Not the homecoming I expected

It was a huge relief to be home after nearly three weeks of travel.  It was starting to get to me and I didn't fully appreciate it until I started having panic attacks while packing for my Boston trip, then again for our California trip.  Those are the only time I've ever had panic attacks and it was wholly unpleasant and foreboding.  Some of it was likely the fact that job stress had been accumulating over the summer as we were nearing the end of our current campaign funding.  The thought of impending job loss was not entirely new, in fact, my project has gone through fits and starts with funding over the last four years - the first two years always felt like a constant battle, the 3rd year was good and we thought would hold (so we bought a house), but towards the end of year four, it was becoming clear we were entering a period of uncertainty again.  When I left for CA I knew we had money through the end of December and likely through March if we were frugal.

When I returned to work, the day after we got back from CA, my first call of the day was to catch up with my boss.  Through my head-cold induced fog I heard him tell me we ran out of money while I was gone and that we likely only could make it through October 31st.  "I'm sorry, I'm a little fuzzy today, did you mean to say November 31st?"  No, I had heard him correctly, we were running out of money in 2 days.  The last check from our funder was due to come in but she decided to hold it while we were reviewing the direction of our program.  Soon I discovered the review hadn't even begun yet and that I had a part of the review to write, which no one could really help me understand why it was relevant, and they assured me they were reviewing our funding status.  So, the next night, Hurricane Sandy roared ashore closing our DC office and our headquarters in NYC.  The next few days proceeded without any real answers or assurances aside from a comment that our finance department was offline with the hurricane damage, so maybe we'll just get paid anyway because no one will notice we've overdrawn our project budget.  And I believe that's when something broke inside of me - "So I am to understand that I may or may not get paid this week by exploiting a loophole?!  You have control over the entire budget for all of the projects in our organization and you want me to thank you for saying you might be able to cover up this oversight if someone else doesn't notice?!"  As a manager, my first priority would be to tell my employees what happened and that we're doing all we can to get things back on track.  And then I would work with our finance folks to find the money to keep our staff paid through at least the end of December as agreed and not subject them to that level of stress, uncertainty, and frankly, appalling low amount of professional courtesy while they're expected to be drafting a renewal proposals for funders.

So, after a week of having 24/7 heartburn and nightmares about losing the house, we got a guarantee that they would cover our pay through Dec. 31.  Which was only moderately reassuring - it felt more like a stay of execution.  We got to work on the review for our funder, and that month-long memo writing process was hands down the worst process I have ever been engaged in.  After spending a week in California honing my leadership and facilitation skills in October, going through such a terrible process was even more unsettling because all my efforts to make it better seemed to fall on deaf ears.  Eventually, I was able to make some headway with some of our other team members who also agreed the memo was off the rails. We convinced the person leading the memo process that it needed rewritten, which I ended up doing a large amount of for the week leading up to Thanksgiving.  By this time, I ended up getting a weird stomach bug (stress gone overboard?) that lasted for a week which almost cancelled Thanksgiving.

In the end, we got the memo to where it needed to be, but at the cost of my desire to be involved in the campaign anymore.  We're still waiting to hear whether the funder will continue to support us, but at this point, I think she's as burnt out as I am.  I've started job hunting in earnest, and at the urging of friends in DC got on LinkedIn, despite my hatred for social networking sites.  I also realize I'm at a crossroads and I'm not sure where I want to go with my career.  All I know is that I want to stay in St. Pete, pay our bills, and be around enough to enjoy time at home with friends and family.

Wade and I have also shifted into battening down the hatches mode.  We're not going to be buying Christmas presents for anyone this year (including ourselves), and are trying to see how crafty we can get making things for people.  We still have a lot of frozen bananas from the yard this summer, so it looks like banana bread for all will be one solution!  I'm actually kind of looking forward to a simpler Christmas and getting back to it being a time to tell friends and family you appreciate them by spending time with them or sending them a little handmade something.  That just feels more meaningful to me than buying things for people because we're supposed to.

Stress relief: me picking green beans and zucchini.

Thankfully, our garden has been one bright spot in all of this to help me combat the stress (yes, I am still having almost 24/7 heartburn) - zucchini, green beans, Meyer lemons, spinach, lettuce, collard greens, scallions, eggs, flowers, and herbs are plentiful right now.  We're also waiting on carrots, heirloom tomatoes, brussel sprouts, kale, broccoli, daikon radishes, turnips, beets, onions, garlic, shallots, oranges, starfruit, and parsnips.  We'll plant another round of veggies in February, but for now, we've been happy with our October-planted crops and think we'll try to plant even earlier next year, around late August and September so we can get veggies for Thanksgiving.  To see the garden, head to our Picasa site for pictures here.