At 8 am this morning, in the middle of Olympic Avenue, in Los Angeles, on my way to chair a session at AAM, I fell.

I think this is a story about unemployment.

I’m not really unemployed, I’m underemployed.  I teach, I do contract work and I truly enjoy what I do.  I’ve been very happy lately and thought, until this morning, that I had gotten over the devastation of having my full-time position eliminated last August.

And then, this morning, I fell on Olympic Avenue.

I wasn’t badly hurt.  I quickly picked myself up, and brushed myself off.  Looking down I realized I couldn’t go on to the convention center without doing a little triage.   I turned around to walk back to the hotel and wash the blood off my knees.  As I turned around I lost it.  In less then 30 seconds I went from a confident professional, to the person I was last August, sitting at a table and listening to someone inform me that both my job and my department were about to be eliminated.

As I trudged back to the hotel I had a conversation with myself that I probably should have had last August.  I wailed (not verbally, this was virtual wailing) and gnashed my teeth.  I argued with the universe about my worth and made the case for Holly Witchey.  At the end of the whole painful process a light bulb went on above my head.  The physical accident had allowed me to mentally pick myself up and brush myself off from an intellectual tumble I’d taken 10 months earlier.

You know what?

I could not be happier that this morning, in the middle of Olympic Avenue, I fell.