Just Regrouping

TheLimey can have a beer while coping with this event, but I must stick with (decaf!) tea. Dangit.

I am working on processing my feelings of disappointment and disorientation, and also on pulling some positive things out of this ("reframing").

1. We (as a family) did get a number of important things out of my taking that position, even if licensure hours (supposedly the main point) were not one of them.
For example, we wanted to move to this state and even to this town, and that happened because of the job. We even got some moving expenses paid. We live in a very nice neighborhood because of where I was working. TheLimey now has a great job that he can walk to. Limelet is in a very nice day care, very nearby, for which we were given preferential place because I was at that job.
I have made connections in town that can help to find future positions and resources. I did get paid for the time and even had some good health insurance that we used a lot; it's not like I worked for free (although, granted, postdoc pay is definitely not the same as "real" pay.) It will be much easier for me to look for work here while living here than in Michigan.

2. I was awake a lot in the middle of the night last night, and this thought occurred to me. I have been dismally picturing having gotten, say, 10 of the requisite 12 months of supervised work, if I had only known to arrange things differently. However, when I think back, my original draft was not in fact returned to me for edits until (I believe) late November. That being the case, if I had really jumped on those edits immediately I might have perhaps squeaked into a December graduation.
Thus the months that would have "counted" for licensure would have been January through May -- only 5 months. I still would have had to come up with another 7 months of supervised work somehow. Losing 5 months is less painful than losing 10 months, I'll tell you that.
7 more months means that I still would have been unlikely (to say the least) to have completed my hours and taken the EPPP before the baby comes. True, 5 months is 5 months. But it's not 10, is all I'm sayin'.