I took my pinata and left.

Sometimes you don't realize the extent of the situation you're in until you're able to see it from the outside.
You may know or recognize certain elements about it, but full vision typically can't come until you're no longer in it.
Cue all the "you don't know what you got til it's gone"'s and the "Hindsight is 20/20"'s. They're all accurate.

I was fired today.
"Let go" was how they worded it.
I'm going to try and keep my opinions of assumption out of this, but that becomes rather difficult when your assumptions are all but confirmed by action.

Baseline:
I came to work for this place 2 years ago. My boss pursued me for the job for about 3 months before his daughter (my childhood friend) called me and convinced me to look into the job.
It sounded promising. They wanted someone long-term, I wanted something long-term. It sounded perfect.

I started realizing it wasn't pretty early on, but I remained hopeful that maybe things would change.
Then there was an incident where my inbox was broken and thrown. There were many tense moments and a severe lack of communication. I started seeing that I wasn't being respected, but rather treated like a child. There was tension between two co workers that made the whole office feel painful. I tried to stick it out. I still liked what I did.
I started really laying low after my inbox was broken. I learned to keep my mouth shut. I started noticing how they didn't care about reasoning, but that I just did what I was told. Now you may be thinking, "you work for them, of course you're supposed to do what you're told." And I agree, but this was different. I was either not told of everything, or only given the stuff no one wanted. Or being made to do things I was clueless about then reprimanded for not being able to do them. Over time it resorted down to all I they treated me like I was good for was answering phones and making copies. I couldn't say anything about anything (I don't like confrontation, but I'm not afraid of it) as I learned early on when I tried to that it was pointless. That's when I realized that they didn't want reasoning--to them it was excuses. They didn't care to understand. If they told you to do something, you just had to change how you were or how you functioned or how you felt to do what they said.
I guess I wasn't what they expected or remembered me to be. I quickly realized I didn't fit the mold. I tried doing my best and learning what I could and keeping up, but I realized that I could never do enough. I couldn't be enough. And it was never their fault. It was me. I had to learn to be better. I had to change to be what they wanted; what they understood.

I kept all of this inside. Told myself it was probably me, that I needed to understand and figure out how to be better.That surely I could figure out how to get along and get them to like me. I told myself this while everything on the inside raged against me. Wasn't this what I spent all that time in counseling to teach myself not to do? Didn't I unlearn the habit of blaming myself for everything? Why was I doing this?
I wasn't respected. I was told to just suck it up until it passed. I was belittled. I was pulled into meetings and blamed for the issues (not named, but it was clear) which made the others feel better and peace return since I had been reprimanded. Or whatever. I kept getting sick. Worse and worse.
And I just kept going.

Then, we got a new girl. She was around my age and we got along really well. I kept quiet at first, not wanting to scare her or put things into her head. I didn't know her, and didn't want to just throw all this information at her if I couldn't trust her.
My birthday came around shortly after she was fully taken on. She got me a delicious cake. We got a pinata. We broke it open. Light and laughter was in the office again.
Slowly, she began to see the cracks in the system. She saw how I was treated, and felt it herself. I asked her if I was doing anything wrong; if she could see anything I could do better to not have this happen.
But she couldn't.
"It's not you." She told me.

We functioned very well together. We spoke the same language. We were very effective together. We got things done.
The others didn't feel any better about me. In fact, at one point it got worse. I'm still not sure what about me came off so wrong. I tried to be kind, I tried to be patient, I tried to be open minded. But when it came time to stick up for myself, they would shut off. They would write me off. You could cut the tension with a knife.
Until we got pulled into another meeting. And I was blamed for 2 hours--not by name, once again--full of assumptions and presumptions and things that would have had to have come from other mouths to come from the head like that. And after having to bite my tongue through it, the tension left for the most part. And was gone, mostly, for a while later. My new co worker told me she knew that was directed towards me as well. That I was the one they were almost always looking at as they spoke, as if no one else in the room mattered except to be witnesses.
But "technically" they didn't identify it as me. "Technically" they didn't do anything wrong.

Everything was covered up by technicalities.

The day came when my new co worker had to move. It was only temporary. She'd be back, and her job would be waiting for her.
Until it wasn't.
And it was news to her.
When another person was hired on, and her stuff was boxed.
I was hesitant, but tried to be open-minded. I could see what was appealing in this new one. She had experience, she made her voice heard. People listened to her since she was older--something I obviously lacked being that I'm about half of everyone else's age, if not more.
I began to notice things that didn't match up. Flaws in her system. Contradictions.
I became more and more hesitant. Until I was given full reason to withdrawal trust.
Lips dripping with honey, but with a bite at the jugular.

Turns out I began to hear things. From people I didn't know as well as people I knew and trusted. Confirming what I was feeling.

Then I started to feel it: that wave of emotions right before some big change happens.
I grew to be very familiar with this feeling for a while, but had gotten used to not having it over the last two years. I moved and switched jobs (always at or around correlating times, even) 7 times in the 3 1/2 years before. It got old really quickly. I was glad to be  somewhere. To hopefully get to stay and not have to deal with that again. Yet here they were, those same feelings.
I would have these thoughts in my head, and they wouldn't make sense for what was before me, but I knew deep down I needed to listen to them.

"Maybe you should try and go back to the doctor to see if you can figure out what is really wrong with you. You have insurance now. It's fine."
Turns out the doctor I saw figured out what had been causing the brunt of my issues the last 8 years. Now I am informed and aware and know what to do.

"You get your next vacation on your two year mark. Why don't you use it to work on your house two weeks later."
Which was the beginning of this month. People commented on how rested and happy I looked after that.

"Take the fish home. And you know what, take all your extra stuff home. What here is yours and what's not? Separate it all."
Which made today so much easier as I knew I had everything that was mine and could leave what was theirs.

"Hey, you have some personal files on this computer you'd be sad to lose. Maybe take those and put them on your laptop."
Literally had a few more I couldn't get to in time, but those I had copies of at home. Everything I didn't have back ups to made it on to my laptop. The last bit being last night.

So when I came into work today, and my boss told me his schpiel, I was good to just walk out.
I went into the back to see if any of the guys were there. Only one was. So I shook his hand and told him. He was shocked, and his face turned sad. He hugged me, and I hugged him, and told him he better not get in any trouble. I text the other guys whose numbers I had since it was an immediate thing. They were also shocked and sad.

I went inside logged off of everything on my computer. While newest co worker watched like I was going to steal confidential information. Boss didn't treat me like that, which I respect. I got the stuff I had brought in with me, as well as my stress ball fish and my hand sanitizer. I didn't re-look through my drawers because I knew I had everything. I left one notebook that may have had personal notes mixed with work ones, but I left it. I closed that drawer, and saw him.
Alejandro.
Our so-named pinata bust from that time we got one on my birthday.
He broke perfectly to look like a prize piece of game so we hung him on the wall as such.
I got my stuff, took my pinata, and left.

I told my boss I knew it wasn't anything personal, because it wasn't. I'm not offended. I'm not mad.
I'm relieved.
You see, now I can file for unemployment, and I had an interview that seems rather promising the day before.
I felt it coming so I was trying to do what I could to make it to where he didn't have to fire me. I figured he wouldn't since he never did unless the person had it coming to them. He gave his reasoning, and it was all logical. They're very clever at covering themselves. Good thing I have no ill-will to want to come back and try and pull something. I'm just not that person.

I cried a little bit, but mainly at the shock of it all.
Things started falling into place in my head that are all just assumptions, but would definitely explain why I had been treated so poorly this last week. I do believe I was the last to know of this happening, or maybe next to last. Today is the last day of pay period, so at least they gave me the whole week's check.
I left before my other co worker could even get there, and laughed when I noticed they had hung my stocking.

Said a simple, "bye" to the new co worker as everything inside of me cringed to even do that.
My insides know more than my mind can express. They sense things.

I'm over it.

I drove home, excited to know I had time to work on my house, to work on editing pictures that I need to get done.
I laughed.
The farther and farther away I got from that place, the lighter my heart began to feel.

Do I have any clue of what's ahead for me?
None.
Do I have a job for sure lined up?
No.
Do I have every right and reason to be scared out of my mind?
Absolutely.
Am I terrified?
Not in the slightest.

Which, I think, says a lot.

And you know, I text the tenants upstairs and told them. And they genuinely said they were sad to see me go and wished me all the luck in the future.
As I heard back from our guys I was able to tell, they expressed sadness.
I got a call from our insurance agent, telling me how sorry he was to hear, and giving me names and numbers of people he knew who were hiring. Because he's a nice person. Said he would vouch for me because he knows I'm a hard worker.

So even though I'm fairly certain my name is flying around the office with other words it doesn't belong with like the few that left before they were fired unknowingly unliked (but they could also sense it) before me, it doesn't matter. The people whose opinions I cared about--the ones who had any weight--were positive. They still liked me, they hated to see me go, they offered encouragement.

I know who I am.
I like who I am.
People like who I am.
So if one small group of people doesn't, then that's okay by me.

It was better to be out of there, to be free, than to try and stick around in the name of adult responsibility.

And I tried to make this blog post as kind as possible. I thought about not even writing it. what would any of them think if they ever read it? Then I thought of big-named people who have told honest stories in memoirs of people who have wronged them. Not because they were bitter or malicious, but because it was a time of their lives. It happened. They can't change that just because someone doesn't like how you perceive them. There's this quote that says something like, if someone wanted you to write well of them, they should have treated you better. And it's true.
My story is mine. It's true and honest. It's not written with any ill-will, just to tell my experience. I am more than a few people's opinions.

Sometimes we just have to take our pinata and leave, knowing that what's ahead is so much better than the shit we're leaving.
(curse word intended. It was more than just "crud."

Wednesday November 11, 2015 1257

Yesterday I went into the house, I put my head on my Dad's shoulder and closed my eyes. I took in his smell, the feel of his warm skin on his arm, his chest rising and falling as he breathed. I remembered being a child, and feeling, smelling, hearing all these exact things with my head on his chest hearing his heart beat. I wanted to take this all in, because I can.
Life is a weird thing. It's predictable and you make plans until something comes alone and shakes you to your core. Then you figure out how to cope, until the next thing happens. And one day you die and it's all over. And what did you make of it? There's no second chances. Your active story ends there. What continues on is in the hands of those you left behind.
I'm twenty-seven. I remember not too long ago thirty seemed so old. I would see pictures and hear stories of people this age and thing they were old--they were the wives and mothers and successful whatevers with stories and their lives together. I'm twenty-seven with nothing to show for it--or so it would seem.
When I thought back on everything I would have missed had that wreck been worse, it shows me that even though I may not have a list of typical accomplishments, I have a very full life.
I would have never danced more than those first two weeks--not even enough to be known. Jackie and I would have been friends. I would have never gotten to babysit Piper or meet Bo. I never would have met--let alone live with--Kara. Never would have seen Bianca's wedding. Or Sarah's. Or Jamies, or Kim's, or Carolyn's. I never would have met Evelyn Barron. Kim would have been at my funeral. I never would have known Andie or Annika or Allison. Never would have gotten to know Hannah. I never would have gone to Munro, wouldn't know half my cousins. I wouldn't have ever done another recital or gotten pointe shoes. I never would have done Nutcracker, or met the Rowland's or Cortez's or Elizabeth or anyone else at the studio. Countless people would have had to have found a different photographer, or just not have pictures of certain events. My ballet blog wouldn't exist. Dad would have never built my house. I never would have seen Amsterdam.

The last four years have been pretty definitive for my life.
I may not be married or have x number of kids or some fancy title, but I have a pretty great life; one I'm glad I haven't missed out on. Even with its trials and hardships.
And there's still more ahead. How much more, one can never be certain.

And I'd like to think that my life is defined by more than just the number of years I'm on the earth, but rather what I do with those years. A full life shouldn't be defined by length, but rather depth. Squeezing every ounce out of every day you get to wake up again. I don't want to waste one precious second.

I'm different. I know I'm different--it's clear. I'm learning more about my differences and how to hand life living with these differences, but sometimes life is unforgiving. Change happens and you can't control it, you have to accept it as part of the story instead of an error. People die, people hurt you, things end up differently than expected. You have to handle it. But you also have to know when enough is enough and to make a change. Sit tight until you know it needs to happen--then do it. Do it and don't look back.
This is your life--your one, precious life. Don't let other people hold you back. Be kind every second you can, fix your mistakes when you make them. Apologize--and mean it. Strive to be a better you. There is always something new to learn; some way to grow into a better person than you were before.
There will be pain, and mean people, and cruel things that don't make sense. But these things don't define you, they refine you.