Weathering the Storm

It’s an old phrase and speaks to tough times. Something I think many of us are going through right now. This morning I had some time and traveled my blog neighborhood to see what was happening with my neighbors only to find that there was little new. This isn’t meant to chide anyone, it was just an observation that lately there hasn’t been a lot of posting going on. At least in my circle of bloggers.

Unusual I thought because most of my blogroll are pretty active and it made me wonder what was happening. Oh sure, it’s summer and people are out and about more in the warmer months and there are more family outings and vacations – but really it’s dead quiet out there. It gave me pause.

And I do think that life is kicking a lot of people’s butts right now, so something as trivial as blogging isn’t taking a front seat. Fair enough, one does have to pay attention to their lives from time to time, no question about that. I certainly haven’t been immune to that at all, in fact, quite the opposite – life has been, in a phrase, kicking my butt lately.

I started thinking this morning back to the last time that things seemed so tough. Overwhelming even. When it was just hard to get out of bed to face another day of shitstorm and worries. 1992-1993 was it for me. I’d been working for a consulting firm at the time and suddenly they weren’t able to pay me or the other 100 employees on their payroll. It got ugly and very difficult. I’d heard chatter on the news (which I didn’t pay much attention to) that the economy was not doing so good but it didn’t occur to me that getting another job was going to be difficult. I’d always been able to get work and this time would be no different.

However, it was different. Very different. I looked and looked, applied and applied to no result. It was very hard on the morale because let’s face it, after continued rejection and lack of results our egos take a beating. I fought the feelings of being useless and unhireable but truth be told, many times I gave in to them too. Times were dark. Very dark. I could barely pay my rent and many bills went unpaid because I had to eat and I had to pay my rent. I decided to go back to waitressing at that point, which had always been a fall back position for me. I wasn’t sure if I could handle it again but I had little choice, so I swallowed my doubts and fears and pounded the pavement until I found a restaurant that would hire me. I then proceeded to work my buns off for about half the income I was used to earning. Tough as it was, I couldn’t complain because I had work and I had food and I had a place to live. Not much else, but I did have that.

And now the ‘economy’ or whatever the hell it is this time, has reared its ugly head again. I don’t know if I will start waitressing again – I’m older and a bit creakier than I was back then and who knows if people are even eating out anymore, but so far it’s been my fallback workable solution, so chances are I’ll give it a try.

The point of this is not how I’m going through tough times so much as how I feel everyone is and to say, I hear you. I know that things are hard right now for pretty much everyone. But I also know that most of us are tough enough and strong enough to weather the storm. Especially if we can lean on each other a little. That sure helps, doesn’t it? What about you? What are you doing to weather the storm of these uncertain times. Tips, ideas, solutions, problems?