Holy Jupiter Sh*t

I had to quit LiveFit. The last phase of the program revolves around HIIT and circuits with lots of jumping, leaping and bounding plyos. My tendon said to me, unequivocally, on Monday morning, "NO." Though I  hate quitting, I hate getting so far and then falling short of the finish line, I had no choice but to go back to the drawing board. I came up with a lifting program and for cardio, I'll simply do a high-incline walk. I hope to start soon, but I'm a little OCD about starting on Mondays. I'm trying to fight that because I could really use the stress release. 

The Jupiter sh*t of the situation is the Viking, along with 25 others, got laid off two weeks ago. No warning, no severance. Just a "fuck you very much and goodbye," after 13 years. They cut anyone making a certain salary level and expected lower-paid "generalists" to take over at the same level of quality. (According to some sources, Obama was to blame.) We have no cushion. No savings. No 6 months salary saved up somewhere like only rich Suze Orman types can suggest. It's pretty much a sudden death spiral. 

The good news is the Viking and I are on top of it. We had a beer, but shed no tears and then got to work. He has interviews on four sides of the country, as well as a few local pokers in the fire. While he was busy pulling a demo together, networking and applying for jobs, I threw out our safety net and applied for unemployment, health insurance for the kids and food stamps, just in case this process strands us for a month or two. My type-A side came out in full force, I even have a color-coded binder. I cleaned out my house completely, and gathered things to sell on eBay and at the first neighborhood garage sale in May. I called my Realtor about our townhome, just in case. (Dear God, what a nightmare. We are far more underwater than I thought because of all the foreclosures & short sales.) I'm also getting to work on a few projects of my own that may or may not pan out. Done and done. 

It's a bag of mixed emotions now that all the hard work is complete and we wait to hear the offers and weigh our options. Neither of us are very good at waiting for balls to drop. We are proactive by nature, and I am admittedly a bit of a control freak. It's easy during this phase to spin our wheels when we need to stay relaxed. If it was just us, we'd hold hands & jump out of the nosediving craft, without a glance back. But we have three little kids to strap into parachutes and keep safe. It changes the dynamic of how much we can risk and lose. It changes everything. 

In the end, I know we will be better off. I know it. We're just heading into the dark period before the light. The waiting to see what fate has to present us. And then we can get back to work.