back to the workforce

After many months of unemployment, I find myself re-entering the workforce tomorrow. In an effort to free some clutter from my mind about all that has gone on over the past year, I have decided to write it out of my system.... so here it goes.

The greatest lesson that I learned from not being employed has to be that I have a wife and son who are more wonderful than I ever imagined. My wife, who was promoted to full-time status at her job only weeks before I lost mine, has worked very hard to ensure that we continued to have food on the table and a roof over our heads. The hours she has had to work are long, and the job does not give her much satisfaction, but she is good at it, and she worked without complaint to make sure not to drag me down. It was very hard on me to see her work so hard and know that I did not have a job to support us. I got to spend a lot of time with my son as well. In fact, the entirety of last summer was spent together, and I got a chance to know my son as a young man, not just as a boy. He has grown so much over the past years, and it was a great pleasure to spend so much time with him. I even managed to convert him to fishing, which was an activity he had only been "lukewarm" towards in the past. We are excited to get our fishing licenses again this year so we can go catch some trout!

Another lesson learned is that harbouring grudges does nothing for you. I still hold a lot of animosity toward the guy who forced me out of my old job, but over time, I have been able to leave some of that behind and not let it eat away at me. I spent a lot of time during the first 6 months of being unemployed being hateful and spiteful to this guy, without him even knowing it. I mean, how could he know it, it was not as if I talked to him or shopped at his stores any more. But that does not eliminate the fact that this hatred was stewing in me like a festering pot of overdone chili. I finally was able to let it go, and now, I feel much better about life in general.

That is all for now..