Short Story - A Second Chance - Grant Eagar

 

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Over the years, I’ve done my share of foolish things. Things I regret. There are many decisions I’ve made that I wish I had a second chance to repeat. This is one chance I was given to have a do-over.

 It was the winter of 2010; I was finally let go at Boeing. I had been contracting there for three years. For a contractor, it was a good run. I started putting out resumes and got an offer to work at Boeing in Philadelphia. There were local jobs at Hill Air Force Base that would take a few months to apply for and that did not pay as well, so I passed them up for a well-paying job out of state. I thought this would only be for a few months, and I would find a job back in Utah. 

We were financially stressed and felt we did not have a choice. I ended up spending the better part of the next six years working away from home. The reason I did not bring the family with me was that we wanted to have stability and allow the kids to graduate from high school. We finally tried to sell our home, but it would not sell. It was all well-meaning. The gift I gave my children was stability. Some of them made good use of it, some did not.  

I mourn for their bad decisions that I could have prevented. I realize, though, that over time they led the kind of lives they chose. They have had to deal with the consequences of their choices, but their pain is my pain.     

Fast forward to 2024, and I've been laid off again. This is a chance to finally do it right. I hold my wife's hand when we pray, and our prayer is that I can stay with the family and either find a job here in Las Cruces or be able to work remotely. Being unemployed is super stressful, so at first, I was willing to take whatever I could get, but I remembered my promise to myself, and when I prayed, I felt the assurance that this would happen. I quickly got a job offer out of town, which made us feel much better, but I wondered if the impression I got was real. 

I decided to wait, and after a month, I got a job as a contractor working remotely for the company that had laid me off. After five months of working there, I was able to go back as a direct employee and retain my benefits.

It is now 2025, and the company has laid me off again. I now have the same question: do I wait for something local or do I work out of state? I heard today a saying that half of the decisions we make are right, and the other half we must make right. I have also realized that you can learn from your past, but you must go into every experience with open eyes; things change. Situations are similar but not the same. Choices are never black and white; otherwise, they would not be so hard. If I went back in time and took the other path, then all the benefits of the path I chose would be lost as well.

The lesson I learned was that for many of the things I wanted to redo, I ended up getting another chance. With experience and hopefully more wisdom, will I make a better decision?