It Went Well, I Think

Yesterday Joe and I went for an interview. We haven't had an interview, for anything, for years. Before you jump to conclusions, this interview has nothing to do with work or our careers, but it is an interview that, if successful, could have a real positive outcome in our lives. We felt the pressure of wanting it to go well, and wanting to be successful,  and wanting, really wanting, to make the change that would come.

The interview was at two o'clock. We filled the morning by watching the last 2 episodes of The Bletchley Circle and then scrubbing up and getting ready. We didn't anticipate the subway being as busy as it was, and it was a little difficult getting a train, but, all in all, we made the trip with a little time to spare.

As we walked to the site of the interview, I talked about how I hoped they would have a good understanding of 'diversity' and 'difference' when we showed up. I meet such hostile attitudes from people regarding my weight (first) my disability (second) that I always go into things like this with wariness. I knew from the greeting handshake on, that I worried needlessly.

What I wanted to write about here, though, was the experience of being interviewed both as a couple and as individuals. While Joe and I are very different people, when it gets to the stuff we believe, the stuff that matters to us, and the way we look at the world - there really isn't a lot of difference. How we express ourselves or our thoughts is different, our experience that goes with our beliefs is different, but at the core we really are of one mind about many things. I imagine this is true of many couples who have decades and decades and decades and decades of living and working together under their belts.

It was nice to hear Joe answer questions and, as I listened to him, think, 'Yep, that's pretty much sums up how I see it.' I was nice to hear Joe when asked a question when I went first say, 'We've lived and worked together for years and that's how I see it too.' As we aren't often questioned this way, I think we lived with the assumption that we were on the same page. It was nice to realize that not only were we on the same page, we were in the same sentence in the same paragraph.

The folks who interviewed us were wonderfully warm and welcoming, they made a potentially stressful situation comfortable, which shows particular skill on their parts. And now comes the waiting. But even if we don't get it, I'll always be glad of the interview - it was a unique way of checking in with each other, and because of that, it resulted in kind of a nice reassurance, each to the other. We ARE in this together and we are in this for the SAME reasons.

Well, we hope for good luck and a positive result. But, for now, we go on as we go on, knowing a bit more about each other and a bit more about why we've been together for, next month, 45 years.