2012 - new year, new me

Well, here we go again.  2011 was a year of change for me.  I made plans to leave the company that I had worked for since 2003 - I wasn't sure what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I knew this was not it.  I was working 60-90 hours a week and making decent money, but it was not about the money any more.  I was tired of being in an abusive working relationship and sacrificing myself for a paycheck.  I had created a LinkedIn profile over the summer and was trying to decide if I wanted to go back to school or how I would spend the next segment of my life.  At 42, you could say that I was having a midlife crisis but I think that I was just waking up.  I had been on stress meds to control the chest pains caused by anxiety and the facial tic that was becoming all too regular and I had had enough.  You shouldn't have to take drugs to go to work.  Even moving to Cincinnati and not working in the office anymore wasn't enough to end the physical manifestations of my elevated stress levels, and when I was told that I was going to move back to Indy and come back to work in the office I knew that was not an option.  NO amount of money would be worth having to listen to the drivel and ignorance that was spouted there on a regular basis.  Anyway, as I contemplated my future and what I wanted to do, my boss found my LinkedIn profile and went ballistic.  He fired me over it.  I have never been so happy in my life.  Funny to think that I walked around with my heart singing and a smile plastered to my face even as I knew I was going to be terminated.  I could not believe my luck.  I never thought that I would not have a job.  I have worked since I was 14 years old.  There were times during college that I had 3 or 4 jobs while I was going to school full time.  Not work?  I was happy to collect unemployment for a while (the HORROR!) and heal.  Lord knows I needed some healing.  I was broken.  I had just left Cincinnati and all of my belongings were in storage - there was nothing keeping me in Indiana.  I was only there for the job.  Great place to live and a wonderful place to raise a family.  I loved Carmel; it is Perfectville, USA, but it isn't reality for most and I couldn't get out of Indy fast enough.  I did not know where I was going to end up, but I knew it wasn't there.  I moved to Michigan with hope that a new venture would take off and with high hopes for a new life, knowing that there was a possibility that things would not go as hoped and accepting this with the knowledge that if things didn't work out I would just go home.  I was willing to take that chance.  I can't believe that I moved here five months ago.  Time flies.  I still don't know what I am going to do with my life, but I have some ideas.  The most important thing to me is to be there for the kids.  I worked so much for so long and always put the job first.  Look where it got me - medicated and miserable.  I won't make that mistake again.  I want to do something that I love.  I want to be surrounded by the people that I love.  I want to be happy.  I always equated money with security and happiness.  I was wrong.  Security, maybe.  Not happiness.  I've never been happier...and I plan to stay that way.