I’m not a person who really believes in gods or people who have passed away looking out for us or whatever. I don’t even really believe “everything happens for a reason”, though I do like to point out a silver lining when I see it.
Last year I made the very uncharacteristic decision to change jobs. I had all sorts of reasons to do so. Mental health, physical health, money… I needed to explain it somehow. When I explained it to others it always felt like I was still trying to convince myself. I really enjoyed that job and I care about the people there and leaving a retail job, especially just before the Christmas season, always makes things difficult for the remaining staff (and I LOVE working at the mall over Christmas… the decorations, the music, being soo busy all the time…). I tried to justify it in so many ways. I thought about waiting, doing the Christmas rush and applying to the other job in the new year. That certainly seemed more logical and would have made me feel less guilty.
But ultimately it just felt like something I needed to do, and for some reason I needed to do it right away, so I did it…
And a month later we got a new social worker with ODSP, who corrected some mistakes the previous worker had made (we told her multiple times to fix them, and she assured us she had). If I was still working retail, we wouldn’t have been able to afford rent. I would have needed to look for another job anyways, but the one I have now wouldn’t have been hiring. I’m not physically capable of working retail full time, and I’m not qualified for much else. I don’t know if I would have been able to find anything.
And then Covid happened. And I had a job that could pay me for at least one week off despite not having been there long. And after that week they had figured out how I could work from home. And I’m still working from home. If I was still working retail I wouldn’t be making anything right now because I would have refused to go back to work, making me not eligible for the CERB. Our landlord wouldn’t have given us any breaks. I don’t know what we would have done.
If I believed in something, I’d have to say that something was looking out for us. As it is, I still can’t explain my decision, but I am so happy I made it when I did.
