Looking at New Roads

Of course I am still in a bit of a daze for having suddenly been thrown into the national unemployment statistic again. I thought I'd had enough of that, thank you very much. But we did get a gift from God when we learned that the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) will let us enroll into their health care plan right away through Bob. All I have to do is send them my letter of termination. Which means I have to look at it again. I may have Bob do it. Getting laid off may not have the same emotional impact on me this time around but it does hurt.

But the good news is NO COBRA!!!!! Because you know what? My Cobra payments would be $1,465 a month (Obama is no longer paying 65% of the cost). And my unemployment benefits are only about $200 more than that each month. (By the way, the next time someone talks about the unemployed blithely living off the dole - "funning it up", think again about how much "fun" you can have on $900.00 a month. Lord knows it helps but everyone would rather have a job. ) Bob had his emergency gall bladder surgery last year while we were still on Cobra under the Obama Cobra relief plan. If we hadn't had insurance the bill would have been $42,000. My heart aches for those unemployed without health insurance.

But really - what do I do next? Can this actually be happening again? Apparently, yes. But oh my God! The idea of going back to Monster.com and the like is the most unappealing, depressing thing I can think of. I want to go to work - but I do NOT want to go back to that seemingly hopeless exercise.

I have to say that I thought it would last longer. I had my reservations that this job would last forever. YUM Food & Fun (the magazine I worked for) was a very big idea coming from a publishing company that did smaller things. To really fulfill its true potential would have required investment that the company was not willing to spend. On many levels it was a very frustrating experience. I was unaccustomed to working the way they worked. I knew this magazine could fly - it was a huge success in terms of the way audience and advertisers responded to it, it won an award and there was easily room for me to move up. I brought in some big accounts. I lobbied regularly for the publication. It should have worked. It really should have. But the company was either unable or unwilling to grow it - and so they cut it. And it makes no sense at all to me.

But here I am - and I will survive. God came through for us the last time. He will surely do it again. I am going to really try to build my public speaking business. I've done a bit of that recently and I have a number of speeches in the can. I am going to write about my experience in trying to lose weight. I am going to sell Cookie Lee (don't laugh - I really am). I am going to reactivate my SAG membership and see if there is any opportunity for me in this business after a 20 year absence. I am going to try to learn the real estate business and work with Bob. Of course I am going to look for a regular job in my industry as well. And I'd be thrilled to get one. But I kind of think that well is pretty dry. I don't know what the immediate future is going to look like - it may be really tough. But somehow we'll survive. Because God is faithful.