Editing The Pen Addict 661/transcript (section)

== Drew's Personal Life Updates ==

* All right, Drew, anything been going on past, you know, six months in your life other than, you know, being the president?
* Well, I mean, I did tell you that I was at Waffle House last night. True. I mean, that's pretty cool. That's like we should just end the show right there. Obviously, things have been going pretty well for old Drew Brown if he was at Waffle House last night. No, it was funny. My birthday was March 20th and I hadn't yet done anything with my brothers. I have two younger brothers and they were like, Drew, we should do something. Drew, we should do something. And I was like, yeah, you know, something. And then finally we were, you know, going to get together last night and they were like, pick some place. We'll go out to eat. Where do you want to go? Is there some place that you've been curious about or whatever? And I was like, yo, I just kind of want to go to Waffle House. So like, come on, Drew. But yeah, we went to Waffle House. So, you know, we did that last night. We went to, we took a little bit of spring break. You know, my son was out of school. We took a quick, you know, just kind of two night trip down to Nags Head. So that was fun.
* That's a pretty popular beach location for folks in Virginia where I'm at. And then let's see what else been going on. I guess today we celebrated just like an early Easter thing with my family. My son, who is 11, is probably finishing up the years of Easter egg hunting, but he still wants to continue so far. So, you know, but it's just one of those things where we're just enjoying it while it lasts and having fun with it as long as he wants to do it. So it's an interesting situation in our family with, you know, a kid getting older. He's like the only kid in my family. So he gets all the attention. And, you know, once he stops being a kid, it's like, that's it. There's no other kids happening, you know. So it's been interesting. But no, all in all, it's been going well, you know, family-wise here on the weekends. It's been really pleasant. You know, my hobbies have kept me busy. There's a bunch of stuff to do around the house always. And, you know, it's warming up. So we're looking forward to doing some gardening here soon. Oh, gosh, it's getting beautiful outside. I am definitely liking this time of year. Yeah, I don't know if Georgia is as yellow as Virginia is right now. We have passed through most of it, I think. We have too. Last week, it was really bad. Yeah, but it's aggressively yellow. So that is the pollen count for today. It's just aggressively yellow. Nice. It's much better. So good. I'm glad things are settling in for you. You've had a pretty hectic, I don't know, I guess last six months or so, you know, professional. Oh, year. Yeah, year. Last year or so. Last year. Time goes fast. That's, again, with the kids thing. Like, yeah, it's going to go fast. But, like, the time frame of you, can you even remember, like, a month ago? Like, it happened so fast that all of a sudden, hey, here's Drew here. And now, uh-oh, Drew's not there anymore. Like, what was the process like, you know, from your previous employer? Not the leaving part, but, like, the first month after you weren't doing what you had always done, right? For so many years, you did this thing. Yeah. And then now for, like, I don't know, let's say a month afterwards. Like, what was that feeling like? Where was your head at? That is a... It was a lot. For a time, you know, probably over a week, I knew I had no job. My wife knew I had no job. And no one else knew.
* We were just doing... I was just, you know, trying to not really make a big deal out of it. Not, you know, trying to be the first one to talk about it until someone else kind of came to me having heard about it from someone else. So until that time, I just kind of kept it quiet. And I didn't know what I was going to do. I felt completely lost. I felt naive and foolish that I had wrapped up so much of my identity in my job. And I thought that it was... I guess I thought I was safe to do that because I really thought I'd be there forever. And then come to find out that it was not safe to do that. No one should do that. That's not a thing you should tie your identity to ever. No matter how long you think you're going to be there, how much you might love it. It's just... It's not a safe thing to do. And I did it. And it's a dangerous thing to do when you wrap up so much yourself in something that can be, you know, taken away. I mean, it's one thing to do that with like something you love, like a family member. You know, you love hard, you lose hard. But with a job, I don't know. I felt like I, you know, kind of committed too much of my identity to it. And I was kind of paying the price for that. But I didn't feel like I had any value. To be perfectly honest, I felt like having lost what I lost, I was now, you know, all of the relationships I made, all of the connections I made, all the friends, like they were only there because of where I was positioned professionally. I didn't... I thought all that was lost. I thought it was over. And I, you know, I applied to a bunch of different jobs. I, you know, I, it just, yeah, I really did think I was going to be there forever. And also like trust issues, man. Like, sure. I thought I was questioning everything. I was like, when you think you have a, you know, kind of handle on reality, and then you realize, actually, you know, what you thought you knew wasn't true. And it makes you just question everything. Like, what else don't I know? Or who else am I wrong about? You know, who else feels this way about me? Like, who do I know? Will I ever know? Like, when, if this can happen now, where else can it happen? It really messes with you. And yeah, that's where I was. It was incredibly difficult, especially those first couple weeks when it was just me and my wife. And we were alone in that knowledge and just trying to scramble to figure out where our life was going to head.