Highways And Offramps

 This week has been a gamut of emotions.

I have tried to keep myself busy.  Raked leaves at the base of the driveway, until the Cowboy and said "Let me show you how to use your dad's tractor so you can load the leaves in the bucket".  So I got to drive the tractor, which was fun.

Spent most of yesterday playing "landlord" down at The Cabin, cleaning gutters and blowing pine needles and leaves off of roofs and using the tractor (again) to haul them away.  Saw my Aunt and Uncle and the sister and The Outdoorsman.

I have also tried to set everything up for restarting the job search.  Filed my unemployment claim (Due to the way the law works, I cannot actually file for a financial claim until 27 December, over two weeks after my layoff).  Cleared out and recreated my spreadsheets to start tracking applications again.  Revised my resume to add my most recent job (a small revision, to be sure).  

I have had some developments.  One ex-colleague has offered to talk to me about consulting.  Another friend has reached out with a position in New Home at the company I came from two companies ago, when we first moved to New Home.  Having a potential opportunity is good; the thought of having to commute that much again makes me sad.

To be somewhat honest, the "looking at the bright side" has faded a bit.

I know that this is a gamut experience and a long haul sort of thing. And I keep reminding myself that God is clearly in control here and I am (in that sense) just along for the ride.  And yet...

And yet I feel, perhaps, trapped.  If either of these works, it is an immediate answer to a question that needs answering and at least for one of the options, would pretty clearly demonstrate that God wants us to stay in New Home for at least some time longer (after all, why else would He keep arranging things to keep us here).  But either of them feels like "more of the same" - what it really feels like is the last slow exhaling of anything of anything but what is reality now.

Of course, none of that is certain - it is Day Five, I remind myself.  But I remain shocked at how quickly I feel deflated, that somehow the walls are already closing in. I have barely started a new search and already I feel like there is only one highway, a long one in the same direction that I have already been going instead of the offramp I was thinking this was.

It is too early to tell, of course.  But keeping myself out of a spiraling circle of despair or depression may require more attention than I anticipated.