I was laid off a few weeks ago but am just blogging about it now. I guess I had to let it all sink in and have the seething feeling simmer away.

“We’re having cash flow problems,” She said. “She” being in " " as an off-handed way to refer to the owner of the company without using her name. Like Elizabeth Edwards, the betrayed wife of John Edwards, failed vice-presidential candidate, I don’t feel like using the business owner’s name. Not for the purpose of protecting her identity… Oh, no…

When Oprah interviewed Mrs. Edwards, her condition for appearing on the show was that Rielle Hunter’s name, John Edwards’ other woman, would not be spoken on air. I get that. Even though Mrs. Edwards’ higher self projects forgiveness and resilience, there’s that human part of her that rears its imperfect self and refuses to acknowledge the existence of the woman that brought shame, pain and anguish to her seemingly ideal marriage.

I was pissed to get the news of my lay off, quite understandably.

But more pissed because just the day before I had made a successful presentation to a potential big client, a client that would have been a rich source of referrals for her private duty in-home health care company for seniors. This client would have been unreachable and inaccessible to “Her." She is incapable of articulating her business services in grammatically correct English. Can you feel my derision?

I was pissed to get laid-off yet again, twice within the past year. I can’t take any more of this. I’ve gone through enough already.

I was even more pissed because the week before I did a bang-up job giving a PowerPoint presentation to the Case Management department of a huge Napa hospital, a task she could never have accomplished on her own because of her deathly fear of public speaking. Couple that fear with her cringe-inciting English, why-a, that would have killed any future business referrals, for sure. Am I oozing bitterness?

Ghandi said that and he was right. Why do I think that pointing out the shortcomings of another would boost my own stature?

All I’m doing by demeaning someone else is painting an unflattering image of myself. It gives me momentary pleasure, for sure. Like loosening a valve and letting some steam escape. It may relieve the pressure but the heat could sear my own skin. How can I bear to look at this image of myself spitting bile? Might as well walk around with snot and saliva dripping on my chin, wear tattered clothes and dirty underwear.

I’m glad I recognize the taste, smell, physical discomfort and ugliness of these human emotions. It serves as my internal guidance system for what I need to work on spiritually.

If truth be told, I’m more pissed at myself for having taken the job out of desperation. I have only myself to blame for selling out and giving my services away for “free.” From a six-figure income I allowed myself to accept a nothing-job so I could pay the rent. My anger towards her is nothing more than unforgiveness of myself turned outward.

I forgive myself and resolve never again to diminish my own worth. I forgive myself for getting pissed off and externalizing it. I forgive myself for sounding ungrateful, however fleetingly. After all, the experience has opened my eyes and cracked open my heart. Sometimes the work of enlightenment means having to see your wholeness through the shattered glass of unforgiveness.

"People do not seem to realize that their 

opinion of the world is also a confession of character." 

~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I had seen her once or twice before, sitting on a green canvas folding chair, the kind with armrests with scooped out pockets for beverage holders.  Once in summer I saw her under a skimpy tree seeking shade from the scathing sun.  She was a passing blur in my peripheral vision, old and obese, and black as a prune.  Her ashy gray calves as big-around as tree trunks left a dent in my memory.

 

She is anonymous to the world, a homeless woman, living on the sidewalk under a tree or the eave of an abandoned building.  Cars drive past her without slowing down, the same way I drove past her once in the summer and again in the fall. 

 

On Christmas Day I saw her right smack in front of me as I turned on Tennessee Street towards the 80 freeway.  It was a beautiful winter day in the bay area, sunny and bright, beautiful but bone-chillingly cold.  She sat in the sidewalk on her folding chair like a lump of overstuffed trash, covered by a dirty gray fleece blanket from head to toe, except for slits for her eyes.  

My heart broke. 

 

No, I thought.  Not on Christmas Day.  Not on a day when families were cozy and comfortable in their homes, opening presents, feasting heartily, heavily, indulgingly. But now I was running late for lunch and a movie date with my closest friends.  I headed out to Oakland with a humbling sense of gratitude.  There but for the grace of God go I.  I told myself I would come back that night and get her, feed her. 

(To be continued..)