It’s fall.  It’s officially autumn.  Maybe you are waiting for it: the ridiculously long pontifications I spout every fall about the corn and the apples, and OH, HOW I LOVE THE FALL.  Look!  Pumpkins and mums!  I know, I write as if I’m a alien who has never seen picturesque groupings of gourds and straw bales.

But I’m not feeling it this year.  I try to avoid blogging if I’m not feeling chipper.  It’s an old lesson called HALT: never make any decisions when you are Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired.  Not too mention, when you blog joy it forces you to focus on the joy in your day, creating a perpetual energy machine that spits out what? Joy.  And Everlasting Gobstoppers.  But again, I’m just not there. 

I don’t mind running to Muncie to care for Mom.  I don’t mind turning the long days into adventures for the girls.  The girls have done an amazing job of fetching crutches and watering flowers, and being patient.  I give them quarters after every trip and call it their doctor’s salary.  It’s an invaluable lesson that they learn family cares for family, no questions asked.  But I’m also getting geared up for 5 early mornings of Pre-K, along with volunteering at Kelly’s school (which is such a fantastically warm and lovely place), and turning up the crank on Gifts Galore, and cheering on Greg as he becomes a self-employed consultant, which makes every day feel like I’m at work too, if only as his coffee break partner who says things like, “GREAT!  That sounds GREAT!”, even if in my heart I’m thinking…”I think this will work…I hope this works…he’s freaky brilliant so if anyone could make it work, he can…”; and with all of it, I felt like I was doing OK.  If you are grading on a curve, I’m doing OK.

Then yesterday the news broke about major lay-offs at a local company which has strict policies about admitting in electronic forums that you work at that company, so I’m not at all saying I DO work for this company, or that I DID for a decade, or that I crazy loved my job, or that I’m currently on a family leave from this company.  I’m not admitting, that in my head, while I have 2 more years to even THINK about whether or not I’d go back to work, in an immediate worst case scenario, I’ve always thought I could.  In front of me lies the possibility, albeit I’m hoping remote, that that decision may be made for me and an entire era of my life that has meant so much to me could come to an abrupt end in a way I never anticipated.  This is a recession.  To quote the CEO of the company of which I am in no way electronically affiliated: there are no sacred cows.

This afternoon on the way up to my hometown I passed a billboard that I suppose was meant to be inspirational.  It read, “Recession 101: Recessions Come to an End.”  Really?  That’s it?  You dug down in your barrel of hope, and that’s what you pulled out?  Recessions end?!  I wanted to stop the car, take a hacksaw to the base of that monstrosity, watch it fall into the dirt, and then maybe jump on it a few times before I set it on fire.  I don’t know ANYONE who has gotten a job in A YEAR.  I’ve watched twice as many close friends lose their homes as buy them.  I’ve watched friends raise money for funerals for families who cannot afford to bury their loved ones.  But hey!  Chin up!  Recessions END.  That’s like telling someone freezing to death outside in a snow storm in the middle of January that summer is just around the corner.

I don’t want to complain, because we have enough.  We have more than enough.  We are dripping with blessings.  But folks, these times aren’t for the meek.  They aren’t for the weak.  Looking at my friends and families’ resumes, apparently these times aren’t for the extraordinarily qualified with years of experience.  That being said, it is possible I may have found my ceiling on “mentally stressful items I can juggle without sneaking away to the Wal-Mart parking lot to eat donuts in my car while listening to Air Supply”.  I’ve broken my HALT rule.  I hope you can forgive me.