us, whether we deal with those events or not.
Cancer is in the air it seems.
It’s in the air we breathe and the water we drink, and the stress we fail to deal honestly gives it birth in our bodies.
I’m just saying.
This afternoon as I was leaving work, I met two of my new coworkers headed back into the building. We stopped and visited for a moment. They had just gotten a call from the president of the company we all work for on this engagement. Their contracts are being ended in two weeks.
My stomach sank.
We all just started this project in late June.
Oh. My. God.
The reason they were given was that IBM had brought on too many people too soon in the project; there wasn’t enough work to support all the consultants. I think the real reason also includes a delay in getting the requirements and business analysis material from the analysts in Washington DC. No matter what the reason, our team is now at least two members smaller.
I left then, and came home. Michele and I are each apprehensive about the upcoming week or two. The fact that I haven’t gotten a call is good news. The fact that I recently heard about an opportunity for work back in Springfield may be a very good thing.
Last night I couldn’t sleep for being over tired. Tonight I am expecting a long night as I lie awake and wonder where I’ll be working next week. Or next month.
This whole employment thing sucks.
Michele and I had a wonderful discussion yesterday morning as we lazily stayed in bed for an hour or so after waking up. For some time now we both have been struggling with feelings of depression and we both have expressed an occasionally desire to “go get in the car,” our euphuism for committing suicide.
The months of job searching took their toll on our energy; spiritually, emotionally, physically, and mentally we are exhausted. Even small setbacks overwhelm us, and given our current state we have a hard time believing it will ever be “better” again. If the future could only promise more of what we’d already been through then why stay? We both firmly believe in multiple lifetimes, leaving this life only prepares us for the next. We don’t have a fear of death, but we do want to respect this life and give it a full measure. Our real fear is leaving some part of the lesson this time around undone thus creating a need to re-live in some fashion the circumstances of our current life.
Eventually our discussion took us to a new idea, one that we had danced around before but never fully explored. In short we discovered that we aren’t so much ready to leave this lifetime, but rather just our current lifestyle. No matter how good a job either or both us may have we will always be at the mercy of that job. Three of our last four moves have been for purely economic reasons, specifically the loss of my job. The latest iteration of this cycle has already spawned the next move. We are renting an apartment for a year to learn the area (and test the job waters) before committing ourselves to a mortgage.
Part of our reasoning for moving to a larger city was the belief that the end of one job engagement and the start of a replacement would only mean driving to a new work location. In other words we hope KC has enough opportunity to shelter us from moving again until we are ready. Having this cushion is nice, but it isn’t enough as it turns out. We want to be free from the tyranny of working for someone else. We want a situation that is largely, if not completely under our control, one that isn’t as invasive into our lives as the traditional work in an office model.
We want a modern-day lighthouse. Everything about that “model” of work excites us; the isolation from others, the need for self-reliance, the going-it-alone aspect, and the ability to work together without an arbitrary work enforced separation 40 or more hours a week. When I was still active in the martial arts I dreamed of having a two-story structure with a dojo on the ground floor, and living quarters upstairs. The closet thing we’ve found recently to this is being the on-site manager for a long-term storage facility.
When we first discovered there were people who lived on the grounds of some large storage facilities, and who managed them, I was hesitant. Having just spent three months and countless hours finding a new job I was firmly plugged into the tradition work model once again. After our talk Sunday morning however, I am seeing this opportunity in a new light. It is the downstairs dojo, upstairs living quarters idea with a truly viable economic model.
I will admit a certain reluctance to pursue this “lighthouse.” Some of that fear is the realization that it will further set me apart from the mainstream of society. Also, it feels like a one-way transition to me. Once we start managing a facility and I leave behind the corporate world of information technology, I doubt I’ll ever be able to return. Another piece of my fear is that it would work, that we would be happy and free. For much of my life I have struggled with feelings of guilt whenever I was “too” successful. I have held myself back in the past in order to convince myself that I was just like everyone else. The truth is that I am not at all like everyone else. And moreover, trying to model my life and my decisions on what I think other people might do is highly damaging to me.
So it is leap of faith time. As I have captured this posting today I have come to realize that I want to submit our resumes to the storage facility management and at least learn more about what they are offering. As Richard Bach says in “Illusions,” you have to let go of the rocks in order to float free in the crystal stream.
I have discovered one place where Springfield has Kansas City beat. Video rental pricing.
In Springfield you could rent, for five days, any movie you wanted for just $1.00. New release, old classic, or anything in between. DVD or VHS all movies were a dollar. Here in KC the going rate is more like $4.00 plus tax for new releases, and for older DVD titles. VHS is less, but still more than double what I am used to paying.
I’ve been to Blockbuster and Hollywood Video and found basically the same pricing scheme at each store. What this demonstrates is the power of a strong local store. You see, in Springfield we had a locally owned chain of video rental stores called “Family Video.” They only charged a dollar for rentals. The national chains tried repeated to charge more, but Family Video held fast to their low rate. I guess KC doesn’t have a strong locally owned chain to combat the national chains.
That’s too bad.
I am ready to die. The depression that has come as a result of the past few months is worsening, and I feel helpless in its grasp. It seems that every time I find a positive or uplifting piece of news that the world slaps be back down with more negative or out of control energy.
We are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. If the house in Illinois doesn’t sell soon we won’t be able to stay ahead of our bills. Calls will start coming in and we’ll “go poor” as Michele puts it so aptly. We worked so long and so hard to get away from monthly financial crises, to return to that stressful and agonizing way of living now is almost too bitter a pill to swallow.
Our relationship with each other has suffered in the process. We are both raw and numb at the same time. We are afraid to talk for fear of overwhelming the other, unable to maintain our own balance in the stoic miasma that results. I love Michele more than I can describe in words, and for a long time that has sustained me in times of dire emotion.
I am not sure that my love for her, or her love for me, is enough to make this painful existence worth living any more. My parents are slowly falling apart physically. Every week brings new news of another aliment, another drug reaction, and another doctor to see. Knowing that staying in this life means watching them die, and having to deal with the emotional flood that will result is not life affirming.
My brother and his family are also struggling just above the line that separates those who will stay safe and secure in the world, and those who will slip into the danger zone, perhaps never to recover. Michele and I slipped into that zone in the first year of our marriage. We fought long and hard to recover and were finally almost safe. The loss of my job in March pushed us back into jeopardy, and we remain there still.
I know that if we stay here that we’ll eventually recover. We’ll do without, and sacrifice, and suffer the indignities our “civilization” forces upon those in need. We’ll lose part of ourselves as the scars and wounds this lifestyle will leave will separate us from our core truth.
All I want from life is to be with Michele. The best part of my recent unemployment was being with her all the time. We had talked during the darker days of that period about a cut off date, a date when we would step off this mortal coil rather than face a continued struggle. Our date was to be September 1st. There was something comforting and enabling about having a literal “drop dead” date. We haven’t talked about it since I got my offer, nor since we’ve moved. But with the increase in stress lately I’ve started thinking about it once again.
I know that depression robs you of your ability to think clearly, you lose focus, you are unable to fathom even simple tasks. I feel as if the pressure that is upon us is artificial, that it is somehow there only because I imagine it to be there. And yet I know not how to remove this burden.
The samurai say, “Today is a good day to die.” I’ve taken that to mean control of ones death makes the burdens and challenges in life easier to face. This attitude certainly helped me during the long struggle to find a new job. Knowing that ultimately I controlled my life in the only sense that mattered (i.e. whether I chose to live or die) gave me the strength to face the obstacles in my way. However the caveat to this code is leaving your life in good order before you die. With the outstanding obligations I have I would be leaving responsibilities behind for someone else to deal with. In and of itself this doesn’t disturb me, my only real concern is whether this left behind responsibilities would create karma I would have to deal with in the next lifetime.
For that matter, would leaving now under my own choice create a situation where I’d have to return to similar life to get the lesson or lessons left uncompleted in this life? Or have I reached the conclusion of this lesson? Am I truly ready to move on?
Writing this out has helped to release some of the tremendous negative energy I had building up inside of me. Michele and I cleansed our apartment not too long ago (with startling results), maybe we need to cleanse ourselves too.