What 5 Rotten Avocados Can Teach You about Judgment, Failure and Self-acceptance

It's day eight of my unemployment adventure, and some efforts are going better than others. Here's a little progress report I drew up on day 5:

Soooooo...while some progress has been made, for the most part I'm not meeting expectations.

But in the first two days of unemployment, I was feeling energized and ready to accomplish great things! I was taking time to evaluate and prioritize and wrote about that here (Let First Freedom Day Begin), and I was determined to make great headway on my top priority: cost reduction.

I (perhaps naively) disclosed that we waste the most money in our household on food. I shared a photo of what was hiding in my fruit bowl. Since it will be relevant later, here's an excerpt:

Last week I spent $21.00 on fresh produce, and with the above, plus nearly an entire bag of sprouts rotted and tossed, plus left-overs gone uneaten, I'm guessing at least $7.00 of that was wasted. . .I plan to use this gift of unemployment, however long or short it might be, to reorient our family life. And this [waste] is the first thing I'm going to change.

This was a painful confession, but over the course of that second day of unemployment, I made good progress on change. Overripe bananas and mushy persimmons became a lovely banana persimmon bread. 

Leftover pierogi filling--the type of thing that would normally sit in the refrigerator for days while I think to myself, "I really need to make something out of that; I should make more pierogis tonight; Maybe I can just throw that in a pot and turn it into soup; I should freeze that before it goes bad; oh damn it, now I've waited too long; it's turned blue"--was rescued before molding and became more pierogis plus a casserole dish of baked-cheesy-potato-something.

Baked-cheesy-potato-something was joined at the table by leftover borscht so those garden beets would not go to waste.

What child doesn't love leftover borscht?

And a pumpkin went into the oven, cooled again, and was packed into freezer bags--a phoenix rising from the ashes of Halloween decorations so it can reappear as pumpkin soup, pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins, and all manner of other foods that will make everyone tired of eating pumpkin.

You go into this oven a Halloween decoration. You come out food!

It was very late by the time these waste reduction tasks were accomplished, and I was exhausted. But the next morning, serving experimental banana-persimmon bread for breakfast instead of store-bought cereal, I felt like my unemployment goals were definitely on track! I packed the boys off to daycare and school, came home, reheated the drip coffee from the bottom of the pot (my tastebuds shuddered, but my father would be proud!) and set the computer on the kitchen counter for day three of unemployment. Perhaps after writing a blog post and submitting a job application, I would get creative with that bucket of spent malt from Chris's last beer brewing and bake some Pumpkin Barley Muffins!

Wow! Look how much bulk and fibre! Better not let that go to waste.

But instead, I opened Facebook and saw this response to my rotten fruit blog confession:

. . . Wait . . . What? What was this? A scolding??? I became immediately defensive: "But they were sold in bags of five! But they were on sale! I was going to make guacamole! I have five people and two bags of corn chips in my house; I don't need a big party to finish off a bowl of guacamole!!!" 

And then I switched to being hurt. Hadn't I just admitted I'd done wrong? Hadn't I said my actions were wasteful and unconscionable? Hadn't I exposed my fruit bowl for the entire world (okay, the 10 readers of my blog) to see??? And now my public confession had earned a public condemnation of my character!? What heartlessness was this? 

I've always been sensitive, and it's possible I took this all a bit too seriously, but now I was crying into my unintentionally fat-free banana-persimmon bread. Oh yeah, did I not mention the unintentionally fat free part? When I popped open the microwave to reheat that leftover coffee, I discovered the 1/2 cup of melted butter, meant for the banana-persimmon bread, was still sitting there, forgotten. One more example of my numerous shortcomings!


And there it was, the real reason I was so upset. It wasn't the comment, or the public nature of the scolding, or even the insinuation that I wasn't living up to the values with which I was raised (although I'm not going to lie--that bit definitely stung). It was my own sense of failure. 

Now, perhaps failure is too strong a word, but that sense that, no matter how much you're doing, no matter how hard you're trying, no matter how much sleep you sacrifice, things are never quite good enough--well, that's a rather omnipresent sense in my life.

If I look, my own inadequacy is all around me: rotten avocados that I should not have purchased in the first place, dirty dishes stacked two-days high, kids' snowpants lying discarded by the back door, a mountain of laundry waiting for someone to fold it, but mostly getting worn again straight out of the basket . . . wait, I said I'd be honest here . . .straight out of the baskets, plural. Oh, and one more: now newly unemployed! Inadequacy everywhere.

But then again, where did I ever get my idea of adequate? Three young kids, a marriage, a career, a house in need of massive renovations, gardens, a dog, a city over 2000 km away from friends or family, an economy still rippling with aftershocks from crippling crisis, a housing market stoked by an oil boom--who ever said I'd be able to manage and maintain flawless spending habits, perfect parenting, and an always-clean house?

Luckily, a few years ago I began to realize I needed to start letting things go. Oh, I was already letting plenty of dishes and sweeping and laundry go (really there was no choice), but what I hadn't changed were my expectations. And it was making me miserable. And then it started to dawn on me: I didn't want to feel angry every time there was a pile of dishes in the sink, I didn't want to live in constant fear of a neighbor stopping by unexpectedly and seeing a messy house, I didn't want to be frustrated every time I came across a piece of rotten food in the fridge. And the dishes, the house, the fridge--they weren't going to change. I was simply maxed out. If I didn't want to drive myself insane, then I needed to change by accepting that there will always be some imperfection somewhere, and some imperfection is okay.

Now it would be nice if everyone who witnesses the imperfections and struggles in our lives could just sympathize and understand. But that often won't be the case, and for my own happiness, I have to  be honest with myself about what I can and can't handle and not get too invested in other people's expectations and judgments. And perhaps I'm the only one with these sorts of troubles, but I doubt it.

So if you've ever felt overwhelmed like me, I hope this will make you feel better . . . or, at the very least, let you know you're not alone. Like that bowl of rotten fruit, it's one of those things I don't want to admit, even to myself. But instead I'm going to be honest and share one of those many imperfections: My kitchen when I've been blogging instead of doing dishes. Judge as you will.

Let First Freedom Day Begin!

It's First Freedom Day, pretty much guaranteed to be better than Termination Day, and I'm excited for this great adventure in unemployment to begin!

But with great freedom, comes great responsibility. This job loss slashes our household income nearly in half, and since I haven't landed a new job yet, the very first focus of my newfound freedom is pretty obvious: cost reduction.

I love a challenge, and this will be a big one! Chris already takes public transit to work every day, and we have only one vehicle: a 2006 Elantra purchased with cash, so I can't see any savings to be had there. There's already no debt on the car, and how on earth would we downsize?

Who needs to upsize? Two adults, three kids, one 80 lb. dog, one Elantra = two weeks of cross country road-trip fun! 

The student loans have finally all been retired, and there's no credit card or other consumer debt to be consolidated. We don't have cable (or satellite), the only cell phone in the family is a business expense, I cut the family's hair (including my own), and although I will now start grooming Charles myself as well, it won't be a huge savings because I really only take him to the groomer twice a year anyway (poor guy).

Sorry boy . . . no more doggy spa days. It's just you, me, and the basement bathtub from now on.

We are paying $1790 per month for daycare for the two littlest boys, and that would be the obvious way to save: pull them out, and one of the biggest expenses is gone. I certainly felt like a terrible parent this morning dropping them off at daycare just to come home and write instead of going to work. But right now they are in the best daycare in the world!!! If I pull them out, we lose the spots--spots people spend years on a wait-list to get. And without those spots, that's it. I simply can't work, regardless of whether the work is in an office or on a work-from-home arrangement.

We still have two years until all of the kids are in school. Although part of me desperately wants to spend these last precious early childhood years just being a fantastic full-time mom, two years is a really long time to run the household and pay that big mortgage on half the household income. With a lot of job applications out the door and under review, I'm not ready to make the call on stay-at-home vs. work. So for now, the daycare expense is in. In a few weeks, if there's still no luck on the job front, employment insurance will kick in, and that will cover part of the daycare cost. But not all. So back to cost reduction.

I've been working from home practically since graduating from university. Daily writing and getting out of the house are two of the things I've promised myself I'll do with my freedom while I have it. So I considered writing this to you from a pleasant little cafe while sipping something delicious and beautiful and layered with whipped cream. After all, isn't that what a writer's life is like??? Comfy chairs, soft music, the company of artists and other writers, fancy coffee, whipped cream? ...No? ...Really???

Well, even if that was the typical writer's daily life, in my new austerity land, that would be a big no-no. I almost never worked at cafes or bought fancy coffees when I was employed! To start now would definitely not be cool.

But I am drinking a fancy coffee while I write this. It may not be dolloped with whipped cream, but it's pretty darn good. Ta-da!

And, painfully, this brings me to the first thing that has to go. Luxuries that disguise themselves as necessities. In our household, most of those come in food form. These little Nespresso capsules, source of my fancy coffee, cost $0.69 CAD each. Look at them . . . so pretty, so shiny.

Nespresso capsules, be on notice! In my world, you've just been rebranded a sin!

Now, in my defense, today that lovely cappuccino is a single rather than the usual double. So there! A 50% savings achieved, woot!!!

But baby steps like that won't be good enough for long. How does that $0.69 cappuccino (okay $0.78 accounting for 3 ounces of milk at $4.58 for four litres--sorry US readers, only Canadian prices and measurements quoted here) compare to other options? Well, a little at-home investigation reveals the price of a drip coffee (even a fairly expensive brand brewed strong) to be more like $0.09 per cup, $0.18 when my very generous dose of half and half is added in. And, yes, I did just measure my entire coffee tin out into another container to calculate that.

Look how good unemployment is for one's sense of inquiry!!!

After this highly scientific experiment, from now on, I have no choice but to drink drip.

What else are we indulging in regularly that's costing a small fortune? Looking around the kitchen, the evidence is everywhere: expensive cheese, bakery bread, ultra-premium beer--gotta go, gotta go, gotta go. And look at the sheer volume of food in this place!

Good gracious, that's just two cupboards! If we really had to, I bet we could survive the entire winter living only on the food already in this house.

And then, hiding at the bottom of my fruit bowl, the worst discovery. The thing that, above all else, must be hunted down and eradicated. Waste. Horrible first-world, high-income-household, we-obviously-have-way-too-much-if-we-can-live-like-this, waste. I'm embarrassed to even share the picture. But another thing I've promised myself I will do in this time of reflection, re-evaluation, and writing is be completely honest--especially about the stuff I don't even want to admit to myself. So here it is:

Last week I spent $21.00 on fresh produce, and with the above, plus nearly an entire bag of sprouts rotted and tossed, plus left-overs gone uneaten, I'm guessing at least $7.00 of that was wasted. Around here, unfortunately, this is far from an unusual event. It's a routine. We buy fresh food and good ingredients, we have big plans to cook amazing homemade things and eat lots of fruit. And then we get busy (and lazy), and we don't. I plan to use this gift of unemployment, however long or short it might be, to reorient our family life. And this is the first thing I'm going to change.

There's nothing more that can be done for those poor avocados; the compost pile--the most luxurious, exotic, expensive compost pile on earth--is all that awaits them now. But those overripe bananas and persimmons, I am sure, can be turned into something delicious. And for breakfast tomorrow, there will be no ridiculously expensive (and ridiculously unhealthy!) store-bought cereal on the table. There will be something homemade by mom.

. . . And my kids will likely grumble and complain that they don't like it. They may very well beg for something else. If past experience with Mom's-experimental-baked-goods is anything to go by, there might even be tears from them followed by threats from me. But unlike those past experiences, there will be no giving in and reaching for a cereal box or setting aside what's been prepared in favour of something more enticing. We will use what we have, we will be creative with what's available, we will eat what's been prepared, and we will freeze leftovers that are in danger of going uneaten so they can be brought out again another day. That's how the new world of Freedom is, and eventually, I think everyone is going to adjust. And perhaps someday they will even agree that it tastes very, very good.

It's T-Day

Today was T-day. "Termination Day."

Luckily, the only thing terminated was my employment with Yahoo. Since I was told months ago that my "termination date" would be November 3rd, part of me has felt quite paranoid that this would turn into some cosmic set up--that I would toil away through the last weeks of my (now dead-end) job, only to wind up smashed by a truck or killed by a heart attack at 35 or felled by some other Morissettian irony on my last day. But with just two hours left until midnight, I'm now feeling fairly confident that I will, indeed, live past T-Day to experience FF-Day (First Freedom Day).

Since I've known this day was coming for a very long time, it's not nearly as traumatic as it could be. Of course, since the "no more work from home" policy was announced, there's been plenty of trauma--for me and for all of my family. But there's also been lots of time to work through it, mostly get past it, and start turning my mind, heart, and creative energy towards other possibilities.

It's been difficult, though. Especially under Mayer, Yahoo has been an extremely exciting, challenging, and fulfilling place to work: I wanted to stay, and I fought to stay. And, frankly, I've been great at my job. It is very hard to lose a job, and it's even harder to lose one you're passionate about and have dedicated yourself to completely.

But today I packed it all into a box, sealed it shut, and a-fixed a prepaid shipping label. The whole event was surprisingly calming, like a final washing and arranging of a body being put permanently to rest. Over the last few weeks, while writing cover letter after cover letter and tweaking endless versions of resumes, I've reviewed countless charts, files, and power-points attempting to recall those major accomplishments and big moments from the last five years. It's surprising how many things we toil over desperately, only to forget so quickly as the newest initiative takes hold. In these final days, I also considered going through my email and attempting to make it appear I'd kept an admirable and orderly inbox...but it didn't take long to realize that was a hopeless endeavour best abandoned. And then today, as a final act before packing the box, I imported all those family photos and videos from the iPhone.

This last act of closure was the one I was happiest for. Since smart phones descended on our household, we do take a lot of photos, but we never go back to look at them or organize them. As these refuges from my phone imported, I just sat and watched the images flicker by, there and gone in a millisecond, children flashing and laughing and growing in front of me--two years worth of three children's precious childhoods reviewed in moments. Here, too, so many things I would have forgotten, and all I could feel was gratitude for the quiet moment watching and remembering.

And then I arranged it all carefully, and stood back. Five years of work, hope, excitement, frustration, inspiration, endless phone calls, friendship, travel, long hours, learning: now reduced just to this, the bones:

Assembled there like that, it's suddenly so much easier to say goodbye to.

In fact, looking at it now, it's hard to understand how it commanded so much of my attention and took my eyes so much away from these three little guys and their totally awesome dad.

So here's to First Freedom Day, and every day after that!!!