The Storm Before The Storm

I have not written in my blog for years, but the historic nature of what has come with the entry of year 2020 compels me to document what I see and feel at the moment. First though, I need to get you caught up over the last several years.

I took the bold step to leave a job that caused me more emotional hurt than the benefit of the experience and paycheck. I thought it was the ultimate show of my faith in God as my Provider to leave an $88,000/year role and save my sanity. Gain the whole world and lose your soul, right? The first few years out were great! I was able to take inventory of my own desires and cultivate hobbies that were unique to me and not just what I had coopted from a significant other (I was single this entire time btw). I also was able to travel the world and see some amazing sites. Things were going very well as I still had money in the bank and enough education/experience to fall back on when the time came to get another job if necessary.

This sense of security emboldened me to try my hand at entrepreneurship. I had a particular idea for jewelry and threw all of my time and other resources at making it a reality. Fortunately, being in NY was the best place to try my hand at a jewelry company. I was able to make great strides in creating a business plan, incorporating the organization and getting other affairs in order to operate legitimately, used 3-D printing to make prototypes, had enough time on my hands to dabble at creating a web presence (website & social media), created a vanity 800 number that aligned with my product name, purchased various web domain iterations of my business name, and I even filed for my own trademark taking the application all the way to the point of sale. That is where it all stopped. My business idea was somewhat unique so I felt the need to protect it and therefore did not “Open for Business” until I could find a manufacturer who would be willing to produce my particularly designed product. Manufacturers wanted ensured sales before retooling their production line to fit my specifications; sales could not happen unless I had production solidified; the chicken/egg conundrum thwarted my entrepreneurship aspirations.

No worries, I shifted my efforts to reentering the energy utility world, which morphed into reentering the corporate world, which ultimately fell to reentering working world. I came pretty close with a job offer at a bank branch, but even that fell through since my credit score tanked once savings ran out. In the midst of all of this, I could not keep up with rent payments and was evicted. I moved four times in six months from home to home of dear friends who but for their support, who knows where I would have had to sleep. Ultimately I landed as a part-time assistant teacher at a day care making $12 hourly, working as needed. Certainly that wasn’t enough to make ends meet, but it sure felt good to join the land of the living – work wise at least. I could not have asked for any greater perk than the love and life being around those babies provided. I saw new families formed and veterans navigate parenthood like old pros. Aside from the peer drama, I really enjoyed my time there. Finally, a full-time gig at a nonprofit making a living wage came through, and I work there presently as I type this.

The arc was difficult and long, and I still do not understand much of it. What I have come to realize is: the same stress-inducing cast of characters that I ran away from years ago have presented themselves again and again with different faces and names. Only now I know better than to run without a backup plan already in place and have (despite my best efforts) had to face the test head on. I would love to report that I slayed the giant in one fell swoop, but the reality is I have tried to be the standard of love despite what has been lobbed at me. In the process, I have come eerily close to full on depression and hopelessness.

Now do you see why I haven’t written a blog post? I don’t want to be even more depressing than how many of my former entries felt. Who wants to hear about my near bankruptcy, failed entrepreneurship goals, and my futile attempts at attaining a job on the caliber of the one I voluntarily left only to end up being that person with multiple degrees working in the same place I could have had I not even gone to college. No shade at all, just an epiphany that my education did not inoculate me from the struggles of the working poor.

I have deliberately spared you the gory details of my family drama. While it seems unheard of to omit one of the most central aspects of my identity and who I love very deeply, it is too hurtful to recount.

Mickey Noella

Oh, and another thing...This entire experience has made me much more compassionate to several populations of people that I saw in the wrong light: the working poor, those who are willing to manipulate the system for their own survival (not unlike the rich manipulate the system just because), and most importantly those who have seen so much pain and devastation that they have turned away from the faith. Previously, I would look upon these and others with some level of contempt and rebuke, but I am reminded that but by grace of God I am what I am (I Corinthians 15:10).