Crash and burn. I feel that I have again crashed and burned. The last few months of 2017 were a very difficult ending to a difficult year. It should have been a better year, but it wasn't.
The year 2016 started off with a financial crisis, which was then followed by a health crisis. I stopped taking my insulin because I believed that I could not afford the prescription. I had been getting samples from my doctor, but that benefit went away.
For six months I sailed through Dangerous Ground alone. (Dangerous Ground is a large area in the southeast part of the South China Sea characterized by many low islands and cays, sunken reefs, and atolls awash, with reefs often rising abruptly from ocean depths. In October 1944, the submarine USS Darter (SS-227) ran aground on Bombay Shoal in Palawan Passage. In January 2013, the mine countermeasures ship USS Guardian (MCM-5) ran aground on Tubbataha Reef in the middle of the Sulu Sea.) Because of the financial crisis, my wife checked out, seeking to avoid the things she felt that she could not handle. I naturally felt forsaken by God to be in a position where I was dependent on a prescription I could not afford.
I expected to die, but was preserved, so I could not have been truly forsaken. The year ended with a promotion at work which helped me to afford my prescription and which also helped build my confidence. But the promotion was temporary, and as 2017 began, I felt that I was back to where I had been before it. At work I felt as if I had been shoved into a corner and forgotten. I also felt that I was running out of time to find a way to afford that insulin, and was headed for another financial crisis. Again I felt alone and forsaken.
But, again, I was not wholly forsaken, for when the crisis came, I received the help that was needed. It wasn't easy; I had to accept a generous helping of humble pie, yet I was blessed. My wife resolved to face her fears, so I was less alone. Yet I woke up in the middle of one night, experiencing a low blood sugar episode, and as I looked in my car for some protein bars, I found myself shouting at God for leaving me so utterly alone in 2016.
For all I had been through, which included the death of some friends and my uncle, my heart was broken, and healing would not come. I continued to feel forgotten at work, and began to lose some of the confidence I had gained from that temporary promotion. One more crisis loomed as my high school reunion neared and I wondered what would happen if and when I saw a a friend who had been shutting me out. As the days counted down I became more and more anxious, imagining many different scenarios.
Once more, I was not really forsaken. When I saw my friend, there was no confrontation, no ugly scene. While we didn't talk, our eyes met, and we found a way to have peace. Still, the moment was ambiguous, and I wondered if I should offer an olive branch through a mutual friend. The response came back that such an offer was not necessary. My friend was pleased that we could both attend the reunion, and I gathered that, while everything might not be perfect, there had been progress made in the last few years and that the matter was moving in the right direction.
In the summer of 2016, I lost an angel, an old friend, to cancer. In the fall of 2017, I found another angel, and a new friend, who I was able to visit in her time of need. Yet it is true that the byproduct we receive by giving service to another can sometimes be greater than our contribution – or so it may seem. My new friend, seemingly near death, recovered, and seeing this has filled me with a joy I cannot describe. But her real gift to me was to know that someone really appreciated what I have been trying to contribute with my photos and my stories.
I often struggle with compliments, finding myself deflecting them, or simply disbelieving them. But my friend was so evidently sincere, that I could not help but believe. I have tried, as a result, to be more accepting and believing of the compliments I receive. It has not been easy, but it has been worth it.
Though 2017 had its crises, on the heals of the crises of 2016, I have been blessed with help when I needed it, and with unexpected gifts. But broken hearts can be stubborn, at least mine has been. For all of the good, I need only go to work each day, to feel again that I have been forgotten. I thought about looking for another job, but if my only option is to go to a different call center, then I might as well just stay.
Working in a call center is a great way to feel like chopped liver. There are Key Point Indicators – stats -- and expectations to meet, and mandatory overtime is a fact of life. It was difficult enough before that temporary promotion – I was a trainer, teaching new agents, and it was one of the best things I have done professionally – but coming down from that high made it so much more difficult to take calls all day everyday. One reason I stayed was the hope of being a trainer again during the fall ramp-up season, but that didn't happen.
While I was stuck on the phone, my fellow trainers from the 2016 ramp were walking the floor as SMEs. My supervisors would talk about getting me certified to take escalation calls but then did little to make it happen. I would try to stop focusing on the things I could not control and instead focus on helping the callers; inevitably, I would get an angry caller and that effort would fly out the window.
I used to be better at not letting things get to me, at going with the flow, and taking things as they come. But not in 2017; instead I found that I struggled to take my own advice, which I had been giving to my wife for years as she struggled with challenges at her jobs. I thought, after all, that I had learned so much in high school and on my mission about dealing with adversity. Now it seemed as if none of those lessons had value.
My wife always said that it was easier said than done, and now it seemed that she had been right all along. The only good thing I can see coming from this is that, perhaps, I will be a little more understanding when she has her struggles. At work, 2018 has been more of the same, and I have struggled to find answers.
Perhaps, though, the ultimate moment of feeling forgotten came at Christmastime. I have learned not to have expectations about gifts, to just enjoy being with family and to view any presents as a bonus. But this Christmas I felt that I had literally received nothing. Many of the gifts given to both my wife and I were sugary treats that I cannot eat because of my diabetes. I received some apologies, but that seemed to be all. I tried to accept the apologies and let it go -- because Christmas, after all, is not about the gifts you receive -- and at first I was successful.
My birthday is two days after Christmas, and starting when I was a teenager it has seemed that it is usually forgotten. In 2017 it was remembered at work and on social media, and by my wife, but I found myself spiraling into a deep depression. The Christmas shutout came back to haunt me as I spent much of the day anticipating another birthday disaster.
one year my wife wanted to take me to dinner at the Mandarin in Bountiful, a really bad idea on a night between Christmas and New Years, and the place was packed. We went to Plan B, a restaurant in Salt Lake, only to find that it, too, was packed. In no mood for Plan C, I gave up and we went home. While I sulked, my wife ordered Chinese food to be delivered – she does love me!
Actually, there was no birthday disaster in 2017, except for the depression I had spiraled into. Once you fall into depression, it is very difficult to climb out. Again, my job is no help. I continue to struggle, and I have fallen to some of the temptations which so easily beset me.
But lest I end this post on a low note, let me remind you of the good things that happened in 2017. I received the help i needed when faced again with financial and health crises. When I worried about seeing an old friend at the reunion, I instead found peace – at last, peace! I found an angel who gave me the gift of allowing me to give service to her, and also the gift of a sincere compliment to my self worth. I received blessings that I had not fully appreciated before I sat down to write this post.
There is hope, then, even as I may be called to endure yet more challenges at work.
"And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of our faith in him according to the promise" (Moroni 7:41).
As an answer to the problems which face us, President Thomas S. Monson counseled us to "Look to the lighthouse of the Lord. There is no fog so dense, no night so dark, no gale so strong, no mariner so lost but what its beacon light can rescue. It beckons through the storms of life. The lighthouse of the Lord sends forth signals readily recognized and never failing. . . . The Lord loves us, my brothers and sisters, and will bless us as we call upon Him."
Let us remember the words found in Psalms 18:2-3: "The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; . . . I will call upon the Lord . . . so [I shall] be saved from mine enemies."
President Monson added that, "From the bed of pain, from the pillow wet with the tears of loneliness, we are lifted heavenward by that divine assurance and precious promise: 'I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee' (Joshua 1:5). Such comfort is priceless."
He did not fail me, nor was I ever really forsaken. Let us count our blessings, then, and look to the lighthouse, for there is always hope.
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