2006-10-21 - 10:15 AM

I spent over 25 years in the same field working for various manufacturing companies. I really loved my job. I won't detail what that was for anonymity sake but I worked my way up to manager level.

I worked for almost a year after my husband passed away in 2003. But it was a struggle emotionally for me. I had lost a lot of my focus and ambition. Yet I was still excited about the prospect of learning more in my field. But then, "yet another" corporate layoff that took me by surprise. I had had enough of Corp America. Devotion to corporation does not equal devotion to employee. There are no ethics or morality left only greed and deception. Everyone only concerned about their own profit, lost is the time of building something for the pride of just the work done.

I decided to stay home and do what I had always dreamed of doing, writing. So now I have built a studio on the back of my house to do art and I spend my day writing on my books and poetry. Submitting things to magazines and college presses, all with rejection notices so far. But I don't care. I persist because I would write anyway.

It has become part of my healing. I spent several years in therapy with post traumatic stress disorder and depression. I was on paxil for a year. Now I'm drug free and on the other side of that. I still deal with some depression and with some minor ptsd symptoms now and again. Once in a while I miss the money I used to make. Now I live on a very small widow's benefit that will only last till my daughter is 18. My time is short and so I write daily. Pouring out what words will come and wondering what will become of them. Having no illusions. But knowing this is what I must do for my own growth and purpose.

I find myself on a strange isolated journey. Where I once was surrounded by suits, corporate meetings, and making important decisions daily.... transported into this quiet simple life.

I feel like a small ant plucked from its bustling nest
or maybe like a recovering Borg.

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