Work perks

I have almost hit my 90 day mark at my new job, something I am really excited about. To celebrate my new job, I thought I would share with you all why I think my job is amazing.

· There are 12 TWELVE kinds of coffee in the break room. And if you don’t like any of those options, there is a list of other flavors available that you can request AND IT GETS ORDERED FOR YOU!!! Seriously, I have seen it. Amazing.

· I started earning PTO and was eligible for benefits from day 1. There was no trial period, wait time, etc. I had health insurance, dental, and life for myself AND my family as soon as I could fill out the paperwork.

· They feed us, really good food, almost all the time. Really. 2 out of the 3 days I have worked so far this week I have been fed. Part of me thinks this may be a plan to fatten me up so that I can’t actually leave, but I’m ok with that as long as they keep feeding me.

· I have never seen so many happy, welcoming caring people in one place. In all honesty, I kind of thought something was wrong when I first started. Or maybe they were going to Lawrence Fishburne me, and at some point I would be sequestered in the Zen room (it’s a real place, see next bullet point) and they would tell me I could chose between the red pill and the blue….But that’s not the case. They are all just genuinely nice, caring people and it is wonderfully refreshing to be surrounded by that energy.

· There’s a Zen room. It’s got a Wii, a sound machine, a yogibo, comfy chair….It’s there for when you get off the phone after a tough call and just need to de-stress, to use on a break or during lunch etc. It’s a really great perk to have available when you just need a momentary escape.

· Everyone here genuinely cares about the job that we do. I witness this every day as my coworkers go well beyond what is expected of an insurance company. I have seen our reps call members to check up on them,  have members send them copies of medical bills so they can go over them together so the member understands them, and call  billing agencies to get balances corrected for our members. I hear them laugh, converse, engage,  and genuinely care about the person on the other end of the phone in a way I have never known an insurance company to.

· These people are FUN! There is always laughter and humor (and occasionally flying peanut m&m).

So there they are, my reasons for loving my new job!

Firsts vs Lasts

My oldest daughter pointed out to me several weeks ago that at various points in our lives, we experience a “last” of everything- the last time we pick up our children, the last time we give a loved one a hug, the last first day of school….etc. Needless to say this conversation left me in a fit of tears and wanting to hug on to my teenager very tightly (I didn’t get to, she gave me the glare and I knew better than to try). This idea has been nagging at the back of my head ever since she mentioned it, and I have been having a very hard time dealing with it, especially as we packed up and moved out of what I really believed was going to be our forever home. Packing up all of our things, moving my children out of their bedrooms that they had been able to paint and decorate and make their own, broke my heart. I felt so terrible for letting them down and not being able to keep their home for them. I was making a mental note of every “last” in that house.

While driving in the car to pick up my oldest, I was in tears trying to tell my 12 year old that I was so sorry I had let her down. My 12 year old did something amazing just then, she reach over and took my hand and told me how proud she was of how well I was taking care of them and handling everything. In that moment, she made me stop and reevaluate how I was looking at everything. She showed me the other side of the situation, that while it sucked that we were losing a house we loved, we still had so much to be thankful for and be proud of.  As we drove along (both of use crying, cause that’s what we do), it kind of hit me that maybe that same thought process could be applied to my nagging fear of “lasts”. Maybe instead of focusing on all those lasts, I could celebrate the firsts instead.

So, this past weekend, we closed the door to that old house for the last time and opened to door to our camp home for the first. We spent our first day by the lake, cooked our first grilled cheese sandwiches over the fire, we watched our first episode of Doctor Who in our new home, we floated in the lake for the first time…and I felt peace for the first time in a very long time.

Princess of Pink

I love pink. And if it is pink AND sparkly, I love it even more. My friends and family tease me about my "pinkness", especially when it comes to my pink hockey gear, but it never bothers me. In fact, I usually can poke fun at myself while im tying my pink skate laces or putting on my pink hockey socks and gloves, so its all in good fun. But last night, as I was putting all my pink gear back in my pink hockey bag and grabbing my pink phone, i started thinking about where this love affair with all things pink began...

I got married for the first time very young. I had never really had a serious boyfriend before,  and I was barely 19. I spent the next several years completely losing who i was to try to make a bad relationship work. I gave up everything that made me who I was and tried to change myself to please someone else. By the time that marriage ended I couldnt remember anything about me- I didnt know how to shop for clothes for myself, what foods I liked, what I liked to do for fun, what kind of books I liked to read, or even what kind of tv shows I liked. I had no politcal views of my own, no religion i felt strongly about, i didnt even have a favorite song! I had spent all the years that a person normally learns all those things about themselves following someone else and doing whatever they told me to do, or what they wanted me to do. I was so determined to make a broken marriage work because I thought that that was the only thing I could do, I didnt even notice I had become just a shell of a person. I first started to realize something wasnt quite right the first night I met my best girl friend, Suzzie. I went over to her house because my air conditioner had broken. My husband was deployed somewhere at the time I think, and I had my 2 little girls. I had met Suzzie briefly before, I really cant even remember where, and had somehow gotten her number. I called her and asked if we could come visit to escape the horrible Texas heat, and I packed the girls up and headed over. Really, what I remember most about that night is laughing. I hadnt laughed that hard or that much in years and I still clearly remember how good it felt.
I hung on to that marriage for a few more years after that night, the whole time letting more and more of myself slip away. When the inevitable finally happened and that marriage collapsed, I felt like a kite that had been cut lose- I was fluttering on the breeze without real direction, just lost in the wind. Suzzie and her husband Carl made room in their home for me and my daughters and really rescued me from myself, I dont think I would have made it very far without them.
I really was a mess for a while, I had no clue what to do with myself, and I think at times I acted more like a rebelious teenager than a responsible adult. But somewhere in that mess i had become, and with the help and support of my friend, I started to put the pieces back together. For some reason I found myself amassing pink things- clothes, dishes, knick knacks...just about anything I could find. I liked it and it was the first time in a long time I  had liked something just because I liked it and not because I thought someone else wanted me to. I remember at one point while getting ready to go to a concert with Suzzie and Carl, I had asked a friend to come help me decide what to wear and pack. When she opened my closet, she just laughed and asked me if I owned anything that WASNT pink.
When I met Justin, I was fully in love with all things pink. It only took me a couple of dates with him before I knew that this man would be the one that I would spend the rest of my life with. Being in love scared me. I didn't want to lose myself again or forget who I was. I was proud of the strong woman I had become and the role model I was for my young daughters. But what I found in Justin was someone who supported me and loved me just as I was. He never asked or expected me to change who I was. He encouraged me to try new things and didnt mind when I disagreed with him or didnt like the same things he did. As I became more comfortable with myself,  Justin,  and our relationship, my pink obsession softened a little. Its not nearly as bad as it once was (because at one point, I was actually looking into having my car painted pink!), but I still love pink. For me, it is a reminder of who i am and where I have come from. It reminds me of strength and independence and love. It reminds me that who I am is good enough and strong enough. And it reminds me to be me.