MOVED AGAIN!

Life threw me a curve ball.... again!

It’s been a while since I’ve created a blog, for that matter it’s been a while since I even picked up my camera. However, I took a bit of a sabbatical away from my camera and any sort of photography goals for the last three years or so. My time photographing the races at the tracks has even dissipated as well. Additional to my photography business which has been highlighted around the action shots of many Appaloosa horses racing to the finish line, I also had an occupational career that exceeded over 26 years in the oil and gas industry. My energy career seemed to come to an abrupt halt when the industry crashed in a downturn in 2014 thru 2017. My job position closed in 2015, and I was sent out the door with heart felt apologies and immense gratitude for my time spent there. It was sudden and unexpected. My district manager was even taken back by the upper management’s decision to make cuts within his unit. It was an awesome place to work, and I had so many opportunities to look forward to for growth within my discipline. It was even discussed that I could come back when oil prices were better. However, a year or two later after my departure, the owner passed away and the company dissolved.

So, I was out the door, living in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, faced with finding another job within an industry that was in a spiraling downturn. I read that there were over 440,000 layoffs worldwide, and of those 440,000, it was estimated that 178,466 layoffs were in the US. This estimate amount doesn’t include the many private companies that played a major role in the oil and gas industry who generally do not announce layoffs. From 2014 to 2017, the layoffs were coming in droves and throughout those years, many companies resorted to filing for bankruptcy and many service and drilling companies folded. Who would have thought that it would take three years for the industry to turn around to become profitable once again? Even today there are lots of mergers and asset sales taking place.

My career journey eventually brought me to live in Fort Worth, Texas. However, that opportunity quickly dissolved due to the industry downturn. Once again, I was sent out the door with sincere apologies. The stress mounted now that I had less savings to live on. I reached out to my connections, headhunters, staffing companies to only find that I was up a creek without a paddle to save my soul. A continual, resounding message of “nothing is available” was all I heard. I was turned down many times for office type work because my skills, experience and tenure were considered over qualified for administrative work. Being that I spent over 26 years of my career as a geological technical analyst, recruiters wouldn’t place me in a lower salary office position. It was so frustrating to say the least. Although, I was very thankful that my daughter moved with me to Texas. Without her support and compassion, I would not have been able to push through to survive such a horrible, deprived state of mind that brings doubt and thousands of other negative thoughts of failure and misgivings.

Three years passed, and during that time, I landed a few intermittent temp jobs that brought in a little income to help put food on the table. However, the money earned wasn’t enough to cover all my expenses, which added more stress to the situation. I had difficulty eating humble pie as I had always been the head of household taking care of my daughter. Now the roles were reversed. She was taking care of me! Even through the struggles of trying to survive, I soon had to succumb to the realization that bankruptcy was enviable.

By January of 2018, a beam of hope began to glimmer when I stumbled across an opportunity in Bullard, Texas. It was another startup company that had an interest in some of my skill sets to do some work for them. I agreed to be their contractor for as long as they needed, and I drove back and forth from north Fort Worth to Bullard, almost every day for three months. It took a heavy toll on my vehicle that soon resulted in replacing a transmission and a throttle body, a broken engine mount and a new set of tires. They soon made an offer and I moved to Tyler, living for the first time as an empty-nester. I came to the realization that over the 26 some odd years, of owning a home, to renting and moving four times, that becoming a minimalist isn’t such a bad idea! It’s amazing how much stuff one can accumulate over the years!

My “reset button” so-to-speak, has been pushed, in order to put my life back together again with new aspiring goals to reach. It will be a slow process as some of my hardship still resides with me from the job loss, and it will trickle through a few more years before I can close this chapter in my life book. Part of it is adjusting to a new way of living. Another part is realizing a career isn’t your life. Let me repeat that…. A career isn’t your life! Pouring your soul, blood, sweat and tears into your career to serve someone else to live a wealthy lifestyle is not living. Jobs that support your career fail for one reason or another. More often than not, a job loss can rip apart everything you have worked for in building a lifestyle that has brought you peace and prosperity for the time being. Jobs are a means to an end in a money driven world. However, having your family, and friends around you, and fulfilling your passions in life is really living. I was driven to succeed in my career, pulling feathers of innovation out of my hat, and mastering software/programs to expedite the work that was expected. It has been grueling and yet rewarding at the same time … until you get that pink slip.

All this has taught me to rethink what is important in life. I had three years to chew on it! In conjunction with pushing my “reset button,” I hope to have a new look to my website, renewing my passion for art and creativity through photography working toward building a successful and profitable business, while still continuing to help my colleagues in the oil & gas industry, as long as a job position exists, for a senior geological technical analyst.

Here’s looking at 2019 with a new outlook, living in Tyler, Texas - the Rose Capital of the United States!