The last couple of weeks have been stressful for me, all of it escalating yesterday into a most stressful day and a terrible night of sleep last night.
Yes, I firmly believe that we are dealt the things in life that we need to experience. I’ve seen it countless times in my own life and the lives of my friends and family. Things happen to us for a reason, we need to go through certain events to become better people, to grow and overcome our limitations and fears. I can except that, I can see that even (most) negative things in life can have a positive effect, because we learn from them. But I’m here now asking for a break! My last couple of weeks have been far too intense, and I’ve got my fair share of events to learn from to last for a good few months.
I really don’t want to have to make any more decisions, I just want to get on with my life as it is, with no difficulties coming my way for at least a few months! Would that be so hard to arrange, dear Universe, please?!
I think my lesson from all that happened is that I need to stop wanting to please everyone, stop having this need for everyone to like me, or to at least get it more under control. And I hear you, Universe, I am working on it just stop playing with me finally!
I’ve had to disappoint people who were nice to me, who I liked and I wanted them to like me, and I’m still dealing with the feelings that keep coming up because of all that. I’ve rearranged my life for a job I got hired for, just so they could come back to me yesterday to say ‘Sorry, you’re not hired after all.’
Until yesterday I was very positive about Abu Dhabi, I thought it was a good place for us. Good things kept happening to us and I felt like this place is THE ONE for us. I am still hopeful, because one bad thing does not mean the end of the world but I can’t help being disappointed.
Imagine that you have a few different opportunities coming your way, all of them in the field you want to work in and you can do them all along one another. You feel like things are falling into place really nicely, everything is working out the way it should and the Universe is being nice to you. Then suddenly, someone contacts you on LinkedIn and invites you for an interview. You go there out of curiosity, just to practice your interview skills. Your perfect husband prepares for you the interview and you feel quite confident when the day comes. But deep down you still know they wouldn’t hire you for a job like that, because it’s a posh job with posh people and you know you’re not posh, everyone can see that. But you get on with it and put on the posh, expensive interview clothes you bought the day before just for this stupid interview, feeling like a child wearing her mum’s best clothes. You act like you’re posh but you know you’re not fooling anyone.
The interview goes surprisingly well and you get an email from them the same day saying ‘We’re hiring you!’ Can I be posh after all?, you think to yourself.
Now you have a big dilemma; do you take the full time, well-paying posh job or do you go with all the other great opportunities you have lined up? You wouldn’t even consider going for the full time job, but somehow you feel like it’s meant to be, because it’s in the same building where your husband works. You can go to and from work together, have lunch together, generally spend a lot more time together then if you went with the other options you’ve got. So after a lot of thinking and talking you finally decide to go for the full time job, which means you have to go back to everyone else you promised to work with and tell them that things have changed and you can’t do what you’ve promised. You feel terrible, because you know they will be disappointed and you hate disappointing people, but at the same time you realize this is something you need to work on. You can’t please everyone all the time, yes you’ve made a commitment to work with those people but they’ll just have to accept that your plans have change.
So you man up and tell them one by one. Everyone is very nice and accepting, and you feel even worse that you have to let them all down. But you deal with that too. It’s just something you need to get through, you are strong and know it’s all for the greater good. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, blah…
Then, when everything is ready for your new life with a full time job, you bought some posh clothes to wear in that posh office, spent a week learning special formulas, tables and charts in Excel, and email comes with the title ‘Letter of Intent to Employ – WITHDRAWAL’.
You’re like ‘What the what?! No, I don’t understand, this can’t be happening! Not like this, not to me…’ And they can’t even tell you what changed, why they can’t hire you. You read the email again and again, disbelieving, until it gets through to you and you start crying…
Your guess is that something came up during the security clearance, it’s a very confidential position and maybe they found something they couldn’t accept.
But what are you going to do now, go back to everyone else and say ‘I’m sorry, things have changed (again), now I do want to work for you!’ They will think you’re crazy.
So that’s where I am now, I’ve gotten over the initial shock but I still don’t feel great. Yes I need to meditate and I’ll feel better, and I will because I do want to feel better. I still believe that things happen for a reason, and there must have been a reason for all this, however messed up it is. But again, it’s been enough now dear Universe, stop dealing me new cards for a little while, I need time to digest what you gave me!
But no matter what happens, deep down I know that everything is perfect until my husband and I are together. He is the best person in the world for me and with him everything is always perfect, no matter what happens on the outside. With him, his love, support and great advice I can stay strong forever. I don’t care about a stupid posh job, or the other not-so-posh opportunities as long as we have each other, because that is the one and only thing that matters.
Update: I couldn't post this right away when it happened, I was too shaken for that. But now a week has passed and I am feeling very positive about things again. I went back to everyone I had the other opportunities with and asked them if we could still work together and they were happy to take me back :)