Catching up
It just occurred to me that I just came back chattering away as if I hadn't been absent for almost 8 years, so I thought I'd just share a little bit of what I've been up to.
In April 2007, I moved from Pennsylvania to Arizona for many reasons, all of them good. I had to burn a couple bridges to do so but they were bridges that I should have burned years ago. I left a dull, dead-end job in a state university library and took a job as a claims adjuster with an insurance company that at the time had an office in Phoenix. Yikes! Talk about a shock to my system. That lasted 18 months until they announced they were closing the Phoenix office and if we wanted a job we'd have to move to Dallas. Uh-uh. So for 4 months I lived on severance pay and unemployment while looking for work. Finally I got a call from American Family Insurance offering me a position in the billing department. Well, if claims was a shock to my system, that was REALLY a shock to my system. I can't even balance a checkbook and I'm supposed to explain people's bills???? I got used to being cussed out all the time working in claims, so that wasn't new, but I didn't think I'd ever learn the job. I just celebrated 5 years with the company and got promoted to a technical rep, which means I figure out the really hard accounts, so I finally learned the job.
I stayed away from social media of any kind until 2011, when my sister talked me into joining Facebook. While I do have a few friends there that used to haunt the LOTR boards, most of my connections there are high school and work friends. I began to yearn for the fellowship again, and knew this was the best place to do it.
If there is anything I learned from Frodo Baggins, it is that it's possible to make a major life change when you aren't exactly a spring chicken anymore, but with the help of good friends and coworkers you can reach your goal even if you experience pain and hardship along the way. And if life has left you too beat up to recover on your own, you realize that leaving the life that oppressed you and starting over is the way to go, even if it means having to leave behind people and places you loved. (Of course, Frodo did this at the end and I did it at the beginning, but you get my drift.)
In April 2007, I moved from Pennsylvania to Arizona for many reasons, all of them good. I had to burn a couple bridges to do so but they were bridges that I should have burned years ago. I left a dull, dead-end job in a state university library and took a job as a claims adjuster with an insurance company that at the time had an office in Phoenix. Yikes! Talk about a shock to my system. That lasted 18 months until they announced they were closing the Phoenix office and if we wanted a job we'd have to move to Dallas. Uh-uh. So for 4 months I lived on severance pay and unemployment while looking for work. Finally I got a call from American Family Insurance offering me a position in the billing department. Well, if claims was a shock to my system, that was REALLY a shock to my system. I can't even balance a checkbook and I'm supposed to explain people's bills???? I got used to being cussed out all the time working in claims, so that wasn't new, but I didn't think I'd ever learn the job. I just celebrated 5 years with the company and got promoted to a technical rep, which means I figure out the really hard accounts, so I finally learned the job.
I stayed away from social media of any kind until 2011, when my sister talked me into joining Facebook. While I do have a few friends there that used to haunt the LOTR boards, most of my connections there are high school and work friends. I began to yearn for the fellowship again, and knew this was the best place to do it.
If there is anything I learned from Frodo Baggins, it is that it's possible to make a major life change when you aren't exactly a spring chicken anymore, but with the help of good friends and coworkers you can reach your goal even if you experience pain and hardship along the way. And if life has left you too beat up to recover on your own, you realize that leaving the life that oppressed you and starting over is the way to go, even if it means having to leave behind people and places you loved. (Of course, Frodo did this at the end and I did it at the beginning, but you get my drift.)