Ten years ago today, my life was in shambles. I was jobless, my on-again/off-again relationship was off again, and I was hopelessly upside down in my mortgage. I was reminded of this thanks to a Facebook memory that popped up from March 2, 2011. It read:
Well, crap. My Groupon dream just went up in smoke. Tough competition…and somebody else got the gig. I’m having a serious “now what am I going to do?” moment here.
At the time, I’d been out of work for a little over four months. Had I known my unemployment would stretch out for a total of 20 months, I probably would have contemplated jumping off a cliff or something in order to save myself a ton of misery. I’d been trying to eke out a living as a freelance writer and, despite the fact that I had no professional experience at the time, Groupon came calling with an opportunity I could not refuse. They had put me through a rigorous trial period in which I was paid to write a bunch of coupon copy using their cleverly humorous brand voice. I was confident I’d nailed the assignments and looked forward to the landing a full-time job with them, but alas, it was not to be. One decade ago today I received that rejection and it crushed me.
Seeing this pop up today in my newsfeed sent me down a rabbit hole of old gmail chats with a former flame (the “on-again/off-again” gal). I couldn’t help but cringe because every third word that leapt off the screen was a lie. Hindsight is both a beautiful and ugly thing.
Anyway. I finally tore myself free of those ancient conversations, feeling a little dirty, like I needed to purge myself with a long soak in a hot shower. But also supremely grateful for my current life, which is 1,000 times better. Things felt so hopeless on this date 10 years ago, and today, I feel like I’ve got it all. In fact, I was reminiscing about all this with Tara after work, as she was shucking oysters for a pre-dinner appetizer. In our cozy and beautiful house in the great Midwest, minutes after we got home from well-paying, soul-satisfying jobs. The dichotomy was not lost on me, this complete 180-degree turnaround. Tara sometimes says life is so good that she can’t help waiting for the other shoe to drop, but I told her we both went through some pretty shitty years and put in a lot of hard work to build this life for ourselves, and today we are reaping the rewards.
I think she’s finally come around to my way of thinking.
Anyway. Inadvertent trip down Memory Lane, one I didn’t plan on taking but I’m glad for the detour because it helped spark gratitude.
In other news, looks like I’ll be getting a COVID-19 vaccination soon. I’d signed up on the waiting list, and received an email notification today that read, The SD Department of Health recently made a change to the 1D priority group. The requirement of two underlying medical conditions has been reduced to one underlying medical condition. We would like to give you the opportunity to move to this group if you meet the updated criteria. If you have one of the following conditions please click the button below to be automatically updated on the waitlist.
One of those underlying conditions is Diabetes Mellitus Type 2, which I was diagnosed with at the end of 2014. I hadn’t initially “claimed” any underlying condition because my diabetes has been in total remission for six years now after I implemented drastic lifestyle changes. My doctor told me the medical world doesn’t believe a person is ever “permanently cured” of diabetes, though it has sure felt that way to me as I haven’t taken medications since 2015 and my A1C levels have been in the normal range for years. But still, technically, I have this diagnosis and do, in fact, qualify for an earlier vaccination.
Despite all that, I didn’t want to “jump the line” given my overall health. Today, I only meant to click on a button in the email for more information, but didn’t realize that in doing so, I leapt to the current group because I had accidentally said yes, I have an underlying condition. Oops. I actually went to the clinic’s website and tried to “reset” my status, but there was no option to do so. I felt bad about this and started chatting with my boss, filling her in on the background. She assured me I’d done nothing wrong under the circumstances, and said that every person who is vaccinated is helping protect those who have not been vaccinated. That’s an excellent point, and after hearing it, I felt much better.
So, now I wait. According to the website they are now “actively vaccinating” my group, so I could conceivably end up scheduled for an appointment any day now.
Bring it on!
Mark My Words 
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