Since coming home from a mini-holiday in Northern California, I’ve been thinking about the road trip to Mexico the following weekend where a friend was married by the ocean and of the snapshots I took with more friends as we walked around downtown. I wanted to write about that tonight, but my heart just wasn’t in it.
The first round of layoffs took place at work this week. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when, and morale has been low for many months as we waited for the decision to be made. While I am grateful that I was spared this time, my department was hit hard; I expect to hear of how others fared in the next few days. One young woman that was let go, who is very much a younger sister to me, came to my office after they broke the news to her. All we could do was cry quietly behind a closed door. I left the office as soon as the clock turned five.
I have a short commute — maybe twenty minutes when traffic used to be heavier, when the economy was stronger — but today I stopped at the library and then the credit union, all the while wondering “what if it had been me?” Then I sat in my car, not knowing what to do next.
So I bought plants. I drove to the garden center at a nearby home improvement store and stood among the cacti and succulents, examining their spines and shapes and colors in the late afternoon light. I walked out with a box of four small plants to fill some pretty pots that were waiting at home. It shouldn’t have been such a surprise that I wanted to surround myself with things whose very existence symbolize how I wish to feel within: hardy, strong, able to thrive under adverse conditions.
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