Empty and angry...

...is how I am feeling right now. My husband, who has spent the past 6 months waiting for the axe to drop, got his notice of termination today. He will stay on staff to transition his job (to whom? that's what I wanna know) until the end of March. He gets 3 weeks severance and his 4 weeks of accrued personal time off paid out, and then that's that. As of May 15, my family will no longer have any income unless one of us magically gets a job by then.

Mister is brilliant and dedicated. He would have worked 20 hours a day, 7 days a week (8 days on a good week!) if I hadn't nagged him to spend time with the family. He's been on this job for four years, and seen the company through from its inception to its current state. He's poured everything he has into that job. And they just took him out with the trash. Is there no loyalty in this world anymore?

While I'm thankful for the 3 weeks of severance pay, only 3 weeks is an insult compared to the work he has put into that job. I'm both curious and terrified to find out how much COBRA is going to cost us. I'm hopeful it's less than the $1,000 a month that my insulin will cost us out of pocket if we have no insurance. After I am done with this blog post, I think I'll call Comcast and cancel everything but our broadband. We'll live on Hulu and a (downgraded) Netflix subscription. Hooray for free streaming. Maybe I should cancel our YMCA membership too. But if I do that, where will I find my zen? Probably not on Hulu.

We'll most likely end up moving for his next job, and that's fine. I'm done living in this hellhole of snooty people who think they're better than others just because they live in Naperville. La-dee-da. Worst case scenario, we'll end up moving to the beach house. And there are worse things than living in a brand new 4 bedroom home on the ocean, right?

But still.

I hate uncertainty.

I hate feeling helpless.

I hate worrying about what I'm going to do when we're broke and I need milk for the baby.

I'm scared.

I'm so scared that my heart feels like it's shaking inside of my chest and I can barely breathe through the hot tears streaming down my cheeks. All the Bible verses trapped in my head, etched into my brain courtesy of years of Christian school and Bible college come rushing back to me but right now I am so hurt and upset that they. mean. nothing.

"Consider the sparrow"

"I know the plans I have for you"

"God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory"

"We walk by faith, not by sight"

The words swirl around, rattling inside my head and while I know them all and somewhere in the back of my heart, I vaguely believe that they're true...right now those promises feel so hollow. Oh me of so little faith. If I weren't so angry, I'd be embarrassed.

I'm angry. I'm very, very angry.

I'm angry at the old CEO who used the company as his own personal piggy bank and brought them to the brink of bankruptcy, taking with him a big, fat bonus check while he laughed all the way to the bank. I'm angry at his greed.

I'm angry at myself, for being a full time mother when I could be out earning a paycheck and then at least we'd have the security of a small second income to tide us over. Is it possible that somewhere, tucked deep inside a hidden corner of my heart, where I do not dare to look, that I am angry at my husband? I don't know. I don't think there's anything he could have done to prevent the inevitable. He's a victim of the situation.

I'm angry at the unfairness of it all. I'm angry that they couldn't have offered him a pay cut or reduction to part time or any other compromise.

I'm angry that they let him go, him the breadwinner with the wife and small child, and kept the single guy with the McMansion. The single guy who doesn't know how to do half of what Tim does, yet manages to make more money.

I'm angry at every raise and bonus that was promised to Tim, yet was never delivered.

I'm angry that I have this stupid chronic disease that makes my life so much more difficult and expensive.

I want to scream, I want to punch someone, I want to throw myself onto my bed and weep but I can't. I have to keep it together, and somehow I am supposed to levelheadedly mother my son when I have no levelheadedness at all.

Life should be more fair. I'm just sayin'. Good people should have good things happen to them, bad people should have bad things happen to them. I work hard to be a good wife and mom and sister and church member and friend. My husband works hard to be a good man and mate and father and employee and community member. We're good people. And *this* is our reward?

I'm angry that life is so unfair.