So, back in October 2016 I took a long hard look at this blog and pulled it back off the shelf.
I rearranged some stuff, removed other things and generally updated the look. In the process that broke a lot of my old posts. As I wrote in Rebirth/Reinvention at that time I took a lot of the old posts and made them private. Over the course of the last almost year (11 months) I have been slowly fixing the old posts and making them public again. This process took a lot longer than it probably should, but today I decided that I just wanted to done. So I pushed through editing the remaining 160 posts and in that process I read a lot of what I wrote during 2008 to 2010, and not all of it made its way back into the blog.
160 posts is a lot of introspection, let me tell you.
I’ve been using this site lately as a means of pushing out some of the big ideas that I feel need a more formal space than a Facebook or LinkedIn post. One of the things that struck me as I was finishing the blog housecleaning is how it’s been 9 years since I was laid off as a part of the recession. In that time I’ve:
- earned my license
- worked for three different companies
- opened and closed my own small design firm
- became involved in AIA Northern Virginia and AIA Virginia and continue to serve on the boards of both organizations
- got married to my husband
- started a fiber business with my husband curating and dying yarn, spinning fiber, and related products – The The Fiberists, LLC/li>
- was diagnosed with adult onset diabetes and made some drastic life changes to improve my health
- and as of this past March, been laid off again
This puts things into an interesting perspective. These all seem like really big things, yet I’m back at a place not unlike where I was 9 years ago. I’m unemployed and have been for a long time; there doesn’t seem to be work in my field in my area for people with my range of experience currently. I’m trying to survive on a shoe string budget: I’m sharing a car, so while I am more mature and experience than in 2009, I feel less independent because everything revolves around when I will be able to run errands or otherwise. I’ve been writing a number of longer form posts on facebook which may make their way here at some point. I’m also dedicating most of my non-job search time to working on my fiber business, which I love, but is not at a place where it can support me as a full time job. Take all of that together and add in that I’m once again wondering if there is a place for me in Architecture and it really feels like deja-vu. The setting and characters have changed, but the themes are the same.
I’m not promising regular posts at this time, because we know how well that always turns out, but I find that I process things better when I write. So, I’m hoping over the foreseeable future to come back more regularly to this digital space and work through some of my career/life issues.