This past August I began my first semester of graduate school in New Hampshire. As we are nearing the end of December, this feels like old news, but as I have neglected this blog since April, I recognize that some back story is necessary.
April 4, I legally changed my full name, but it was around this time that something else happened, that I could not openly share. Days, maybe a week at most, after my name change, my team and I had discreet meetings with our boss in which she shared that an organization realignment within the global Human Resources department would be occurring by calendar year end. This news came at a unique time, because I was also feeling an immense amount of job dissatisfaction. At my organization I did not feel valued and as a nonpolitical person, the manipulative behaviors dismissed as company politics were weighing on my soul.
While sharing my distress with both a potential layoff (this would be the second one of my career) and my overall dissatisfaction with the company, a friend urged me to consider going to graduate school for art therapy. I explained to her that I had looked into various art therapy school programs and I would have to go back to undergrad for more credits and it looked like it would take about two years. I’m not sure anymore if I made a wise crack about wishing there was such a thing as dance therapy or if my friend remembered that I took dance and just suggested it, however, she shared with me that she had worked with a dance/movement therapist and that it was a real role.
I then began, very quietly, researching graduate programs in the U.S. for dance/movement therapy and the school’s accreditation. When initially pulling the list of dance/movement therapy schools I was very attracted to Antioch University. As I began to research the areas the schools were located, I felt this pull to Keene, New Hampshire where Antioch is located. Luckily for me the pull was strong as it turned out Antioch was the only school accepting applications.
While applying, it was business as usual at work, with an increased amount of whispers. As much as I wanted to write out my experiences and blog about this new journey I was embarking on, due to the sensitivity of the situation at work I knew I could not share that information. I also wanted to keep the application to graduate school very quiet as I did not want other people sharing their opinions verbally or nonverbally with me.
As the situation at work unfolded it became clear that the reorg was happening and my team would be directly impacted. By the time my application was submitted to grad school, the whispers at work were that our team was being dissolved but would be given the option to apply for a new role that was going to be created. The role as it turned out would require around 75% travel, would be three roles fit into one (including our role), and wouldn’t come with a salary increase (or if we managed to negotiate one, it wouldn’t be much.) The other option was to take a severance package.
During this time I was smart. I started planning as if I was moving to New Hampshire. I did not renew my lease, downsized my personal belongings, put the remaining items into a small storage unit, moved my dog’s to my mother’s house and split my weeks between my friend’s house and my mother’s house. All it once it became clear that the whispers at work were accurate and I was accepted to graduate school in New Hampshire. The next leg was to establish what the options at work specifically looked like, i.e. what was the separation date? What did the new role’s job description look like? Was it possible to do this new role and grad school at the same time, so I did not have to be unemployed? How to find financial aid for school? How to find a place to live from out of state? And so on.
Finally the day came in which our Vice President of Human Resources of North America sat down with my team to discuss the reorg. Our separation date was to be September 1, 2019 if we did not apply and accept these new roles. Then in the next breathe this VP of HR (someone who should know better) proceeds to tell us about her whirlwind of events to take place in her life over the next 6 weeks. Let’s break this down further… the VP of HR tells three people their options are to apply for a role (there was no guarantee that they’d be ours) that is drastically different from their current role or be out of a job and then proceeds to share about her upcoming vacation and son’s graduation and his party. One of the many benefits of no longer being with that company is not having to work with that VP.
Trying to decide what to do was not as easy as it should have been. As someone who measures their self worth in work and income, the thought of being unemployed was scary. I tried to look at how the role would work with grad school. Various company reps told me they’d support my new schedule which would have me out of office for a full business day and a half each week. No one could tell me what that support would look like though and so while debating this back and forth I felt like my soul was being ripped in two. The relief I felt from saying I was done, I’d take the severance package and walk… it was indescribable.
My last business day was August 29th and on August 30, my dachshunds, mother and I began the drive from central Florida to New Hampshire while praying that our family would remain safe as Hurricane Dorian approached the state. The tears I cried as I left Orlando, were tears of release and relief. For far too long I had felt lost and stuck.
As the year closes, I am here in New Hampshire. Dealing with temperatures I have never before experienced (my brain really stalled out the morning the temperature was -2 Fahrenheit), learning to drive in snow and on ice. A graduate student, something no one in my family has attempted to accomplish. Not exactly sure where I am going, but knowing that I am on the right path finally. Despite all this initiative knowing that I am exactly where I am meant to be, I am struggling to write in ways I have not dealt with before.
At first I thought I just had anxiety surrounding being open, but then over the past week or so, I came to a somewhat surprising realization. It’s not anxious creating writer’s block, but paranoia. My blog was placed on hold because I could not openly share what was happening in my life and therefore I was unsure how to share current events discreetly, but also honestly. (I have like 23 started blogs from the past several months that I’ve never completed or share due to the amounts of discretion I felt was needed.)
My previous role was an Employee Relations Specialist and in this role I investigated claims of harassment, discrimination, retaliation, etc. The fear I had in sharing my feelings from April through August, was my blog is public, it’s under my name. In being open and sharing what I am experiencing, especially publicly, my words would be able to be used to discredit cases I had investigated. In my previous role, I was always having to examine worse case scenario and what would be worse than a case going to court and my feelings expressed so openly in my blog being what led to discrediting my investigation? In the grand scheme of things, a lot could be worse.
I have discovered that so much of my identity was tied into work and how much I was making that the above could be worse case scenario. That being said I am still not confident of the direction of this blog. Do I keep it public? Do I use it just to share poetry without explanation? Maybe art work? Maybe I share certain papers? Maybe I close it down? Make it private? I really don’t know yet and right now I have something much larger to answer- how do I resolve this paranoia that my words will be used against me? One thing is for sure- I came here to grow and to build, and this paranoia does not serve me, it stunts my growth.
With Love,
E.R.A.
Ushering in E.R.A. 