Thursday, October 22, 2015

6 months

It's been six months since my job change.   I'm a highly introspective person who really cannot settle until I find answers to my own questions.

Most recently, I'm realizing how much this change was needed to help me peel back a layer of myself and dig deeper.  I knew, professionally, my role had become stagnant.  What I'm not sure I fully knew at the time, or at least consciously, was that my understanding of self had stalled too.

Being in a new environment, developing new relationships, asking new questions, seeing new interactions, and executing new strategies has been exhilarating.  Once again, I feel challenged, valued and curious.   I'm able to see the past with a fresh perspective.  At times I have felt "homesick" for my old team --- I have never regretted my move --- but have felt a longing for the comfort and familiarity of those relationships.  The ease of them.  The very same ease that filled me with boredom, on the best of days, and panic, on the worst.

But that nostalgia fades as time passes.  More and more, it's easy to wrap my conscious mind around what, I believe, my unconscious mind already knew.   It wasn't that I had a losing hand -- very far from it.  In fact, I possessed a winning hand. Was I throwing away the aces?  No.  Unequivocally no. I was desperate to start anew.  peace was only going to be found in that new beginning.  in this new beginning.  I needed to believe in myself again.  it worked.

This is a passage about divorce.  But insert whatever change you feel appropriate.

Many divorces are not really the result of irreparable injury but involve, instead, a desire on the part of the man or woman to shatter the setup, start out from scratch alone, and make life work for them all over again. They want the risk of disaster, want to touch bottom, see where bottom is, and, coming up, to breathe the air with relief and relish again. - Edward Hoagland


Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Poetry on a rainy Wednesday

I have refused to live
Locked in the orderly house of
    Reasons and proofs.
The world I live in and believe in
Is wider than that.  And anyway,
   What’s wrong with Maybe

You wouldn’t believe what once or
Twice I have seen, I’ll just
    Tell you this:
Only if there are angels in your head will you
Ever, possibly, see one.

Mary Oliver

Thursday, October 8, 2015

What you're doing

Pausing to take a moment to capture the SWEETNESS that is you, J.    Oh, little one --- how you fill us with so many laughs and so much love.   You're fully in the school-year groove.  This week you sang on the way to school "All the way to Jo-Jo's school" in this little tune that you sing when we're going to Grammy's house.   You run up the stairs, into the classroom and then as I open the door to see myself out, I hear a little voice - "bye mama!"  .....and my heart melts.

Today when we got there your friends all greet you at the door.  According to the teacher, they had been waiting for you.   "Where's Joe?"   I guess the classroom isn't the same without you!

The ride to school is particularly fun since the town is bustling and we see lots of construction vehicles, school buses, fire trucks -- all getting ready for the day ahead.   You notice everything and make sure I do too.  "Yellow delivery truck, mama.  Did you see."

You continue to teach us so much.  Presence, joy, wonder.