Wonderfully Imperfect

About This Site

i am a woman on the edge -- on the edge of greatness, of mania, and of wonder and amazement, all at the same time.

i am an artist and a corporate refugee, who has struggled and derailed and been really STUCK....and who continually dusts herself off.

here i share my artistic and personal journey, and how i became known as the "princess of getting up again" and the "imp-ress of imperfection"

it's a celebration of continually focusing on "being where i am," and never coming from a place of lack or "not good enough". it's a celebration of being "wonderfully imperfect", and you're invited!

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Getting Fired

(Some thoughts on VALUING OURSELVES enough to really pay attention to our lives.)

I can get really BENT about things I’ve screwed up for myself!

For example, I got myself fired about 5 years ago, from a good job.

You know, the kind where you work all the time, have company-paid phone lines in your home, two cell
phones, a pager, and you juggle calls on all of them, at one time?

Where you frequently wave to your husband as he goes down the hall to bed, while you’re still on a conference call?

Where you’re driving an hour and a half up I-5 to a meeting, talking to clients the whole time.....and when you get there. you realize that you don’t remember seeing the ocean on your left...AT ALL?????

OHHHH but I made GOOD MONEY.

Yeah, I REAlly did! But I spent a lot of money, in part, ‘cause I was so miserable.
Overspending was a (warped) way to be good to myself.

I could have quit. I’d thought about it.
But no, I liked the money.
I liked the freedom of being able to telecommute
(although when I now say “freedom”.... and think of the insane amount of hours I worked....
I realize how tunnel-vision-ed I was!)

Actually, something great FINALLY happened.

I was waiting for confirmation that I’d gotten a new job, in a different department.
I’d FINALLY acknowledged to myself that I needed to make some changes,
even though I knew some peers might say, “Oh, she couldn’t hack it”
and some folks would see it as a downgrade.

It was a lesser-paying position,
but one with employees (which I always loved having),
one that would be even MORE technically challenging for me,
and (YEAH!!!) one with quasi-normal (less than 60) hours per week.

YUP, IT WAS GONNA BE GREAT!

And then I got fired for credit-card abuse.

I really hadn’t thought much about it. I kinda told myself, “Everybody does it.”

But NO, everyone does NOT fudge their mileage.
Everyone does NOT sometimes put personal lunches on their expense account.

Maybe subconciously, I WANTED OUT.
Maybe it was my irritation at a job—and a corporation---
whose expectations of me had drastically changed over time.
Maybe it was my anger at myself, in not feeling I could set limits.

My client load had increased,
my amount of hours had become insane,
and I was finding myself overwhelmed at times by the increasing demands.

My peers and I had been told many times “We’ll be re-balancing client workloads,”
as resources dwindled and more and more high-level service issues with our company
seemed to find their way into the media.

But, nothing changed.

I know now that I felt “little things” didn’t matter.
(Bottom line: I knew better. I was a manager in the business: I had a fiduciary responsibility.)
I realize now that my reality was becoming, “I DON’T MATTER.”

JUSTIFIED? HELL NO!!
I BLEW IT, BIG TIME.
AND PAID A BIG PRICE: 22 years down the drain.

But at the risk of sounding hokey:
FIRING WAS THE BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME.

It goes along
with my way of thinking:
that, like it or not,
with or without attachments…
things happen as they do for a divine reason.

Often not when we want them to
or expect them to
but when it is TRULY RIGHT,
by the mysterious standards
of god and the universe.

I DO TRULY BELIEVE THIS.
i just have a hard time with it, at times
like when I’m struggling....

BUT I STILL KNOW IT

Posted by Nancy Vittoria Bello on 04/19 at 09:59 AM
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