getting back our Groove

One of my favorite movies of all time is Emperor's New Groove.  I love the opening number where the old man throws off the Emperor's "groove," the music does that record-scratching stop, and then the old man gets tossed over the (very high) palace wall (to what - in any other world but Disney - would have been sure death).

Over the past nine months of unemployment, I have had a lot of time to think about the human "groove" and wonderfully complex things, like the meaning of life.  Of course two months of that time frame was really spent enjoying the holidays after moving home, and our new-found unemployment, three months was spent dwelling on my wedding, and then two months after my wedding were spent in that transitional stage of realizing I WAS married.  Then there was a month I look back on as the "we have to find a house now or die" period.  Once we found one there was about a month of "Wow.  We have a house..." time.  Then we hit July rent & expenses and ever since then we have been in the "We have to have jobs or we're going to be homeless" phase.  That brings us up to speed.  It was really this last month and a half that I have been convinced, in a way that nothing else but complete and utter unemployment can convince you, that human beings were meant to work.  We were meant to toil and revel in our productivity.  We were meant to enjoy the fruits of our labors.  We were meant to set goals and attempt to achieve them.

I will be the first to say that I love a good lazy day.  The extra 10 lbs I walk around with, which is really looking less and less like extra and more and more like here-to-stay, is probably the first thing which screams: I LOVE TO BE LAZY.  I do.  I like me a day full of marathon TV shows, or zipping through a good book in bed for 24 hours.  I have always been that type of person.  I have slept for a full 21 hours before.  No lie.  However, I am very very very very very very unhappy not having a job.

Tonight I celebrated what the Honey & I have, rather than all the things we don't.  He now has a job.  A job he likes, where he feels appreciated, where he's interested in staying and growing, and that pays him real live money.  Not the fake stuff.  I'm happy in my internship, learning about my career and industry, interacting with really wonderfully creative and business savvy women... and I'll figure the rest out later, and I'm totally okay with that.  We have a great old house in a lovely neighborhood in a terrific location in Austin.  We have a super amazing dog, who is SO much more than a dog.  We have each other. 

We never thought our transition back to our home state would be so challenging.  We thought we would be moving back home to friendly territory, a bountiful land of many opportunities.  Ironically, it was by far THE hardest move I have ever lived through.  It took almost a year to get the baby steps accomplished, but now we feel very much that we are right where we should be.  We have found our groove.

But I'm still pissed that Washington, DC waited until we moved to have a freaking EARTHQUAKE.