I recently agreed to serve on two unrelated committees and realized I needed to unearth my old day planner to stay organized. I knew exactly where it was – thrown into a Rubbermaid container, my personal archive of Amarillo Magazines. I didn’t want leave my job as the features writer and editor. I didn’t want to leave Michele or remove myself from the community that so graciously welcomed me. I didn’t want to leave a position that made me feel important.
I found the day planner in the exact state I left it on December 17, 2010, my last day.
Back story: We moved to Amarillo in December 2008 for Chuck’s new job and I landed a position at the city magazine in February 2009. Career-wise, we were golden. In every other area of life, we were miserable. Chuck’s mother had just been diagnosed with brain cancer, Jackson was entering early intervention because he wasn’t speaking, and our “Life is an Adventure!” attitude tanked by the end of the first month when we realized how badly we missed the mountains. The high plains, with its wide open spaces and vast horizons, felt suffocating.
Still, we made do. I loved every part of my job, Jackson started talking and learning to read, and Jeremy loved his school, his teachers, and our church. However, Chuck, who traveled nearly non-stop, was quietly burdened by his inability to help care for his mother, and by the end of 2009, we knew our life in Amarillo was going to be cut short. By July 2010, our house was back on the market and Chuck was moving back to Tennessee. The boys and I stayed in Texas to await the sale of our house. We entered a geographical separation that ended up lasting eight months.
Our dog passed away in August 2010, followed by Chuck’s mom in October. I told Michele I needed to resign by December, even if our house hadn’t sold, mainly because the emotional and physical load I was carrying was too much. We spent Christmas with Chuck’s family in Santa Fe because a traditional Christmas was out of the question. Brenda was gone, our house had not sold. No one was in the mood. We rallied around one another in a beautiful city and enjoyed the snow.
I flipped through my day planner recalling our two years in Amarillo. So much good for me happened there, even though it was hard on our family. The day Chuck picked me up from work on my last day, I slipped into the car with my box of stuff and said, “I hope it’s worth it.”
Let me assure you: It’s been worth it. Though I miss feeling important in a professional way, I know what I’m doing now is just as meaningful. I’m not conducting interviews nor writing all the content for an entire magazine. I’m not helping on photo shoots or brainstorming with one of my favorite people. I’m not logging miles on the car, not proofing pages, not racing from one appointment to the next.
Instead, I’m teaching Jeremy fractions, showing Jackson how use proper punctuation, and taking them to volunteer opportunities on a weekly basis. I’m writing a second novel and keeping my fingers crossed for the first one. I’m taking photographs of lovely people. I completed a graduate degree and am looking for another race to run, lucky number thirteen. I manage this household, cook from scratch, and play hide and seek.
That’s all important too.
After a bout of reminiscing, I took out the old calendar and notes from the day planner – all of 2009 and 2010 – and threw them in the trash. It’s time to use that binder for something else and reconcile that even though my life looks very different now than it did five years ago, I’m no less valuable.
Remind me of this next time I’m folding eight million loads of laundry.