A Different Drum: Sometimes you just know it’s time to move on

Have you ever experienced a period where many of the foundational aspects of your life seem to have been under siege? If so, you’ll understand immediately what I’m talking about. If not, let’s hope you get spared this major indignity, for when it happens, it’s difficult to maintain your bearings. That’s what’s been going on with me.

In addition to my faith in a Heavenly Creator, I recognize I have always counted on my family, my health, solid friends and meaningful employment to get me through life. Unfortunately, or perhaps by Divine design, I have suffered some major losses in all of those categories in recent months.

During last year, I developed a mysterious respiratory illness that has mightily impacted my physical and mental health; my mother died in February; my close friend who understood my situation because his was similar died without warning; another dear friend received a terminal diagnosis; both of my children are at crucial points in their respective launching into full-adulthood; the current economy is making it hard to stay afloat financially; my daughter’s car was just totaled after she hit a deer; I’ve had plumbing and septic issues, and had to replace a washer and dryer all-in-one unit; I just had to get an expensive root canal and crown; and my responsibilities at my full-time job no longer resembled what I signed on for eight years ago.

Any one of these factors would have the power to put hitch in my get-along, but collectively they’ve been butt-kicking. I’ve experienced several “stop the world, I want to get off” moments, but so far haven’t been able to reach the emergency brake to achieve that. Perhaps it was never factory-installed. Instead, I’ve had to keep running along behind my own life, unable to catch up, minus my support network.

Given current circumstances, even sorting out what’s within my control is challenging. I get that I can’t resurrect the dead, whose time is up, and I haven’t had time to make new friends. I can’t control deer behavior or retail prices – only behave defensively around them. I must necessarily wade  through endless repairs without becoming discouraged. So that leaves work as the one arena where I still have choices.

Above the main entrance to the WWII Auschwitz concentration camp was the infamous caption, “Arbeit macht frei”, which translates to “work makes (you) free.” As much as the Nazis pretended that was true, nothing could have been further than the truth. In reality, the work there continued because no one in a position of authority had reason to stop it.

Looking back at my work life, I might as well have had a personal “Arbeit macht frei” sign welded atop my head. Actually, my sign should have read “Arbeit mach sicherheit” (“Work makes for safety”). Why? Because I spent many years pretending that was true.

From an early age, I felt safest when I was busy working. With very few exceptions, work has consistently been creative, constructive, productive and meaningful to me — and it’s kept the bills paid, hence providing safety. However, if I’m honest, there are times when work has ceased to deliver my above favorite intangibles and instead amounted to simply a means to a paycheck.

I have found myself in work situations that involved hellacious daily commutes, ridiculously understaffed workplace conditions and supervision by egotistical and/or legitimately crazy people. For every predictable job I have inhabited, there were others where I forfeited my soul and dozens of extra, uncompensated hours that blew up my family life. But with a household budget to meet, what could this single-parent do except work harder?

Closer examination of my job for the past eight years confirmed it had evolved from a position of action and variety into an exclusively administrative position of the sedentary sort. No longer for me. The litmus test is if your job turns into one you wouldn’t have initially applied for, it’s time to leave.

Understandably, for my family’s safety-sake, I had overstayed my enjoyment of the work and my relevance there. Sometimes, you just know it’s time to move on. No harm, no foul: just the universe nudging you toward a different meaningful opportunity.

— Kristy Smith’s Different Drum humor columns are archived at her blog: diffdrum.wordpress.com.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: A Different Drum: Sometimes you just know it’s time to move on