APRIL Showers

It's April. A month of showers, flowers and new beginnings. The squirrels have been attacking the bird feeders, even with their own food supply replenished...come on boys....let's not be greedy and major over-eaters.


It's been exactly 3 weeks since I left my job. Still feels a bit like vacation and I am getting tired of the queries about "how it feels".... it Feels Absolutely GREAT! I can not honestly find a negative about not having to get up and go do work that I had no passion for... very difficult to work where there is no transparency and one is considered disloyal for telling the truth.

I am extremely impatient with myself. In speaking with a former colleague a few days ago she indicated that it had taken her about 3 months to 'let go'...really? Going into the whole resigning from the position discussion with my loved ones, I did have that notion in my head that I would need time to decompress from that position. But 3 months? Seriously? I am just now beginning to really understand my part in the dysfunction...I should have left 2 years ago when it became clear that work styles would continue to clash and I no longer wanted to do that type of work. However I will not beat myself up about not leaving...the decision I made at the time was based on information I had at that time. Hindsight is always 20/20.  As much as I would like to completely let go...the process is out of my hands and I will need to find the patience and self awareness to compensate while I trudge the journey and path before me.

My brain is full of ideas of what I would like to do-from absolutely NOTHING to joining the Peace Corps...yes, even at my advanced age. Given that my spouse probably won't want to join me in the Peace Corps I can cross that off my list. School is also an option that I want to ponder and examine as a possibility. Supposedly, and according to those who have written about the process of writing, the actual doing-ness of it allows your subconscious to open to creativity....hopefully that will begin to happen. Of course, the discipline of sitting down in a chair without other distractions is also part of the process....hummmmmm, that means I have to actually sit down to "write". So along with creating a space to return to daily meditation - I also have to create a "writing" space...if God really abhors a vacuum that much space is going to get filled up really quickly!

MY Last Monday

I was on the train to work yesterday thinking about my journey into work on my LAST Monday and I started thinking about the word 'leaving' and how that has manifested in my life. I left home, I left jobs, I left men and husbands, I left college, I left alcohol, I left abusive relationships, I left the church, I left for work many, many mornings, and on this day I was leaving for my last Monday at my job with Mercy Corps. It was both thrilling and bittersweet, and I started to think about synonyms for the word "leave" - depart, pull up stakes, exit, go out, get out, move, change - these were some of the words I found. Interesting, change was one of the words - one of the words in our logo - Be the Change you wish to see in the world, from Ghandi. The change that my leaving is-is positive, and welcomed - by me. 

When I was considering this departure well over a year ago - it was about leaving the work. I did not want to be doing the work...for anyone. But I did not know exactly what it was that I was to be doing, but I knew that it wasn't the work I was doing. I had no passion for it... so I began to  look at all the things that I want to explore...writing, learning to speak Italian, learn to knit something other than a scarf, take a photography class, design a cottage garden, get back to a regular workout regiment - I welcomed the idea of having the time to clean a closet - sad AND wrong! I am tired. I feel the unblocking of my spirit beginning...I feel the creative part of my soul opening..it is just a sliver at the moment, but I feel it. I feel just a bit lighter....there are numerous people that I will miss come Monday morning next, but I will not miss the work. The work I am leaving behind for it is not the work I was meant to be doing....that work is still undetermined. I look forward to what the days and weeks will reveal in the search for change as I exit my current position.

mutter, mutter

 

Vacation on wheels arrives Monday...while I had the day off  I managed to get 2 yearly medical procedures done, a physical therapy session on my knee done - thank god those sessions are nearly over...1 last one on Friday (i think it's the last) and getting prepared to visit the doctor this afternoon...OH, maybe that's why I feel a bit off...being poked, prodded and generally man-handled by a variety of technicians that "aren't that into me" - ahhh, light dawns! I am not fond of all this type of attention...I am a lousy patient. True there is part of me that is competitive, as Anna (the physical therapist wanna-a-be - student) pushes me through my session smiles and chants "just trying to keep you interested" - and I don my 'I can too do this many reps and more' suit...using the equipment has me longing for that time when I can go to the gym and work out for 2 hours without the sense or need to hurry to get done so I can get back to work, get to work or be home with Mike.

Maybe it is because I discovered that I may have wasted time on a thankless task...
I just spent 45 min calling 15 companies to get Mike's mother's name/address off their mail-lists...only to discover that there is a Direct Marketing Association that is a One-STOP shop to do all of them...arghhhhhhhhhh - and this was after 2+ hours on Sunday of preparing the ones without 800 #'s with a mail request...it makes me nuts to think about the lost man-hours creating catalogs that are mailed out, the postage, the trees (heavy sigh) that are lost for paper that is then put in a landfill -  and the aggravation of pulling this stuff out of the mailbox months after she is gone. it's a wonder we all don't go postal at some point...where is the opt-out button for this?

My husband is in the process of driving back (see above) from Eugene OR where he has picked up our new(-to-us) 5th wheel...and will be parking it on a lot near his job...i have already warned him that I will not be getting any closer to it than next Saturday...we have sold the airplane (boohoo) in anticipation of this next chapter of our lives..."for when we retire and see "the good Ol' U S of A", ... or as I refer to it as  " to become a member of the traveling band of gypsies"..."early snowbirds", as we embark on a long held dream of visiting each and every state and soak up as much of our historical culture as is humanly possible...before medicaid, social security and arthritic limbs immobilize our brain cells with pain and discomfort. Every thought is a prayer...so erase those last 10 words and replace them with healthy heart, strong muscles and joints...happy serene thoughts and faith that all is well...!