Falling Down

On Sunday, while running, I tripped, fell, and scraped my left knee. (I also did something uncomfortable to my right quad because it's been aching like I ran a marathon.)  However, after I fell, I assessed the damaged, determined it wasn't anything I couldn't run through, and ran on to finish up my planned run.  The streak is now at day #330.

The fall, while real, is a good metaphor for the entire month of November.  Because Jerry and I have had a doozy of a November.

Jerry got laid off.

There's a lot to discuss here in terms of explanation, but it's boring, and it's not a tale no one hasn't heard before.  It was a blow, but:

Thankfully, Jerry had anticipated the company's downsizing and had already been pursuing a few promising leads, and since the news, he has been inundated with calls, emails, and texts with leads and opportunities.  Ironically, now that he's a "free agent," managers from across the country have been contacting him and doing their best to try and "pick him up off the waiver."  Sorry, that was a lot of sports talk.

From all this, he will most certainly find a fitting offer from another company.

Also, he received a generous severance and, with our savings, we aren't concerned about any immediate financial impact.  Plus, you know, I work too.

While we are some of the most fortunate who can receive this kind of news, it still complicates our lives and is stressful to deal with.  A new opportunity for him most certainly means moving out of state.  We will probably have options to consider, but it's a big decision, and a big move (wherein I will have to resign my job), especially since we don't yet know where or when.  That would be okay, but we're also on the verge of closing on our condo, which we've already been negotiating a sale on now for months.  We're now set to close on that at the end of December.

In the end, all of these big events will, most likely, work out just fine and maybe even better than fine -- in some ways, the lay off could be advantageous for us and maybe push to make some decisions we were reluctant to undertake before.

So, the lay off announcement pushed us down, but we didn't stay down, and while his company's decision bruised, it's nothing that won't fade and that we can't recover from.

As for the running: Tomorrow, I run in my 9th consecutive Turkey Trot 5K, a streak of its own, but I have no expectations about time this year.  My runs following Sunday's spill have been short and slow, and I doubt my legs will feel good enough tomorrow to really push myself.

Still...you never know.  Sometimes an unexpected descent means you have no where to go, but up.