Oh…, GET OVER it!

“It ain’t over till it’s over” Yogi Berra once said, and he’s right. Others can stand at the sidelines of your life telling you to ‘get over it’.  You grin sheepishly, telling them that you have, but you know in your heart that isn’t true.  Maybe you can fool them, and you can only fool yourself for so long. Only you will know when you’re at the end of something.

There has to be a junction where the two paths meet; the path of non-acceptance, unbelief; and the course of without-a-doubt, irrefutable evidence that you have to accept.  This is where the resolution point is.  It is where you have to change your map, rewrite the plan of action.  Until YOU reach this moment, no amount of prodding on the part of well-meaning friends or mind games played by your psyche will convince you to get out of the rut.

It ain’t over till it’s over.

I am very good at the mind games, of convincing myself I should keep going.  I plod along, totally oblivious to all the signs.  I won’t give up until I can feel it is truly the end.  Like a bull on the charge, I keep running head first into the wall even when I’ve exhausted all resources and revamped my strategy a bazillion times.  I’m too damn stubborn! I might knock myself out a few times, but  I get back on my feet , dust myself off, back up and run at the barrier again!

Recently, after a long period of unemployment, I finally ‘got’ why a former employer probably won’t hire me.  Despite the fact that I was a model employee in every way:  No complaints, no policy or safety violations, excellent attendance record for over 4 years – I could not get rehired to this national home improvement chain.   I was flummoxed!  What was the reason?  I hadn’t been fired; I’d just taken another job.

I had applied three times to a new store closer to my home. I had the recommendation of 6 people I’d worked with at the other store who now worked there.  I called every week or two, asking to speak with different members of management. I dropped by a few times and talked with the store manager.  All I got was “I’ll check with the HR manager.”   I was denied interviews,   but wasn’t told why. The people I knew who worked with me at the old store kept asking management,  ”Why won’t you hire her?  We need her!”  They were kept in the dark, too.

One of my friends reminded me of the workman’s comp claim I’d filed a few months after being hired. I’d injured my back lifting something.  It wasn’t that I’d lifted wrong, but something ’structural’ in my back that I was totally unaware of gave out.  I was in horrendous pain for a long time afterward.  The company had to pay for many tests and months of chiropractic care and physical therapy.  My friend had come up with the answer:  I was too much of a risk.  They could not come out and say that because to do so would have left them a sitting duck for litigation under the Americans with Disabilities Act.  This HAD to be the only reason why and the reason they’d stuck to their policy of saying they didn’t have to give me a reason!

I had no choice…. I had to let it go once and for all.  There weren’t any other tricks I could pull out of my bag.  No other routes were open to me.  It was finished.  I had to start over again.

Actually, though, this was a relief.  I finally had my resolution.  I knew this had to be the reason and knowing that there was no way to prove it, letting it go was the right thing to do.

Now, I can go on with my life and not be obsessed with this any longer.  It is over and I finally have gotten to that point of resolution.  

 

Security

I just picked up my current book, “Finding Your Way Home” by Melody Beattie.  The more I read this; and so far I’ve only read the same two or three chapters – the more I believe that this is one of the MOST important healing and spiritual growth books that’s crossed my path.  Believe me, I’ve read a lot!

 

Security.  What do we think of when that word comes to mind?  Right now for me that means having enough money to maintain my house and pay my bills. 

 

Although at present I am not currently employed in a paying job, I am secure. I AM SAFE. I am not going to lose my house next week.  I have enough to buy food and pay my bills. Even though I know the clock is winding down on the money I have, I KNOW that I AM provided for.  God will never leave me stranded.   Everything  IS OK.

 

Security.  I realize that this   w-h-o-l-e  Lowe’s issue, the relentless drive to get back there is a security issue.  It is what I know, it is where there was some modicum of  familiarity. Even in its unpredictability with scheduling, it was something I knew.  I thought that if I got rehired, everything would be OK.  I believed that I could do nothing else…, that I wasn’t worthy of anything else.

 

In truth I AM WORTHY of a lot more. 

 

There is a line in the book:  “When I become afraid and try frantically to know the future, it’s usually a cover-up to mask the fact that I’ve begun dreading life and I think there’s nowhere left to go.  I try to change things in the exterior world so I won’t have to feel my own heart.  I try to hold onto the past so that I won’t have to go into the void. Each time I allow myself to go into that void, the future holds something I couldn’t imagine.  By the time I get there, I’m different. The world is different.  It’s not the world I’m in today and I am not the person I am now when I get there.  I’ve changed, and the changes in me change my perspective on the entire event.”

 

The cat is crying at the door to the living room.  I don’t usually let him in but I go and crack open the door.  He hesitates; inches forward, pulls back.  Despite his insistence that this is where he wants to go – he’s afraid to cross the threshold. 

 

Hmmmm…, this seems to be where I have been with the whole career situation.  I knew that I wanted something different but afraid to go for it.  I was trying to get back to where I was, to where I felt secure, but that’s not where I am supposed to be.  I have been too stubborn to see that.  Despite all the reminders from everyone, the constant admonishments, “Bev, you NEED to take a look at this.”   I resisted.  Nope, I was right, I was certain that I would get that job back but now I know differently. 

 

Mentally I am imagining the door to Lowe’s CLOSED.  Beside it is another door.  (We know that when God closes one door, another one opens for there are no vacuums in nature.)  This other door is cracked open.  Even though I can’t see inside, I KNOW that it is a better path than the one I was on.

 

I am choosing to take the path behind the cracked-open door.  It feels wonderful!

 

B