Failure Does Not Come Easy

It’s funny – as in not – when you write a post about loss and later in that same day, you experience another loss, but of a different kind.

Failure, of any kind, has never come easy to me.  And I think I’ve become even more stubborn and pigheaded since I got sick. 

If someone tells me I can’t, it only motivates me to show them that I can.

My schedule has been very difficult for me, which I’ve talked about a lot here – balancing work, school, life, and illness. 

I know that I’ve worked my ass off in this job, and that I wanted this job more than anyone else they interviewed.  And that wasn’t enough.  There was nothing more that I could have done.

I want to work, so just let me work. 

I know that there are a lot of people out there with lupus and RA who can’t work, and I know how lucky I am that I can.    

This job, which came about after I left my internship, when my dad died, gave me a reason to get up and get out of bed in the morning.  I had somewhere to go.  In the emptiness that New York can feel like, I finally had a place where I belonged. 

A lot of people have been telling me lately that everything happens for a reason.  But ever since my dad died, I’ve been having a crisis of faith.  I felt called to this position, like this is what I was meant to do, and now I’m questioning everything.   

I’ve been bitten by the advocacy bug, it’s in my blood.  And it has felt so amazing to advocate for patients other than myself, and to take what was a profoundly negative experience in my life and turn it into something positive. 

I know something will come along; I have too many degrees for it not to.  But I was happy here.  I felt at home here.  This job was reason enough for me to force down my feelings about this city and stay. 

Clearly, it wasn’t a definite. 

In my view, it was 98% assured, and therefore, I find myself falling yet again into that ugly 2% of this never happens to anyone, but it happens to me. 

It’s frustrating to be somewhere, where you feel like you’ve found a place, and then be told that you’re not.

I’m a professional, and I’m going to work until they tell me I’m done.  The patients don’t deserve to suffer or experience my frustration at this situation.  They are the number one priority in my work, and I am going to keep it that way.   

Aside from the fact that I love my work and the people I work with, which is the number one most upsetting part of this, I now have bills to pay, and not working is going to complicate that. 

And truth be told, I know this is totally a first-world problem, but this is the first job I’ve ever lost.  In the past, I have completed that phase in my life, and it was time to move on, in a way that was very mutual, if not exclusively guided by me.  So that’s a hard pill to swallow.  I’ve been rejected from plenty of jobs I’ve applied to, but never one I was already working in. 

I know I’ll get through this, I always do.  I’ve already started looking for other jobs.  But that doesn’t mediate the hurt and the sting that I feel right now. 

As the BF said, this isn’t the worst thing that has happened in the last year, which makes it even worse.    

But, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, I am going to need a job ASAP, especially once May hits, so if anyone has any ideas or leads, please let me know.  I am not too proud to ask for help…