The crossing

One year minus two days ago, I started to cross a desert. Wait. What desert?

We have all been educated, as children, then as students, then at last as workers, that when you don’t have a job nor you’re a student, you’re not busy, and if you’ve been kicked out of your job, you began a deadly, sad, depressing crossing through the desert. A desert devoid of chance, opportunity, happiness, life. You’re told to get ready for all variations of pain and depression, and that all might end one day, or never, whatever.

I’ve been with my family for 363 days (minus those 4 weeks in Montreal, but we could talk remotely anyway). Three (failed) job interviews. 12 online courses and the discovery of a whole new branch of computer science flourishing (AI, Deep Learning, Machine Learning, Blockchain). Countless books and e-books read, including two in french. By the way, the leverage of my proficiency on this belle language, from the basic to the pre-intermediate level, what was pursuit through live classes and those weeks in Montreal, where I also got more muscles on my English.

Not only that. I found out how delicious is being close to my family the whole day, after almost 20 years commuting (out of home from 5am until 8pm, 5 days or more a week). As someone told me, I could not imagine how busy is a jobless person’s life. Okay, there is also lots of house work to do, I really like helping the most I can. But there is still more. Doing my 30-60 minutes walk every day, which I confess has been matched by wife’s great food and other goodies. Seeing my parents too more often. Starting some projects that may turn to great initiatives.

So, this crossing is really like the desert. The first impression to whoever knows you, is that you′re busted, period. But the literal desert has plenty of life, and so there is in the life between jobs. Regardless of age issues, you stop and think how precious and short your life is, and this crossing means you’re living life at its fulness.

I know I’m still young enough to get a new job, which I really have looked for, and it will come on the right moment. Good friends have followed me up, seeds have been sown, and I deeply believe invisible energies are moving to bring me the best, at the right moment. But, while that does not happen, I will be living a great life, close to the people I love the most, here at home where I can alternate between machine learning books, French language activities, resume adjustments and job appliances, while I look through my window and see green fields, people, cows, the neighbourhood quarters, the sun and the blue sky. And I can feel grateful for that all. Because a crossing through the desert is a crossing through a pathway where you will find too much more life you could imagine.