The past few days on social media have been filled with photos and captions of last trips to the cottage, trips to resort areas, last days at the friends pool, new school uniforms, and all that lovely end of summer stuff that makes memories that last into the fall and winter. Tomorrow ‘it’ all begins again. Routines, lunches, programs, and scheduling…LOTS of scheduling.

For me, my summer officially ended two weeks ago when I started my new job. Although, it really didn’t feel like summer to me most of the past few months. It was filled with lots of ups and equal amounts of downs.

A few of the ups

My trip at the beginning of the summer. Any trip I take with B is a great trip, and this time it was amazing to see part of the US that I had never seen before, Oklahoma and Texas. Met some really amazing people had enjoyed lots of great conversations. At B’s high school reunion it was really the first time I was asked, “so what do you do” when I really didn’t have an answer. It was strange at first, but it lead to great conversation and a question that I will never get tired of answering, “what is the best place/favourite trip you have ever taken”. As I was answering that question several times in a 10 day period I realized that travel will always be a part of my life. Even if I did change industries, you can’t wipe out twenty five years of your life. It is part of who I am.

This year I had a Mirvish subscription with four of my friends for the first time. I love theatre, and it was such an exciting thing to be a part of. It gives you a standing date with your friends, great places to eat and seeing plays which I love to do. In July we had the final two plays Newsies and the grand dame of the season Kinky Boots. Even though they were two weeks apart, it was a busy time in the city, with the Pan Am games and lots going on in the city, and it was great to be downtown in the excitement. The two plays were amazing, and Kinky Boots, if you haven’t seen it yet, try to get tickets before it leaves. It was by far the best play of the season and a wonderful theatre experience.

Food, photography and blogging. A friend of mine, local foodie and social media guru invited me to my first ever media dinner event at the Sea Witch Fish and Chips on St. Clair. What a fantastic experience. I met a bunch of great people, ate great food, took lots of photos and got a feel of what it was like to start getting really socially active. Loved getting re-tweets on my tweets, likes and shares on my blog. I can’t wait to attend more events in the future.

Visiting my nieces at camp. It was a great weekend. A very hot weekend. We stayed made a weekend out of it, going to Peterborough and sitting by the pool in the afternoon, out of dinner and then up early to see the girls. My parents were there this year, and even though it was hard for them and it was so darn hot for all of us, the girls loved showing us around and it was nice to see a bunch of people who I knew from all different areas of my life. If we go up next year, I think we decided, skip the mess hall, set up like we used to do at Northland, under the trees near our car, and just hang out.

Having friends in the recruiting and consulting business as well as being part of The Employment Hub. I thought I had a pretty good resume before I lost my job (I was told by some executives), but of course it was very travel heavy. Until I started going to workshops at the Hub, I knew that I needed to create a skills based (functional) resume, but had no idea how. Now, not only do I know how, I am helping others create a new resume for their own future career paths. A new career for me, perhaps? Perhaps.

A few of the downs

In all aspects of life, you learn that your life is priority to you. The hidden job market workshop on the “hidden” job market went into great detail about working your connections, talking to people you know, make appointments. It may not be your friend that gets you the next job, but they may know someone. You may remember the commercial – you tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on. It is harder than it sounds.

I sent out a lot of emails. I went for coffees with people, I had lunches with people. I  tried to get together with people. One of the biggest obstacles was to get someone to see me for something other than travel. At the Hub we had to make lists of all of our soft (transferable) skills. I still want to know, how does someone get into a new field, when you have all the soft skills if you can’t get a foot in the door.

I also realized that I was fortunate and unfortunate in many ways. In 25 years of working, I have been gainfully employed for almost all of that time. Hearing people say, “I’ve been through it many times” doesn’t really help. A friend that I had coffee with wrote me an email the next day that really made me feel like someone understood me. He wrote  “It’s a tough place to be, and even people who have been through it don’t always understand or appreciate how difficult it is emotionally.” That about sums it up.

Having a theatre subscription was on the list of ups from this summer, but also on the down list as well. It is one thing to spend money in advance for the tickets, but there is still the theatre day. Parking, eating out, snack, etc. Twice in two weeks. How the heck was I going to do that. I hadn’t even seen any money from EI at that point. Both times I just ordered appetizers for dinner. That was all I could do. I tried to not let it stop me from having a good time with my friends. You do learn to put on your best face when you are in a public situation, I learned that as well.

So here I am. Not starting school tomorrow, but looking forward to the possibilities that are laid out in front of me. Getting back to work after a “summer off”. Looking ahead to the season ahead, and hopefully a lot of growth of business again in the travel industry.

There were a lot of lessons learned this summer. I am not really sure I want to share them all publicly or maybe over time. Thank you to everyone that did reach out this summer and was a friend. There were times that it was pretty lonely.

Onwards and upwards as they say! Here’s to a new year! L’Chaim – to life.

Live your best life

Lisa