happy weekend friends

it's been a month since i left my job and i'm in no hurry to return to busyness.  sometimes i feel like i need to be doing more, earning money, taking more responsibility.  the pressure to be productive gets to me.  people keep asking me what's next?  any interviews?  (i'm not actively job searching.)  what do you want to do?  we get really nervous about someone doing nothing.

this is what i want to do:  i want to be happy.  i want to figure out what it is i came here to do.  i want to clear out the stress, the pressure, the ridiculousness of the past (work) decade. 

if that's not productive, i don't know what is. 

this is my agenda:

• homemade chai
• finding a meadow
• reading love story (i've never read it or seen the movie)
• watching gymnastics and feeling like eleven-year-old me falling in love with nadia
• planning a camp trip
• wondering if i can make my own tent
• letting go and trusting
• a mad collection of delightful imagery
• laughing hysterically
• shakespeare
• birthday cake

after the storm

it's been nearly two weeks since the derecho blew through.  for me it carried with it fifteen minutes of terror followed by a moment of profound gratitude and then ten days of misery.

we were without power in our home during the hottest week ever in our town.  it was unbearable.  i couldn't sleep well at all.  i was immobilized.  i was angry at the news and the power company and my local government for their inadequate response and for then calling it something else.  this was actually probably the worst part--the positive spin.  i hate a positive spin.  i live in the land of the positive spin.  i was angry with myself for being dependent on a system, for being left at the mercy of the powers that be.

my friend graciel sent me a message that helped me reframe my experience.  she mused that the lack of power immediately following me leaving the job that bled my personal power from me was not coincidental and she gracefully suggested (because she does all things with grace, that one) that the time arrived for me to examine the shift of power within myself.  this opened me up to the exploration of how much of my own power is dependent on others and do i really trust my personal brand of power?

i thought about this for a good long time.  (do you remember the last time you had a good long time?  if not, turn off your electricity:  instant good long time.)  i just kept coming up with anger and impatience and frustration and the incessant feeling that i was robbed.  i was robbed of a respectful ending to a job that i poured my soul into for nearly twenty years.  and then i was robbed of comfortable space and time to grieve it and experience closure because i was having to deal with this storm mess.  and then i was angry that everyone keeps asking "what's next?"  my internal response to this question is jesus, give a girl some room.  the question "what's next?" feels like pressure and fear and failure wrapped up in a little box with a bow.

and i'm not ready to open that gift yet.  i am afraid that i don't know what's next.  my biggest fear is that this will all be another one of my radical impulsive decisions (i'm famous for them) that ends up proving that i can't trust my intuition or the signs or my inner voice or my most valued friends or the universe or really anything or anyone in this world and that i am not special or talented enough to be anything but a bureaucrat for the rest of my life and who. do. i. think. i. am?

as you can imagine, this is all a bit overwhelming.  i had the thought that maybe i need to just be with the overwhelm instead of needing to "rest" from it.  so i made the choice to experience the overwhelm and the fear and the questions and the unknown. 

and then i put a positive spin on it.

what if "what's next" is so scary because it's something i could never imagine before?  something so brilliant and free and beautiful and powerful that it takes my breath away and i wake up each morning in awe of my own precious life?

what if i take the time and space to begin to imagine and define and formulate some answers and options and trust that they will arrive?

what if i actually consider those thoughts that keep popping up instead of immediately dismissing them as too big or too out-there?

what if i play with possibility and trust and risk and transformation?

and what does it mean that this guy followed me around all week? 

good things

really do happen when you take risks and stand open in the space you created for change.

growing wild

i suppose the karma garden should be renamed the metaphor garden this week: 

it's quite full and wild and there are many bits unknown.

there are tiny beginnings that i never noticed before.

there are busy happy companions.

there are scraps of brilliant color inching toward freedom.

i find myself thinking, where did this come from?  it wasn't here yesterday.  what do i do with it? 

underneath all the wildness, it is grounded.

and it has everything it needs.

grace in the 11th hour

i'm having serious compulsions to speak the truth and say it hot in my final days working for the government.  a huge part of my original plan was to be able to leave this work that i have loved while i still held positive feelings for it.  but what is unraveling before me is just more of the same untruthfulness, gameplaying and backhandedness and it is intensified beyond belief.  i planned to exit with grace and good feelings, passing the torch to the next brave soul, blah blah blah.  for one second, i thought just maybe i will make it through without going down in a ball of flames in a jerry maguire moment of rage-slash-inspiration.

what i am learning is that i have had a death grip on my little piece of this system for the past twenty years, overcontrolling because one: i don't want blood on my hands i don't want a child to be hurt or killed on my watch and two: someone has to have some control in this crazy place.  as i slowly pry apart my fingers, the speed at which it is all reverting to mediocrity and complacency is blinding.  i do not play the lame duck role very well.  and i am saddened to my core that the natural momentum of this system moves right back to a pretend version of the work.   i'm sure it's like this in other fields but i just thought that a little issue like children's lives would keep some energy moving forward.

i have two more weeks to go.    i need to focus in on the smaller picture:  those few i have worked with closely who share the same love and dedication for the work of child protection.  they are and always have been my saving grace in this job.   they deserve grace from me.  and i deserve a graceful exit.

i did it

i stepped off the edge of that ratty old bloom and unfurled my wings. 

i am leaving my job. 

i'm a mix of emotions right now, so i'll write more later.

i just wanted to say that my blog readers...you...have been such a support and inspiration to me as i've tried to make this decision over the past three or so years.  thank you.  you have no idea how much it means.

yogaville, part deux

we were just there last week.  but i needed to go back.  so he drove me. 

i needed some spiritual space to ponder a huge decision that has to be made this week.

i needed to be bathed in sunshine.

and nourished from the inside out. 

i needed to see people who live peacefully without the attachments (or addictions) of career and stress and the burden of always keeping up.

i needed to be seen.

i needed choices.

i needed to think about growing something other than a program that exceeds performance expectations and comes in under budget year after year.

i needed protection.

i needed to breathe in possibility. 

and exhale fear.

thank you yogaville, for once again meeting my needs.

(see the lotus shrine on the left?)