Leaving Egypt

Received my walking papers at work. Odd how some jobs turn out to be something entirely different than what they are portrayed to you before saying "yes." I found this one to be a "nose in the computer and numbers" job, and no time for interaction with anything but blurs and blurs of numbers. My boss even wanted me to stack my used envelopes in a certain manner after I opened them.

He trained me on some things as to how he wanted them done and other things he just threw on my desk or didn't give them to me at all and pouted when I didn't do what I didn't know what I was supposed to do. I could not get out gracefully (with my unemployment insurance returned to me) unless I agreed to stay another week so he could go on vacation. So if I was such a failure, why did he want me there to take care of things while he's gone? I don't get it.

I'm thinking I am just too old to be in an occupation I've always disliked - administrative work. I'm burned out. I wanted to be an artist, a dancer, a writer. My mother wanted me to be a secretary. I wanted to go to college. She wanted me to work immediately, to heck with planning for a career or future - that was not for her daughter. I don't get that either.

But, I just know I don't think I can go back there without heavy psychiatric meds. Back to Egypt. I have been praying - what next. What next. I can't do this anymore. There is a mystique that goes with working as a secretary, administrative assistant, etc. It is a mystique that demands one to be usually subservient (and I'm always happy to stay in the background) but there is such a thing as treating people decently and with respect, even if they work for you. My boss at the County treated me as an equal and a partner, not someone to bully. Girls, it gets worse when you get older.

This area is also weird for employment. The clinic where I had my back treated has had almost a complete turnover in their support staff of several - yes, women. I don't get it.

I still say, and this is a very UNpopular stance, the whole thing about not guarding our southern border like any other sane country does and being strict on immigration for more than the few (like Albanians, Cubans, etc. - why can't they hop on over?) is to break the wage structure in the U.S. They (corporations) have already broken the unions. They've broken the farmers. They've purchased the politicians.

So what's that got to do with Egypt. It is Egypt. When I went to Wyoming God told me (yeh, God talks to me) that I would be dancing "over all those graves." I thought, huh? Well, my people are buried there. There's one left living - my mother. And I didn't do any grave dancing. I just wanted to dig my relatives up and get them out of that hell hole when I left. The corrupt can have government. Maybe if I were younger I would have more fight left, I don't know.

Lately I've realized how much being there ended that romantic notion of "Wyoming" and my life that I left there in '79. It's over. Gone. That was in the first leaving. The return was going back to Egypt - to government that I used to love, to mountains I used to love, to the town I used to love, to my ancestors' ground - to find it all like a dead body full of worms. So, a second Exodus was necessary. There was much that was accomplished there however - God is always graceful and I don't think I was out of his plan for me. It's just that the book is closed...finally. So in a way it is a dancing over the graves of the past. I was blessed with learning a lot, and great new friends, a deeper understanding of my spiritual walk, and I had a couple of things I HAD to do.

So back in Florida, what do I do? I go to where I worked before I left here - and as soon as I sat down at the desk my guts started churning, knowing this was the wrong place. What had I done - made the trip back to Egypt AGAIN - how slow am I? I am gracefully extracted and quickly! I think God is telling me to go into business for myself. After next week, I'm beginning my web site in earnest. And art. And we'll see where it leads. At least I think I'm out of the "Red Sea" now - perhaps wondering in the wilderness, but at least on dry ground.

I'll work on school things with the little boy - maybe even talk mom into enrolling him in Karate and music....piano maybe...and I'll take him. I'll visit the older grandchildren who are growing too quickly...and not miss their lives. I try to pay more attention to their moms, my kids. To listen more. To listen to the outside, the birds, the big water, the rain.

So. It's good.