Trusting The Looneyverse

Trust is something I do not come by easily. But over this last year I have begun to learn that I need to trust in the universe (higher power, God, whatever you want to call it) to provide what it is that I need and it will. Now there are two major pieces to this:

1. I said need not want. The looneyverse provides what exactly what I need in the most perfect way.
2. There is nothing easy about trusting, let alone trusting in the looneyverse. It can, at times, be crazy making. But the trusting or rather letting go of control is what is important. Thus my term looneyverse.

I was recently recounting to a dear friend about how a crazy string of events had lead my partner and I to where we are now and how there is no logical reason we should actually be at this place. She suggested that I write all these events down, if only to merely recount them for myself years down the line. What follows is a true account of the events that have lead up to where we are now and one of many concrete reasons as to why I trust in the looneyverse.

August 3, 2009 – N and I moved from Portland, OR to CA. One of the primary reasons for the move is to allow me to attend classes in person. I had started my doctoral program as a semi-at distance student. Having completed a term online, I felt completely disconnected from my peers and was questioning my program. My parents graciously welcoming N and I into there home while we looked for work and a place to live in the Bay Area. We packed the two of us, our three cats and all of our stuff into an external garage off my parents house. My parents live up in the Sierra Nevada Foothills approximately three hours outside of San Francisco.

September 27, 2009 – Curious to me, N decides to make a posting on Craigslist to put the feelers out to the looneyverse about who we are and what we are looking for in our new home in the Berkeley/Oakland area.

September 28, 2009 – Within 24 hours N gets back several emails about apartments available. One in particular stands out in Berkeley well within our price range and matching our interests in amazing ways.

October 2, 2009 – N and I drive down to the Bay Area to check out some of the apartments we have seen on Craigslist and the one that N had been emailed about. We wanted to get an idea of what was out there as by this time both he and I had been getting some decent returns on our resumes and felt that things were looking in the direction of a job soon on the horizion. We absolutely fell in love with the apartment N had been emailed about. The price was amazing, move in well below our planned upon amount. Now we just needed a job.

October 6, 2009 – N and I drive down to the Bay Area for him to go in for a three hour experiential with a potential employer. All things pointed to him getting this position. Both he and I believed this would simply be a trial run to finalize a good match for everyone. All signs pointed to us being able to move down to the Bay Area. At the end of this, N calls me traumatized by the chaos he has just endured for the last three hours due to a upheaval of upper management within the last 24 hours. He then receives a call from the outgoing employee telling him that they are now no longer hiring for the position. While we are both disappointed we resolve to the fact that moving down to the Bay Area is not going to happen as quickly as we would have liked and resolve to make the space we are living in more livable.

October 7, 2009 – We rearrange our living space a bit and begin to psychologically settle into our living environment. [Side note: It is worth noting that it snows in the winter at my parents. Alot. This was one of the primary reasons why we were so eager to get moved down to the Bay Area so rapidly.] That afternoon, N receives a phone call from his primary contact at the potential employer. She apologizes profusely stating that she had just been informed by the outgoing employee of the phone call she had made. She informed N that this employee had made assumptions that were incorrect. She understood if N was no longer interested in the position, but wanted to invite him in for an actual experiential. We were in total shock. We had both released our control on the situation and the looneyverse reopened the door.

October 12, 2009 – N and I drive down to the Bay Area again. He goes in for the actual experiential. When he picks me up he tells me that it goes really well. He really likes the place and is told that they did have a second candidate scheduled for the same thing the next day but that she was going to cancel that. She wanted him and it was not a matter of if, but when.

October 13, 2009 - With the previous day’s news we eagerly decide to take the chance on the amazing apartment and submit our application. We made it very clear that N did not have a offer letter at this point and that we understood if he felt this was too big of a risk as a potential landlord. I had my serious doubts as to the viability of our application. I could not imagine us being accepted without at least a offer letter. The property manager instead asked for a contact at N’s soon to be employer and offered to call her for verification. On faith, N gave him the information and we released it all to the looneyverse realizing that whatever needed to happen would happen.

October 19, 2001 – As the days went by, we had both pretty much resolved that this situation was not going to work out. Without a offer letter, it was understandably risky to consider us. We had once again let go of this as a reality, even reorganizing the garage living area to make it a more comfortable living space. That evening N and I took ourselves on a movie date. After the movie N checks his messages and starts literally bouncing. I ask him what is going on and he tells me we got the apartment. Needless to say, we are both ridiculously ecstatic.

October 21, 2001 – Two days later we have rented a Budget Rental Truck and are about 30 minutes from being done and ready to drive down to our new home when we get a phone call from our soon to be new landlord. He has cold feet. He asks again if N has a firm start date. N restates what we have already told him and then asks if he has heard anything different from N’s soon to be employer. N is told, no, this is also what they told me but wanted to make sure we had a back up plan in case it fell through. N reassured him that we would be able to make it on our collective unemployment should something happen, it would be tight but it would be possible. Fears were assuaged and we moved into our new place later that evening.

October 26, 2009 – N’s phone rings and it is the soon to be employer. We both think, great, he is finally going to get his start date. Instead, she starts out by saying, “I’m really sorry, but we got a brand new executive director and she wants the person in this position to be someone who had gone through recovery.” This was something that had never been an element of the job requirement previously. But being that this was in a recovery center, the new executive director felt this was important and had the authority to veto N’s hire. I went into a panic attack. All trust in the looneyverse flew out the window at that moment.

To be continued . . .