It’s been a strange summer, but having left my job (suddenly, in a puff of smoke!) at end of June, things have finally started to line up. I’ve printed up endless copies of my resume, met with recruiters, been badgered about going into HR, been advised to start my own business, ordered textbooks, made second and third follow up calls, and waited.

And waited.

Here is some of what has been crossing my mind as I’ve moved from month one into month two of being unemployed:

• It’s easier to keep yourself from worrying when it’s sunny out. If you are going to be unemployed, do it in the summer- just not in the prairies this summer (we have not had 3 days of sun back to back in a month!)
• Transcribing interviews for books that family members are writing isn’t the rewarding use of your time you thought it would be, it will mostly makes your forearms hurt.
• Camping Twitter, waiting for something to happen can result in increased pulse, seeing spots, and over consumption of caffeine.
• Everyone will have advice for you. If you assign one person to remind you that what you’re doing is right for you, the advice that comes pouring in will seem more well intended. Note: Ideally, assign this task to yourself.
• You will not become a vegan, marathon running, better/stronger/faster version of yourself. Things will mostly be the same, only you will not have to stay awake in the afternoons unless you are transcribing the aforementioned book interviews.
• Inexplicably, while you will not have time to become a vegan marathon runner, you will have time to eat whole loaves of french bread. And time to hide the receipts.
• Rent old romantic movies, they will help make you believe that sometimes things are simple and that sometimes all the loose ends really are tied up in the third act. This will make you feel as though things are not hopeless, you are just stuck in Act Two. This is far more constructive, and will make you a more cheerful companion when people ‘check up on you’.
• Have as much fun as everyone else thinks you are having. Unstructured time is brilliant if you can embrace it.

And then after you wait even a little more, print out another dozen of your resumes and pound the pavement for the umpteenth time, you might find something that works! Which is a round about way of saying that I’m starting my new job on the second week of September with a small, lovely little company that is flexible and friendly (ya!). I’ll be working on the edge of downtown, close to bus routes & coffee shops and won’t have to work weekends! (double ya!) And while I have been passed lead after lead after lead of marketing positions in the entertainment world, I’m happy to report I’ll be working in insurance and benefits, safely away from actors, musicians, and their management.

FINALLY!

I’m not telling myself stories about having found the answer to everything, but I’m excited to have found the answer so this one small part of things. For now that’s all I need to give myself permission to relax into the last few moments of summer that are offering themselves up between thunderstorms.

{image: kylaroma}

This weekend was excellent for coffee, tea, and comfort. After weeks of incredibly cold “summer” weather we upgraded to cold and rainy- and I finally surrendered.

If summer wasn’t coming to me, I was going to have a day of Fall comfort.

I waded through the tide of yappy black dogs that live on our main floor, put bananas and chocolate sauce on my waffles, kissed my Mister, made coffee (and thermos after thermos of tea) and went straight back upstairs. I piled all the pillows in the house into the bed, fluffed the blankets and cuddled right back into bed to watch Audrey Hepburn movies all morning.

And then I had a bubble bath.

And then I made cookies, and I may or may not have had a glass of white wine.

And I’m not going to lie- beyond the weather, the sheer volume of change that’s happening right now is finally starting to sink in, and this weekend it laid me out.

It’s been a month since I quit my nightmarish job, and I’m really not working now! My looking around for part time work is going alright, but without a firm YES! or NO! from people it’s hard to feel secure. I’m hoping that by the end of August I’m locked in at a new job and can start as school starts.

….because in September I’m going to start school! I’m going to be studying Human Resources Management so I can step into a more mid-level position when I go back to work full time, and so I can hopefully avoid (or turn around) the abusive situations I’ve kept finding myself in. This month I’m also shooting weddings with my wedding photographer! I’m booked up on Saturdays from here until September, and I’m also working on portrait shoots for families, engaged friends, and friends who are expecting their first children. I’m terrified and thrilled that I’ve found another passion in life, and I’m hoping that if I work extremely hard that it might open some doors.

On a day to day basis, Mister and I are leaning into DIY projects around the house in the kitchen and mudroom that have me totally fired up, I’m reading and am trying new recipes (I made home made pizza this weekend!!!) all the time, and it all feels like my life is on the verge of changing directions again.

There’s a lot of hope and a lot of nerves. A lot of waiting, and a little white wine.

For the first time since moving into our first home, getting married, and starting in on this new phase of life I can say with total certainty that I don’t know how life will look in a year, and I don’t know how I want it to look. So I’m going to try to let it develop as it will- because no matter how many decisions I make or how I plan it seems that it’s up to chance, hope, and timing to determine how this all plays out. And I’m excited to see what opportunities they help me pounce on.

Times are definitely changing as of the end of this summer, but I know that it’s for the best and that when I have my doubts there’s always Audrey Hepburn. No matter how my life changes, she is delightfully charming and constant, just how breakfast in bed on a rainy day should be.

{image: bob willoughby}

Last week was a whirlwind. The annual dream that is my city’s independent theatre festival has just wound to a close, so the one man shows and knife throwers are finally packing their trunks and reluctantly moving on to the next prairie city. After a week of running around the steamy downtown between shows, helpings of Gelati, mini-photoshoots with friends, and checking my e-mail far too frequently, I was in need of a little space from the city.

Mister and I packed our things headed out to the lake for a low-fi, no internet holiday. There were board games, movies, records, and those really good (really bad for you) curly fries that you only buy at walk up stands where nutritional information fears to tread. I even bought two $10 hunks of chick lit for the occasion. So you know I meant serious business, is what I’m saying.

We had a brilliant time steeped in watching Mystery Science Theatre 3000, reading in the hammock (which we broke!) and in watching my mother’s two huge dogs along with our own (total FOUR DOGS) which was was a little overwhelming, but fun. By the end we were referring to them as the Little Dogs and the Big Dogs until Mister pointed out that it was pretty Jon & Kate.

I always intend to step out of my normal routine and spend my days at a slower pace, with less time online and more time with my hands on puppy leashes, shutter triggers or in Mister’s hands and day trips off to anywhere seem to be the perfect time to just remember how to begin to do that. Things like checking my e-mail once a day instead of every time I see a computer or my phone come easier after a little time away, and I’ve even moved my computer into my craft room so I can use it for movie watching from my day bed and for listening to music while I sew instead of just for Twitter and e-mail.

I saw a show during the theatre festival that forced some perspective. It talked about how much life we all had left, and how we were using it. It asked, how many more trips to the park will you go on? How many times will you lie in your lovers arms? How many times will you feel wonder at the possibility before you? How many meals will you be proud of, or new friends will you make? Thinking like that, even for a minute makes you step back and appreciate what’s in front of you.

Between the show and the time away from my normal routine I’ve managed to step back for a moment and I re-discover the little things. I came home from the lake and got a movie subscription where I can have any 3 movies out at any time, and I’m going to watch His Girl Friday this week. A movie I’ve always wanted to see, so why not now? There are books I want to read, and old friends I want to hug before they move away. There are bloggers who move me who I would like to be better friends with, and I’d like to make more friends in my prairie city, especially as my friends are starting to move away. I want to learn to sew properly and scrapbook all the pictures I have. So why am I putting these things off? Why not do them now?

Mandy is calling it her summer of me, and I’m calling it my summer of starting over. What have you been putting off lately, and more importantly, why not try it now?

{image: Wai Lin Tse}

It’s been a weird and wonderful week, and I can now safely say that we’re through the dress rehearsal and the previews of being unemployed, and I’ve been invited as an honoured guest for Unemployment’s Act One: Freaking the Fuck Out. This week I felt down, behind in everything, disconnected, lonely and restless. When I sat down to read blogs I couldn’t stop thinking about the dishes, and when I would wash the dishes I knew in my heart of hearts I should really be walking the dogs. So instead of taking it in stride and being zen about the whole thing (I’M UNEMPLOYED!!! I’M TOO BUSY FOR YOGA!!!) I started taking on impossible projects. Like washing and pressing all of Mister’s shirts.

Mid-Thursday evening, on my second trip back from the sink to refill the iron so it could “steam more effectively” I turned the corner into the bedroom and paused to take in the scene I had laid out. Clothes were heaped high on the bed according to colour, a half finished glass of red wine sat on the dresser while The Virgin Suicides played dreamily in the background. A movie about teenage isolation and group suicide.

I couldn’t help but think that, objectively, this was all fairly condemning evidence that I might be, you know, going through something. But there’s still lots of ironing to do! Can’t think too much about that, can we?

When I eventually did finish all the ironing and calmed myself down, waiting for me was some good old fashioned mail from three wonderful ladies that lifted my mood immeasurably (thank you girls!!), our city’s big independent theatre festival with all my friends from far away finally pouring back into the city, and an invitation from my wedding photographer to work as her second shooter for three weddings this year. Finally, my pulse started to drop back into a normal rhythm.

Yesterday afternoon I packaged and hand delivered resumes at the most beautiful shops around me, made my best stab at a ‘cool as anything, has never touched an iron in her life’ impression, and bought myself a cupcake for my courage. Sometimes finishing the impossible feels really good- even if it involves The Virgin Suicides and some mid-week red wine.

{image: don’t cry delilah}

“Happy birthday!! Is it okay?”

We tested it out, made sure it fit- and it was okay. More than okay. She was a cruiser style mountain bike and she rocked-  I rode her to work, on the weekends, to the movies. The only problem was she was heavy. If I rode her home from work at my usual pace, I was tired when I got home and would nearly fall down the stairs hauling her up to the apartment. So we made room in our storage locker, but I would nearly fall over trying to rock it up onto it’s back wheel so it could fit into the tiny space we’d cleared for her to hang.

At every apartment and now at our house I got my hopes up that the arrangement would make it easier to use my bike, and everywhere we’ve lived in the past four and a half years? It never got easier. I loved the bike dearly but eventually stopped riding. It was just such an ordeal to haul the great thing outdoors!

With the wedding and moving house twice last year I didn’t ride my bike much, if at all, but I got a nagging thought stuck in my mind – that a lighter and prettier bike would be a vintage cruiser. I’ve “casually” stalked the Antiques malls and classifieds since the Spring, but haven’t found anything under $300 – way out of budget. I figured I could sell the old heavy bike for $200, so that was my new bike budget. Straight exchange, or no deal.

This weekend I made another run around to my favourite vintage haunts, hoping for a new sundress and maybe to see the glint of bargain basement priced fenders. No luck. I pulled the car up at home to find Mister on the front steps.

“I think I saw a bike at Lune Vintage a few mintues ago. It might have been the owner’s, but it would be worth checking.”

I hopped back in the car. This was my favourite little shop/craft studio. The owner (one of them?) is so young and beautiful, and watches the shop with a little girl some of the time I’ve been in. She’s my hero. I would love to give her my money.

I turned the corner and there she was- a vintage 1977 Schwinn cruiser, for under $200. I called Mister in a happy panic, he ran to the bank and over to the car at top speed, and I fended off the scores of brunettes with blunt bangs and slight hangovers lurking behind their vintage sunglasses as they gravitated off the main drag and towards the baby blue fenders.

Before they could flip their hair and swing a leg over her, I hit them with an “Oh, excuse me – I’m sorry, I just bought it!”

Like you wouldn’t lie for this beauty too. I can lift her with one arm, and as of Sunday morning I sold my old bike for the required $200.

It’s official, I’m totally smitten.

Mr: So I was thinking, we should go on a road trip this weekend…

K: That sounds amazing! I would love to- so… Fargo?

Mr: How about taking a picnic to the abandoned dam in Pinawa?

K: Oh fantastic! Will we just grab some food at a stand up there?

Mr: Well, I was thinking we’d take a picnic.

K: Yea, so we would grab the food at a stand, and then take it to where we were going!

Mr: No, I was meaning a picnic, actually.

K: Like, we wouldn’t buy any food there?

Mr: Kyla, I love you. I have one word that expresses what I’m suggesting. The word is PICNIC!

Our picnic was up and down amazing, once I wrapped my mind around what Mister was suggesting. I haven’t packed a cooler with snacks and trucked out of town since I was 6 years old- there was something so simple and familiar about the whole process. It rained the whole time we were at the dam so I ran around without a hat, corralling Schipperke puppies as they skittered across the wide flat rocks of the Canadian shield. We walked over rusted out generators and through the huge structure, now with holes and evergreens punched through its facade, and stood where it’s township had been. We dried off the puppies in the back of the car, ate sandwiches while the car windows fogged, and laughed pretty much the whole time.

On the way home I watched the highway rise and fall away from the horizon while tall black velvet ears bobbed in and out of my view. Mister and I talked about the coming months over the low hum of talk radio on the fourth of July.

I love the moments when the world feels so utterly uncomplicated.

When was the last time you took a picnic?

{Images: kylaroma}

Last week was a mess of friends, goodbyes, canon fire, wild flowers and cupcakes. My last day at work was Tuesday (my all star manager left while I was in my exit interview, which made me laugh) and Canada Day was Wednesday! We had a non-stop parade of people through the Little House: my Dad, my favourite 5 year old using his “BIG BIKE DO YOU SEE THE TRAINING WHEELS” for the first time, Mister’s parents, and two groups of friends who sipped lemon aid in our south facing back deck that had us all exhausted from the sun in no time. We refreshed drinks and squinted in the sun while celebratory canon fire echoed out over the rivers and over flowing patios. It was a perfect summer day.

The fourth of July weekend was wild- after shouting patriotic messages on the phone to all of our American family, Mister and I made a big drive up to an abandoned hydro dam for a picnic with the puppies, I made an incredibly easy and kinda showstopping strawberry shortcake, and my best friend humored me and went on a massive photoshoot with me that turned out beautifully- and I’ll have all up here this week.

So far, being away from work has been incredibly relaxing. I didn’t realize how braced I was, and over the past week my whole demeanor has changed. Going out on week nights doesn’t seem overwhelming anymore, and I have more than enough energy again. I’ve even stopped frightening Mister by sleeping in eleven hour stretches to “recharge” on the weekends! I’ve had a couple of awkward conversations about my situation  with friends of friends who wrinkle their noses at me for leaving and ask “So when do you think you’ll have a career?” as they peer out from behind masters degrees their parents paid for and prepare to look for their first job ever, but more than anything those conversations tell me things about them, not me. And I’m trying to not let my pride get in the way of enjoying the time I know I need.

In the mean time, there are job postings to looks at, my garden to tend to, home projects to work on, minty gin drinks to make, and puppies to wrangle. For now, for a short time, that’s what I need.

House Keeping: I finally got my mixtape streaming, if you need some summer music for your work day try this; I have cleaned up the archives on the site so you can peruse them much more easily now; and I just got a pro flickr account so check it out if you’re on flickr.

{image: kylaroma on flickr}

So since I’ve been holding back, this is the story of the past four months:

Last year I worked a comfy job where I had nothing to do for 6 months of the year. I pleaded with my work to change the position to part time and when they declined, I took a job where I would have an incredibly challenging workload and would be succeeding into a management position immediately. I start working, a month passes and things change. People who were supposed to leave, stay, and so the adventure begins.

The building is beautiful, the work is interesting, but the atmosphere is edgy. I wonder why, everyone is so nice. My co-workers give me vague warnings and ask me how I am. I wonder why, everyone is so nice! And then it starts to happen. No matter what I do, no matter how precisely I work or how ahead of deadline I am, or how specifically I address everyone’s concerns, everything I complete is returned to me with revisions and a little note that implies I’m stupid.

Extremely stupid. Careless. Incompetent. Information is withheld from me in an effort to test me. I’m repeatedly asked questions about why I can’t stop making mistakes, and what specifically is my weakest point in my opinion, by an amused manager who smiles at me like I’m a child being asked to speak in front of adults for the first time.

Know that I can’t possibly explain it fully, and that if you want the password for protected posts and a little more context, just comment, but know that I examined all avenues I could and none did anything. Oh to dream of a workplace with an HR department! So suffice it to say that the past few months have been hard.

I can take a challenge here and there, and I can work with strong personalities, but after a number of months of it being both implied and stated every day that I’m useless and stupid, I stopped being proud of pushing through what others hadn’t been able to push through. I stopped wanting to answer questions that are intended to humiliate me instead of help me be better. I stopped wanting to hand in work. I stopped caring about why everyone supported this person and saw that there was nothing I could do or say that would change the situation.

So who am I?

I’m a quitter.

After long talks with Mister and my family, we’ve decided to air lift me out of this situation. And I’m not just leaving, we’ve worked our budgets so I can take the summer off! I can’t express to you how happy this makes me, I worked full time in the summers during high school, full time during my year off school, full time during my equally full time university studies, and full time through to now. I would characterize half of these workplaces as equally abusive, and all have been in the entertainment industry – an industry I’m not willing to work in any more. Mister and I are in a strong financial place, but I’m falling to pieces.

So after a lot of discussion, I’m taking the summer off…and Happy Canada Day, today is Day One!!

I will have so much more for you in the coming weeks, I know I will finally be able to write again and I have so many projects to work on. We’re going to be living on the skint and working hard to see how long we can live as a one income family – and we’re excited to look at what that means for how work will look in the future for both of us.

It’s taken a while for me to not see this as a failure but as an act of liberation, where I can re-examine my priorities in life and work and take some time for me, but I’m there now and I couldn’t be more grateful. It’s been an insane year- this time a year ago I was still planning our wedding and prepping to move into our little house on the prairie.

I’m so glad we have the time to let me pick up the pieces of my heart after this cap to a series of wild experiences, and to figure things out, and I can’t wait to see what happens.

Thank you so much for your support! You all break my heart!

{Image: fubiz}