My Crazy Life… Or, the Last Decade Thereof [Part II]

Here is the second part of this essay.  It looks like it’ll be about 4 parts… or maybe the next will be a little longer, depending on how I summarize/explain certain items.  we will see.

I’ve found myself working a job in/with nature in a way I hadn’t previously anticipated, but I’m enjoying it nonetheless.  I’m working with (not for) CalTrans, cleaning up the roadways/highways/bi-ways in the surrounding areas of Yolo and Sacramento County(ies) and it feels good to be back in the work force.

But my “time” allocation/management is all messed up, so please forgive any great lags in my posting.  It is not for lack of content, but for lack of adjustment to this thing we call the “real world”, and the numerous pulls for my time/attention.  It really shouldn’t be this difficult, but, apparently, it is a common affliction of the formerly incarcerated.  So please bear with me!?  I’m still working on me, and eventually I’ll have something that resembles “acceptable”, I hope.  LOL

Keep the Faith, and know there’s yet more to come, should I (we) continue to be Blessed with additional days to our fragile and under-lived Lives!  😉

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I’d found a shelter to stay at in Woodland (formerly known as the Wayfarer), CA (I should say, I was Directed to…) the day I arrived, and there found hospitality, and a few new Friendships that remain to this day (Thank you Caleb, Steve, Rosie, Fritz)!  True Friendships.  Approximately 4 months later, after my allowed time at the Wayfarer had expired, I moved on to Davis, CA, and Davis Community Meals became my new place of residence.  More good people, more assistance getting me to where I thought I needed to be, to get my Life on the long overdue track I’d always wanted it to be on!

For the last 2 ½ years, I’d been steadily looking for full time employment, often putting in 40 hrs. plus in the search thereof.  As previously mentioned, the “bad economy” had become my shadow.  During those latter months of my time in Illinois, it had the highest unemployment rate in the U.S.  Then, while in New Mexico, it had the highest unemployment rate in the states.  Now (circa February/March, 2011), California had the highest unemployment rate.  All I wanted was a full time job, with -acceptable, not even necessarily good– benefits, so I didn’t have to worry about my health, and to get some much needed dental insurance, something that low income/poverty level finances cannot afford without.

And I finally found it!  Where I least expected it, and in a field of work I’d not been in before, I found myself now as a full time employee of the Davis Food Co-Op!  Perhaps the best job I’ve ever had, not because of the pay, but because of the people, the environment, the message(s) which it represents, and good benefits!  All things I believe(d) in, all things I’d supported in spirit, if not literally, I was now an active part of!  With insurance!!

As they say (though I don’t wholly believe), all good things come to an end.  I had been working for the Co-Op a little more than 4 months, and had literally just got my medical/dental insurance cards in the mail.  I’d received them on Thursday or Friday, and was working, and then Saturday when I showed up for work, they told me they didn’t need me to work that day, but asked me to come in on Monday (one of my days off) to talk to management.

No explanation, just, “…come in Monday afternoon and we’ll explain it to you then.”  I had the entire weekend to fret, to wonder, not knowing what was going on or why.

They were laying me off.  I found out shortly after my “meeting” with HR, from a fellow co-worker (I hadn’t even got out of the parking lot) that I wasn’t the only one; they’d laid her off as well, about ten of us in all.  Each of us working full-time hours, and replaced us with several “college kids” as part-time employees.

And here is where my “Life” started to unravel.  {Timeline note: it was now towards the end of July, beginning of August, 2011.}

I didn’t “go crazy”, or “lose it”, I had come too far along the path of a Positive perspective on Life.  I knew (and know still) that all things happen for a Reason, and though my “situation” seemed precarious, I remained optimistic, if not disappointed.

However, my “case manager” didn’t share my optimism.  I still don’t know for sure what his reasoning/thinking was about my having been laid-off… if he thought I was covering up a termination or something, I just don’t know.  But that Wednesday, when I met with him for our weekly “check-in”, he dismissed me from the house.  He too provided no explanation (quite similarly to the way I’d been laid-off from the Co-Op), said only that it wasn’t any one thing, but “…a bunch of little things”, but that I’d be welcome to try and come back to DCM, to try for residency again in a month.

I was crushed.  Not only had I lost the first full-time job I’d had in 2 ½ years, for the fact that I was working full-time, but the only stable residence in town I could afford (free), where I’d planned to launch my career as a writer.

Jobless again, -literally- homeless again, I took what few possessions I could and with a roommate (who also “got the boot” from DCM that same morning) lugged it all down the road a bit, to a spot beside the railroad tracks where we would make a “camp” for ourselves.  All was not lost, I still had my laptop (the very one I am now writing/typing upon), a Positive outlook on Life, and a strong desire, a will to succeed!  I had been on the “down-side of Life” (as a perspective) for far too much of my Life already, and I was tired of failure(s) being the end result.

To be continued…