No Man's Land

May 30th marked my first anniversary of being told, 'you have breast cancer'. And, even though I'm in great health now, thanks to a small lumpectomy followed by several weeks of radiation therapy and 5 years of tamoxifen to blow away the cancer, my life overall feels like it's been in an odd state of suspended animation ever since. It's not an anniversary I particularly want to dwell on, so I simply acknowledged it on the inside and its part in the bizarre out-of-body displacement I've felt for the past 12 months - well, 14 months actually, if you count unexpectedly losing my job just weeks before the diagnosis.

In all fairness, I couldn't exactly call the past year my annus horribilis, I've definitely endured much worse periods in my life, but I nevertheless still have that strange and detached sense of meandering through a bit of a no-man's land, not quite knowing where things go from here - personally, professionally or otherwise -  and not entirely sure of what to expect a few weeks from now, let alone a few months or even years.

In some ways it's been freeing to let go a little and see what transpires, I honestly don't believe I've ever really done that before, but it's unnerving all the same and here I am, over a year later, bumbling along from one day to the next still trying to fathom this new reality and its accompanying heightened awareness of my own - and everyone else's - mortality.

I don't quite know how to take back control because I'm not even sure in which direction I should be heading, but I do know that I can't keep letting time fritter away. For better or worse, this past year has served as a massive reminder/eye-opener that I really don't have an endless supply of days left to waste and I certainly won't get any of them back. No doubt this feeling also ties in with yet another birthday that galloped by at lightning speed.....turning 45 feels like a no-man's land in itself. I'm not young, nor am I pretending to be, but I'm not old either, and this in-between phase is starting to feel awkwardly similar to being a teenager, with eerily familiar questions, and the added 'bonus' of certain life options beginning to feel like they're closing to me versus being a teenager and not knowing where to start.

With my contract work diminishing at Omicron, I've recently taken an additional yet temporary, part-time contract to the end of July working for a non-profit that offers grants to community based programs working in the field of mental health and substance use. (Some might say that's a perfect fit for me!)

It's a small affair, the people are nice and I admire the work they're doing but the downside is, while they hope to expand and hire me for a Marketing/Communications position further down the road, the best they can offer right now is a position as Executive Assistant to end July. Without going into the boring details it seemed like a reasonable chance for me to; a) stay employed....for now, b) test it out and get to know the business and people/connections etc. and c) would spare me the nauseating happy-clappy Sparkle-Barbies of the local temping agencies, who would no doubt try slotting me into an EA position anyway, but for less money after they take their cut. So for now I'm back to a job that I do really well (even if I do say so myself - and perhaps even better nowadays than when I was an EA several years ago) but I just can't stand! I don't mean to sound ungrateful, since I'm glad I have a job - even temporarily - but it's lower pay and being an EA is a very demanding (and often thankless) job of basically running around like a servant to someone so that they always look great while you remain invisible; relentlessly slaving away in the background to keep alles in Ordnung, ensuring all is flawless, shiny and wonderful to the outside world.

But this too is merely temporary, a couple more months adrift until we see what comes next, be it within this organization or a whole new move. And while there are advantages to being a self-employed consultant, the lack of health benefits and paid vacation aren't sitting too comfortably with me - maybe because of my own health scare last year, the decreased earnings and the fact I won't even have Employment Insurance benefits to fall back on since my 'year' eligibility for EI just wrapped up and there are no EI benefits for those whose self-employed contract comes to an end.

All in all, what am I even trying to say here? Just that I feel like I'm adrift and relying somewhat on where the current takes me rather than steering the ship. I don't know if that's a good thing per se. I don't know that it's necessarily a bad thing either. It just is and has been since April/May last year and, while 'm not entirely comfortable with it, I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do to make things any more concrete. I don't even know if this is all down to last year's diagnosis - although that is a royal slap in the face that makes you question your own mortality, how you're living the life you have and what you should start doing with what's left of it....and just how much of it is there left anyway? It's been a year/14 months of the rough with the smooth, the pros with the cons, the ups with the downs......and still that underlying sense of meandering through no-man's land, drifting at the whim of a power greater than me and needing to make every day count. For something. But what, where, when.....and how?