While You Wait for Change...

While I was straightening up my room this evening and putting off having to make my bed - does anyone actually enjoy doing that?! I mean, ew. - I looked over at my dresser and my little catch-all glass star caught my eye. And I had this sudden, overwhelming feeling of...relief|appreciation|pride. It was a moment where a little thing suddenly meant a whole lot.

When Kacie and John told me they would be moving to Ohio and therefore, I'd be looking for a job (despite their very best efforts to sell me on movig to Ohio as well), I tried my best to give it the old 'glass half full" approach. I threw myself - and anyone who was willing to help - into finding a job that I would love. A job that would challenge and excite me; a job that would not only acknowledge and appreciate my skills and experience, but would take those skills and build on them, nurture and teach me to being better. 

I have never been turned down from so many jobs in my life. 

It was honestly one of the hardest transitions I've experienced. I'd gone from working, at minimum fifty hours a week at a job where I knew I was making a difference with the ladies, to receiving daily rejection letters for jobs I just knew I was perfect for. 

And rejection emails don't pay the bills. 

And so, needless to say, I was broke. Actually, I don't know if there's a word between broke and destitute, but if there is - that's what I was. There were days when I couldn't even scrounge up enough change to get my gas light to go off. It was frustrating and disappointing. I was mad at myself for not having built up more savings. I was mad at the people who wouldn't hire me. I was mad that I was too prideful to ask for help. I was mad when I had to ask for help. I was mad that I was wallowing in my anger and frustration and disappointed. I was just mad. 

Mad and broke. 

And then I got a job. A job that challenges and excited me; a job that acknowledges my skills and experience, that appreciates me as a professional and an employee. A job that allows me - encourages me - to learn and grow and create. A job that betters me. 

Which brings me back to now; back to my little catch-all glass star. 

It wasn't too long ago that little glass star would be empty. There'd be no loose change, and certainly no errant dollar bills, laying around as it would all be stressfully spent on whatever small amount of gas or grocery it would allow. But now loose change and errant dollar bills sit in that little glass star for weeks without even a glance in their direction. That's not to say I'm rolling in money - far from it - but the ability to pay bills and loans and still have money in my bank account is a blessing I do not take for granted. 

I am immeasurably blessed by parents who would -and have - go to the ends of the earth for me. They sacrificed and scrimped and saved and struggled most of my school ages years to ensure that I never went without things that I needed for school. There was always food on the table and a roof over my head and clothes on my back. And they are solely responsible for teaching me the value of a hard-earned dollar. And the relief and joy I can hear in their voices and see on their faces when they know I'm able to stand on my own two feet financially is a feeling I can't express in words. 

I am thankful and humbled by that little glass star full of change. While I may have spared it an unconscious glance now and then in the past, I will now look at it as so much more - 

A reminder that sometimes things - and life - have to be empty to truly appreciate it in it's fullness. And that life is full of moments where we wait|pray|wish for change.