Recently -- this past August -- I changed jobs.
God, I was so optimistic. This was the thing that would take me to the next phase of my career. The next level. It was going to be great.
It was going to be My Second Act.
Except that it wasn't. It didn't work for me or for my family. The people at the new job were nice, but it just didn't fit for me, for my family. Maybe I didn't fit.
I knew pretty quickly that I had made a mistake.
We all, my family, were miserable.
You might say, "Surely, you should have given it more time, Working Mom."
Some might say that, yes.
But I will tell you something about being fifty-two years old:
Somewhere around age 50, you receive the gift of clarity. (Well, I did anyway.) More time would have been more misery . . . and, indeed, it was more misery, months more while I figured things out and allowed processes to do their thing.
But I was literally depressed as I watched things fall apart.
My Second Act was not so much an act, but an intermission.
Still, I knew that this was a terrible mistake.
Giving it more time would not have made it better.
So I called my old boss, and I told him that I'd made a mistake.
Actually, no, first I called two of my old co-workers, friends, and I told them that I'd made a mistake. And I sobbed and sobbed. Real regret. I asked them if they thought that my old boss would take me back. They said, "Yes," and encouraged me to call.
And THEN I called . . . and I got good news. After jumping through a lot of hoops, I could come back.
My Second Chance.
I still beat myself up about having, as I thought at the time, done this thing to my family and my co-workers at my old (soon to be new) job . . . and at the new job, soon to be old, too.
But . . . .
One of my work friends, from the job I left and have now returned to, told me that I shouldn't feel foolish because I had learned something from this and that is valuable. She's right.
When I told my sister-in-law what my work friend had said, she added, "She's not wrong. Even at this age, if we aren't failing at things, it means we've stopped learning."
Another of my work friends said not to feel foolish because it's not like I'd left my son and husband to join a biker gang. I told her that, while that was true, I sometimes felt like I had done the professional equivalent of that.
Not that the firm I joined, ever so briefly, was anything like a biker gang, not even close. There were a lot of really nice people there. But the disruption that it caused in my family and my professional life felt like a similar sort of existential violence.
I did feel foolish, despite the words of my wonderful friends and sister (in law).
But I have come to see that, they're all right.
Growing, learning, and not having done the WORST thing to my family and my career . . . it's been a valuable lesson . . . a series of valuable lessons.
As midlife crises go, this one was pretty gentle, really. (Because I will live to be 104, obvs.)
And ultimately, I have emerged with gratitude and a better appreciation for what I need versus what I want. And so . . . .
My Second Chance, as it turns out, is My Second Act.
