Happy Anniversary?

Lots of big anniversaries are coming up for me. First, the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 is on Sunday. I don't really feel like I have anything unique to say about that, except that I still miss my friends and I wonder how their parents are doing. The Husband and I also have our 10th anniversary coming up on 10/6. Getting married so close to 9/11 was kind of surreal. I did feel like we were allowed to be happy--I actually felt that for the first time at the surprise birthday party that a friend had for her husband a few weeks prior, but traveling was surreal and I know that it was really hard for a lot of people to get on a plane and come to our wedding.

The anniversary that is hanging over my head right now is the third one in line--October 8th--the day I lost my job at the Place with Three Letters and stopped working for The Man. One of my friends has been recounting the story of her daughter's birth in her blog, which gave me the idea to write about how I ended up working in a triangle.

For some background...The Husband has not had the most stable employment for the past couple of years. Anyone whose been through that knows how much of a strain that can be (and those of you who haven't can probably imagine). Last September The Husband landed his "dream job" and was making more money than we had ever thought to hope for. Our goal at that time was to pay off some bills, then sock a bunch of money in savings, and then we'd be in a good position for me to quit my job, which is what I'd wanted ever since Sweet Pea was born.

The quitting my job thing was accelerated on October 8. It was a Friday and I'd been working for The Man for four and a half years. Sweet Pea was at school and I'd gone to get my hair cut that morning. I was enjoying one of my non-working days--I always like getting my hair cut because they rub your head. After my hair cut I checked my phone and saw that I had a missed call and voice mail. The voice mail was from The Man asking me to call as soon as possible. I could tell from his voice, which was very strained, that something big was up and that it wasn't good. I walked to my car, which was parked in a parking garage and dialed the phone.

I guess I'm glad that The Man is such as open book, because I know from the second he picked up his phone that I was getting laid off. The Man was really bad at telling me that I'd lost my job--in fact, when I look back on the conversation, he never actually said those words. I ended up comforting him, which was kind of the perfect (or imperfect) capstone to my relationship with The Man. Here we were with something really bad happening to me, and I was making him feel better about it.

My initial reaction to being fired* was kind of a weird, and sort of manic, high. The Man was a hard guy to work for and working for him was getting harder and harder. I can say without embellishment that I was in a really toxic workplace, so in a lot of ways getting out of there was a really positive thing. Even in the beginning, I wished that it had been my choice, though.

I went home, made some calls, and immediately filed for unemployment. I don't remember how many days it took, but we got my unemployment amount pretty quickly, and with The Husband's fabulous new salary and my unemployment, we were going to be just fine. I was going to get to be a stay at home mom sooner, rather than later. I had big plans for my life and they were all good.

Then came the night that The Husband came home from work and told me about the REALLY stupid thing that he had done. That was the night that my world started to fall apart.

I'll think that I'll make this a "to be continued" here... To copy from my friend--you all know that I end up in a triangle, so it isn't too suspenseful, but I'll pick up the story here in a day or so.

*I know I was laid off and that it was no fault of my own, but I've never been able to get past it in my head--to me I will always have been fired.