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This week (October 22nd) marks the ninth week of my treatment. I’m beginning to sound like a broken record, but there’s nothing new to report on the health front. (Other than I need to stop eating so much junk food!) I’m feeling pretty good and adjusting to my new job (see Working Man below), which is taking some getting used to – both mentally and physically.
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Working Man
This week also is the second week of my return to the working world. I wasn’t out of work for very long compared to many, many other people. Still, there is something ingrained in my psyche about being employed. Maybe it’s a man thing, maybe it’s a generational thing…but I think most people want to have a purpose in their lives, even if it’s an 8 to 5 job that pays the bills and keeps food on the table. It’s funny for me, because that’s exactly why I got out of the proverbial corporate world and went into teaching. I wanted to do something with a true purpose…make a difference in young lives. All of those cliches that are attached to teaching, but, as I found out the hard way, are very difficult to quantify on a daily basis.
I returned to the world of work with rather ironic timing. I found out about my new position two days before my October 9th CT scan. Needless to say, I was both excited and scared that one piece of good news would be ruined by the other circumstance (cancer) dominating my life. When I got the great news about my scan, it was as if prayers on both fronts had been answered simultaneously. If that doesn’t reinforce the necessity of belief, I don’t know what does.
I’m not sure the utter seriousness of my situation this past summer ever really sank in with me. I don’t know if it was denial, naivete’, or plain craziness that prevented me from completely going off the deep-end regarding my world as it appeared to spin out-of-control. It may make more sense to many of you now, knowing that I was also out of a job, why I considered my circumstances to be a difficult journey, not just a fight. It was the only way to keep my own sanity.
And now I’m a working man….It has been quite a change to go from the classroom back to the business world. Strangely enough, though, the transition has not been as difficult as I first imagined. Perhaps that was my negative side filling my head with doom-and-gloom. Perhaps it was my psyche still battered and bruised from ten years of teaching. Either way, it’s good to have a purpose, even if the true measure of purpose is being there for those who truly matter – my family. That’s what really matters, and, I believe that is why this go ’round with the corporate world will be different, very different. This time, I don’t have to prove anything – to myself or to anyone else. If I work from 8 to 5, then I’ve done my duty, I’ve given my time and effort, and – truly – that’s all that should matter.
So, to borrow a couple of lines from Geddy Lee of Rush….I guess that’s what I am, a working man.
It seems to me
I could live my life
A lot better than I think I am
I guess that’s why they call me
They call me the working man
And so the journey continues….have a blessed day.
Well, they call me the working man
I guess that’s what I am
Still one of the greatest live bands of the 1970s. |
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