So yeah - about those changes. I had planned to write about those changes that following weekend when things weren't quite so raw within me. It's funny how life gets busy sometimes and I feel like I can't quite keep up.
Then I realized today - or last night, really, that it's been that way for me for the last few years. It's been getting worse each year but the process began a few years ago. I'm not really sure why or even how it began or what made it begin but when my back started getting worse, my ... wait. I'm getting ahead of myself.
Looking back is harder sometimes than looking forward. Especially when writing. I write for myself. I write so that my daughter can see these words someday and realize how much I love her. How I live each day for her. She's the reason I work so hard each day and why I put so many pictures of her on Facebook. But sometimes I lose that vision. Sometimes I try to write this but in looking back things seem jumbled - not quite as emotional and I don't know why I felt the way that I did.
So I'll just write the events as factual as I can and maybe, somehow, I can throw how I felt into the middle of it all.
We, the people at where I work, my coworkers and the higher-ups, have seen the writing on the wall for awhile now. The only question was when. Awhile ago they laid off 5 part time people in the hopes that would help us financially. Being a logical person I knew it wouldn't. I think a lot of us were. I kept hoping it would help, though. I kept working, going through my day-to-day routine as if nothing was wrong. We all did. In the back of our mind, though, we all knew.
Shortly before my last post they laid off about half of the people in our small 25 man work crew. It was hard. For some it was harder than others. I feel guilty that it wasn't as hard on me this time as it was last time, though God knows I spent tons of tears on it.
I love where I work. I believe in the mission of what they do, even if they're having a hard time right now. I know the decision to lay off those workers was hard for the management staff - we're a small team. We know everyone by name. It's not like management doesn't rub elbows with the low man on the totem pole where I work. The CFO knows my name. The President of the company comes by my desk and says hi. The decision to lay off people was hard on everyone.
That didn't make me any less angry at them for not giving our people some warning to look for another job. *sigh*
I'm over my anger, though. Life moved on, I still have my job - thank God. Oh God - thank God. Without my job we would be in so much trouble. We would lose our house so fast. I don't know my mental health could handle not living in a house again...but that's another story, for another time.
Back to the last year. Time gets harder and harder for me. For the last few years it's getting harder and harder for me to move around. I'm a big girl, sure but it's not my energy level that's declining. It's my pain free ability. I simply can't get around without pain.
I know - lose weight and it's all good, right? It's not that simple. A long time ago I was in an accident. In November I have a pain management appointment and I can start figuring out what's really going on.
I guess I just didn't realize how little I can do. The arthritis in my back limits me. The pinched nerves, the pain - I hadn't realized it had gotten me to the point that I can't garden. I had so many plans for roses and some other things when the spring started out this year. None of it got done. I was lucky to keep the 2 rose bushes I have alive.
When I go into pain management for the first time I'm taking my husband. I'm gonna let them know how little I can really do. Hopefully they'll see past my weight to the real problems and help me.
