My Year in Review (or, How to Have Nearly 3 Bad Years in a Row)

Lately, I've felt as though I look back on every year and say, "This has been a hard year." 2011, I guess, is no exception.2009 and 2010 were phenomenally bad years, difficult and grief-filled, with the loss of my Grandma Mazzaferro, the demise of my marriage, the loss of my Grandma Carter, the sudden decision to leave the agency I'd put so much energy into, and starting the process of leaving the state I'd lived in for my entire adult life.

I assumed 2011 had to be better than 2009 and 2010. I started this year unemployed, living in my brother and sister-in-law's guest room in Ft. Wayne, IN. Not the high point of my life, especially as the older sister who has always been looking out for and taking care of my brother. At the same time, though, I was offered - whether they realized it or not - the gift of grace. It was a true gift - living with them, getting to spend time with my brother, whom I hadn't spend real time with since we were kids, getting to know my sister-in-law, and getting to play with my niece Julia, who is so far beyond awesome I can't describe it. To be around love, laughter, shrieks of silliness, and squeals of delight was a gift for which I am forever thankful.

I spent the first 3 months of this year interviewing and freelancing, convinced that Chicago was where I was going to call home. And I nearly did. I had interviews with every agency you've heard of, and many you haven't. I wandered around Chicago, got a feel for the neighborhoods, did budgets, talked to friends who lived there. And not once did it feel like it was supposed to be home. I ignored those feelings and kept interviewing, because really, in the midwest, where else are you going to go if you're in advertising and have worked on Madison Ave. and want to focus on interactive strategy? And then, on a whim, I interviewed at Caldwell VanRiper in Indianapolis.

3 weeks later, I was the newest CVR employee, having spent the week prior to starting at CVR flying to Connecticut to finalize my divorce, getting all my furniture from storage, saying goodbye to all my friends, moving across the country, signing a lease on an apartment, unpacking, and trying to figure out what life in Indianapolis was really going to be like.

The next 5 months were, in a word, terrible. CVR was a good agency, but I honestly could take or leave it. I wasn't thrilled about working on healthcare accounts, and they didn't have digital components to them, and I couldn't figure out how a person like me was really going to fit in at this 30-person agency in the middle of the country. I wanted to go back to Ft. Wayne to be a live-in nanny/auntie for Julia, and just give up on having an advertising career. I wasn't sold on Indianapolis as home. Nowhere felt like home - I felt as though I was crossing off places on the map where I knew I couldn't live anymore: Connecticut, Virginia, now Indy. Oh, and I had these not-so-small tumors in my abdomen causing not-insignificant pain throughout my body.

I dealt with the tumors. And the insurance nightmare that comes from being recently divorced and not having all the paperwork in order before embarking on a $50,000 surgery. The leadership at the agency - for reasons still unknown to me - hung in there with me while I recovered, and they put up with me while I figured out where I fit in the agency, or rather, that I fit in at the agency, and things slowly settled into a routine.

So I would say that through August of 2011, this year was right up there with 2009 and 2010. I felt like when someone looked back at the timeline of my life, they would mark these nearly 3 years as "The Crying Years." It seemed as though that was all I did - cry, and try to figure out how I could possibly have thought I was the type of person who could start over at 34 years old, alone, in a city where I knew no one and didn't know how to make friends, and at an agency that wasn't suited to my skill sets. This all seemed like such a big mistake, and I was scared to tell anyone that. Everything I touched ended up broken - I couldn't tell anyone I was failing at this too.

The fall months were different, and probably redeemed this year. Tumor-less, completely free of the insurance nightmares and the ex-husband that came with them, I had a couple of months to step up and demonstrate that I was the same person that my manager interviewed in March, and that he decided to take a chance on. I had a demanding client to prove a handful of things to. And I had myself to prove more than a handful of things to. Otherwise, I needed to move on, to wherever that would be.

I have worked hard in my adult life. Yale and Oxford were busy places to work, especially in a dying industry. Chiat Day and Digitas were high-performing in ways that still make my head hurt. Ryan Partnership was maybe the hardest I've been expected to work, and for so little return and even less respect. But this fall was probably the most demanding work I've ever done - not always the work itself, but demonstrating my own value as more than an account supervisor. But here's the thing:

I loved it.

Facebook posts.

I saw progress in the agency. I saw progress on the teams I was on. I slowly figured out how to bridge the great divide between account and creative. I saw the direction the agency is going, and I felt myself wanting to be a part of it. Yes, I was tired. Long days piled upon each other eventually lead to exhaustion. But it felt great on a different level. I continued to have this feeling that this is where I am supposed to be. And this is what I'm supposed to be doing. I didn't come to this agency to change it. I came here because sometime about it felt right. And now I know why.

Living in Indianapolis still isn't great. It doesn't feel like home, and I'm the first to admit that's because I haven't made it home. But that's for another blog post. What living in Indianapolis has afforded me this year is the opportunity to say that although most of 2011 was pretty lousy, and I wouldn't relive it - just like I wouldn't relive 2010 or 2009 - what ended up redeeming this year was the one thing I never expected: this little agency I'd never heard of, and applied to on a whim, and didn't expect to get an offer from and didn't expect to accept the offer from, and 5 months in, didn't expect to stay at.

Family and friends criticize me for spending too much time on work. This year, on a practical level, work is what saved me. On an emotional level, there is no question that Julia and Alexa and Alan and Karen saved me every day whether they knew it or not. But on a practical level, a reason to get out of bed, a reason to keep my mind clear, to keep focused on something other than all the ways I've failed my parents, friends, marriage - work is what saved me.