My Old Life / My New Life - Baltimore, MD - August 2009

For those that don't know, a couple of weeks before our move date, I found out that I'd be able to transfer with my company and work in the Baltimore, Washington, DC area. Due to my company's structure, I wouldn't be able to keep the same job, but they were very enthusiastic about my moving up to the area and happy about my joining the Washington, DC region.

In my old life, I got to wear cute clothes. I worked in Training and Development. I traveled a lot, but still had a very project oriented, corporate driven job. Lunch was almost always at 11:30am (never later than 12:30) and I ALWAYS has someone to eat with. My job was one where you think and rethink, check and double check, analyze and often times, over analyze everything. A lot of my development over the last 2 years has been to become a better critical thinker and be able to put multiple lenses over the same project. I LOVED almost EVERYthing about it.

In my new life, I wear a uniform and clock in and out. I manage one of our retail stores. I have 13 people reporting to me in some capacity. I open and close, manage inventory, I work 10+ hours a day, at least 5 days a week. I imake store schedules, I Interview, I issue corrective actions, and I try to nip gossip and drama in the bud. I set and reset planagrams and my new best friend is the RF Scanner gun you see to the left. My feet hurt, my back aches, I usually don't get to eat lunch till after 2:00pm and I almost always eat by my self. I have not yet been able to get through a day without crying on my lunch break when no one was around or in my truck on the way home, listening to all the songs Anna, Ashley, and I used to listen to on Zero Limits Radio.

I talked to Ashley this week and found out that they are in the process of filling my old position and that was hard to hear. Someone will be sitting in my old desk, talking on my old phone. Someone else will be traveling around the country working with the people I've grown so close to in the last two years.

Note To Reader: I don't want you to think I'm miserable, because I'm not. I don't want you to think I hate what I'm doing, because I don't. It's just that I'm sad. I miss my friends, I miss my family, I miss my job, and I miss the comfort of my routine.

I'm ready for things to feel better, to feel more natural, to feel comfortable. I'm also ready to not feel so hollow. A good friend suggested that I need to keep writing. Work through the hurt with words. put everything onto the page. so I will.

Tomorrow I'll post the first section of the Pick-A-Path project. I can't wait to see where it goes. I can't wait to see where you all take us. Thank you all for reading!!!!

Till next time,

Bon Voyage!