Last Week's Anxious Snippets and Big News! in These Foolish Things

Monday, October 2nd: Had what would have been my 3rd or 4th interview with a company I’ve been talking with for a while. It’s a lot of talk, talk, talk, and finally I talked with the guy who’d be my boss - and he rambled on and on and on and we still weren’t done with our conversation. If this job is offered to me I will likely take it, provided the salary we’ve been having roundabout conversations about is still valid. There are pluses and minuses about this job, but I’m so ready to be back to work that I know it’s going to be something that I can work through. Honestly - I know it. I had serious red flags with The Cutie Pie Company, but that was with Chief Cutie. This company also has someone interesting at the helm, but he is NOT the CEO. More to follow, I’m sure. A lot more to follow.

Tuesday, October 3rd: Drove back to [my former city] in order to have a couple of days of just hanging out there before my important doctor visits. [Athena] graciously let me stay at her place for a couple of days and I’m grateful. I got to walk the city trail I love so much and even have tea and conversation with our friend Karl for a little while and it just felt like I was home again. Interesting, hm? I’d just missed it a lot. I can’t say that I was 100% back - it feels more like I’m “in between” things, but I was feeling more of a comfort than I have been in a long, long time.

Wednesday, October 4th: Nice long coffee/tea date with my friend Cindy, whom I hadn’t seen since my move. I distinctly remember our last face-to-face conversation before I moved about how I was a little anxious about my new job (at Cutie Pie), and she told me to go in with an open mind and to see what happens, but that she could sense the red flags as well. This time, we talked about the other opportunity/conversation I’ve been having in addition to the one I mentioned above. I’d all but written this other company off because of that salary discrepancy of $25K (see earlier entries) and she recommended I just hear them out and maybe talk to them again in case there’s actually room to negotiate. So I emailed them after our meeting. More on that later. Then I had lunch with the infamous Maria! We had so much to catch up on and I’ve missed her so, so, so much! She also helped me put this “phase” of my life in perspective by reminding me that she’d spent the last part of her career living in China, working for a company that she’d put her heart and soul into and they were treating her like absolute SHIT in the end (calling her old and telling her she was fat AND working for half the salary she’d been making before - can you even believe that?! So much so that the job did age her and she did gain weight…) and ALL of it changed after she told them to fuck off and moved back to America. She lost all of the stress weight and got massages and facials and de-stressed and became the most beautiful version of herself in the end.

Thursday, October 5th: CT scan day and I was nervous! The good news was that I didn’t have to drink all of that nasty, chalky milkshake-y drink. I merely had to have a vein accessed so that they could pump the dye into my bod. The scan went off without a hitch, thankfully. THEN two video chats with people at the Missing $25K Company. They actually went really well, so I’m not sure what’s going to happen there because I think the peeps liked me. Also, a visit to my primary care physician where we talked about cancer and I showed him my squamous cell spot (which has turned into the nastiest and biggest lesion EVER) that will finally be removed tomorrow - more on that later as well. Then a drive all the way back downtown to pick up Martini at her old daycare that she LOVES and then an hour-long commute up to M’s place where I was attending a Golden Bachelor watching party and combo slumber party. During my drive I had yet another hour-long conversation with my potential new boss at the first company I mentioned, above. [Hopefully this isn’t as hard to follow as I think it might be?] During this conversation, we talked job title because the company is restructuring. We seem to have come to an agreement with the Director of Product Development and Strategy. And we talked through some other things, but I still don’t have a verbal offer! And by the time we talked for exactly an hour, I was at M’s place and he knew I had to get off the phone. We left our conversation at that. Then I could focus on M and the others. The evening was fun. M’s brother was staying with her as he was working on a temporary job and her daughter showed up with another friend, so it was a nice evening of chitter-chatter and discussing all of the peeps on Golden and then watching Bachelor in Paradise (which I’d never seen before).

Friday, October 6th: Up early and out the door by 6:30 without saying goodbye to M (we’d said goodbye the night before because I was going to leave before she even woke up). Weirdly, her brother walked in on me in the bathroom as I was getting ready. I was already dressed - just trying to put some makeup on and he pushed the door open, knowing I was in there! What’s up with that? He didn’t even knock! Oh well, I was outta there lickety-split! Dropped Martini off at daycare and then off to Oncology where I had my annual pre-meeting FREAK OUT thinking my cancer had come back. This time, the thing that set me off was that the nurse came in before the Oncologist so she could pull up my scans and the doc could discuss with me. WELL. They’ve NEVER pulled my scans up before, so I was sure that he wanted to show me some kind of metastasis or something!! My blood pressure was already through the roof and I was crying by the time he walked in. He finally calmed me down and said that everything is okay…there are just a few spots that have NOT changed but that we have to keep watching! And in the end I was declared TWO YEARS CANCER FREE!!! That was the “Big News” referenced in this entry’s title. That was the big, big thing that felt like a weight lifting, lifting, lifting. Thank you, GOD. And then I was on my way to pick up Martini and drive to meet my whole family for a celebratory lunch!!

I’m going to stop there and come back and write about the weekend. This seemed like a LOT, didn’t it? I’m kind of spent from writing.

More to come…I love you!
GS