The most recent job I held for two years started out well enough and then deteriorated 8 months at a time.
The first 8 months were fun and exciting with a great team of people and an inspired manager. My writer friend said of my manager that ‘he is the kite and your are the string,’ guiding him and his ideas into creation. It was fun, fast-moving, and I was busy all the time.
My job was at a mortgage company, and in June of 2021 when I got the job, the mortgage business was booming. Prices for properties were out of sight, interest rates were low. There was plenty of refinancing and everyone was busy and buzzing. However, out on the horizon, storm clouds were gathering as the federal government was planning to raise interest rates.
I saw it coming, and about 7 months into my job, I refinanced my condo to be sure I could hold on to my amazing 2.75% interest rate. Around March, my manager called a quick meeting with the team, starting out by saying, “just want you to know it’s ME, not YOU” as though it was like dating someone who decided to dump you without warning.
He went to another mortgage company and took two young women from the team with him. The copywriter and I were terminated, and then offered an opportunity to move to the reverse mortgage division of the company. The option was simply JOB or NO JOB. That was the beginning of sending out over 200 job applications and desperately trying to get out of the company.
Interest rates climbed and I felt extremely insecure working with a smaller team of people who barely did anything. I felt like I was hiding out under the 30-year old graphic designer, hoping no one would figure out how precious little work we were doing. I felt like at the age of 64 I had literally reached the rock-bottom of my design career. I put out my desire to manifest a great job in either healthcare of finance – industries that value performance and reward it.
In January of 2023, I was had a scheduled surgery and was home recovering when I got several weird calls and texts from the mortgage company. Turns out the leader of the reverse mortgage division just up and left taking 75% of the entire team with him to another mortgage company. They had literally given him carte blanche and the keys to the kingdom and he pulled out leaving the rest of us to deal with the shock.
The executive team scrambled to figure out how to pull us up and out of the ashes. By now, mortgage rates went from 3% to over 8% and there was practically no work for loan officers. Everything was drying up and the cost to buy a home was about 30% higher now.
The new plan for the team was to change the roles for 4 of us in reverse from design, writing and marketing roles to account managers in charge of four regions of the United States. We lost any professional capacity to do the creative work that defined us. We were told we were ‘traffic cops’ or restaurant servers delivering things from the 1-person design team to hundreds of loan officers scouring the marketplace for work.
March 1 was my birthday – turning 65 – and also the first day of the new role. I did finally get a raise, and decided that at least this was better than no job. The first month was ok; not too bad. We four were very enthusiastic to ‘crush’ our roles and help these loan officers kick it. Second month, I really started to worry because there was hardly any work to do. Being who I am, I was turning over every rock and going the extra mile to ‘make work’ so I could substantiate my value.
By the start of June I was worrying every single day about losing my job. I would message my team and ask why I felt like at any minute the other shoe would drop and I would be fired. At 65 I knew only too well how many people were being let go before they reached retirement and losing all the promised benefits.
On June 20 my manager scheduled a 1-1. Again I messaged my team asking what they thought it could be about. Within 1 minute on that call with my manager, I was let go. There was a huge wave of relief. I had been incredibly stressed out because I knew it was coming and just had to wait for the moment to get the news.
After the call, I was so glad it was over. I would just figure it out from there. I had a few paintings going in my art studio and felt like I could breathe again and move forward now.
About a week later, I was in the studio and got a call from Fidelity that a job I had applied to in February was now newly available. They said the onboarding process would be about 3 weeks.
After ending the call, I felt some confusion about what the recruiter said about the details but figured we would be talking again soon. By the next week it was odd but I had no words to speak. I think I felt depressed but there was a total lack of connection to emotion and speech. This strange situation continued for weeks, during which I evaded my kids and friends. I didn’t want my kids to worry about me, and since I didn’t have a job and most of my friends were working, I just meandered through my long days. I didn’t know exactly when I would get the job, but I did know it was 20-30 hours working remotely in the financail indusrty, and deep inside I was so hopeful.
By the weekend of July 4th I was having a lot of trouble working on the computer. One day, during open studios, I spent 5 hours just trying to do something in an Adobe program. Finally I just gave up. Friends later confessed to being worried, but no one knew what to attribute my changes in behavior to. My kids, Eva and Jan, called each other trying to put pieces together of odd aspects of my language, cadence and behaviour. I did a pretty good job of gas-lighting them.
On July 20, my son Jan came home from NYC. We were packing for our annual Lake Winnipesaukee vacation. I picked him up at the airport and asked if we could be quiet in the car because it was otherwise too distracting. He thought it was odd. I was mostly engaged with all the regular things in my life – just not able to find words to speak.
That afternoon Fidelity called with the offer letter to sign and I officially had a remote job as a presentation designer. Jan was surprised at the tepid response to getting the new job and so we sat down to talk. He confessed his worry about whatever was going on and wanted me to see a doctor. I couldn’t see how that could happen within two days of leaving for a vacation.
I told him that I had a counseling appointment the next moring and if my counselor felt I should see someone, I would go.
As I talked to her she concurred that absolutely something weird was going on with my language. She called Jan and we decided I would go to the ER and see if they could discover anything odd, or whether I might just need the love and support of my lake family to come out of this stupor.
After a CT scan, an EKG and another scan with dye, the doctor came in to our room and blew our minds with the diagnosis of a brain lesion on the left side of my brain. I looked over at Jan as if to say, ‘who is he talking about?’ This was the most strange thing that has everh happened to me. I felt disconnected from myself on so many levels.
Jan’s reaction was so incredulous and fearful, and I hope I never have to see that look again. I just said: “Please don’t worry, we will beat this.” I absolutely, hands down believed it to be true.
I was then put in an ambulance and sent off to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston. Right then and there I was put on a new path in my life.