Freedom Isn’t Free

When I was pregnant with my son 19 years ago, I remember feeling anxiety about the fighting in the Middle East; I was worried about what kind of world my husband and I would be bringing a child into. Never, ever, would I have imagined that this is the world we would be living in today. That this is the world his generation inherits.

I have always known that freedom is never free, but somehow that knowledge never prompted me into action. I relied on the efforts of our service people to keep us safe from threats external to our country and I mostly ignored internal disagreements at our federal and state levels, leaving the decision-making to lawmakers and our representatives. I showed up on voting days, usually without having done much research, and then scrambled to read up on candidates and issues to make “informed” decisions. My excuse was “politics isn’t my thing.”

Politics wasn’t my thing for a few reasons. First, I was raised with somewhat of a “don’t stir the pot” and “don’t speak up” mentality, not because my parents didn’t care about the world or our country, but because they were raised with etiquette and social expectations where it wasn’t acceptable to to have an opinion or thought outside the group. At parties or family gatherings, we were taught not to speak about religion, politics, or finances. I didn’t even know what political affiliation my parents had until I was well into my 30s.

Secondly, I was afraid to speak up on any issue for fear of conflict. As an overly empathetic person, I wasn’t sure my heart could handle heated discussions and disagreements with anyone – whether it be friends, family, colleagues, or community members. I had little experience with debate and having a “productive struggle” in conversation where two parties could share opposite views, and still leave as friends. I knew it was possible, but I just didn’t know how.

And lastly, when you sit on your comfy couch and share your thoughts only with the news anchors on the TV, it’s easy to have an opinion about what is going on in the world. There is no ruffling of feathers, no discord, no conflict, and no hard feelings. But this passivity has repercussions I didn’t previously see. By not participating actively, I have allowed other people and groups to speak for me – whether their beliefs align with mine or not.

I also thought having membership to a political party somehow made me part of a solution to issues because I was on a team of people who shared similar beliefs and values. But that is false thinking too. I don’t get credit for being on a team if I’m sitting on the bench and not playing in the game.

I haven’t been a total bump on a log; I’ve spent my adult life trying to make learning better for children, having worked in the education sector for my entire career. I’ve donated my time as a soccer coach and co-founded a soccer club. On a family level, I have taught my son to value the environment and to take care of Mother Earth. And I have spent years advocating for my child’s health in a world that doesn’t care about the needs or rights of people with chronic health issues. While caring about these things are very important, I have come to realize for me, it’s not enough.

Over the last few months, I have seen a theme emerge within the US and across numerous countries around the world: our freedom is in jeopardy. Authoritarian rulers still abound (according to planetrulers.com, there are still 50 dictatorships in the world today!), with evidence of this in what is going on between Russia and Ukraine right now. But you don’t have to live in a country that is “free” or “partially free” to experience government overreach or authoritarian practices – just look at the recent vaccine mandates from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and many other countries where leaders enacted unreasonable, unethical, and in some cases, illegal restraints on their people. Some would say that parts of the US have had significant government overreach when it comes to vaccine mandates, too. (It’s okay if you disagree with me on this topic; we can still be friends.) In the US, there are many other issues and beliefs around personal freedoms and human rights that are being challenged as well. They scare me.

What can we do as individual citizens? We can unite our voices on social media. We can donate money to organizations that support our beliefs. We can find groups to volunteer our time. We can speak up to civic and governmental groups and share our opinions and expectations. We can reach out to our local and state leaders to engage with them on important issues. We can support our neighbors.

One of the hardest things we can do is to bring unity to humanity by engaging in dialogue with people on topics in which we have different opinions. We have to learn how to talk with each other, especially when we disagree.

The world is a literal shit show right now. I swing between overwhelm and frustration on a daily basis. But it’s my job as a parent to model what it looks like to be an empowered citizen actively participating in the issues of the day. Being civically active means that I can deliberately try to make a difference in my community, state, country, and in my world. I’m a novice at this, really. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, but I’m sure going to try.

Freedom is never free. It takes hard work, dedication from all kinds of people, and persistence to change the unjust things that are happening in our world and to make it a place where everyone can thrive.

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And while Ukraine remains the topic of the day, what tangible actions can you take right now?

• Donate money to a nonprofit that provides humanitarian aid to the Ukraine
• Join peaceful protests in your area
• Find a local nonprofit that needs help packing goods to send to the Ukraine
• Share your support on social media

Empty Nesting Act 2: Our Dog Introduces Us to the Neighborhood

In our new neighborhood, everyone walks. With dogs, without dogs, occasionally with a pig and sometimes with cats on leashes. (True story.) People also ride bikes, roller skate, skateboard, hike, and run. They kayak and paddle board and canoe and boat. They watch sunsets and sunrises and marvel at the nature around us. They look for birds and Monarch butterflies and signs of nocturnal animal tracks. People are out and about in our neighborhood!

When we first moved here, I’m pretty sure we had the new neighbor glow, as people stopped us frequently while walking our dog to ask how we were settling in. Molly, our Plott hound, loves humans only second to food, so she found this to be quite a pleasing experience. I on the other hand, found this to be a bit nerve wracking because aside from her sister, Molly hadn’t been around other dogs much since she was young and I wasn’t sure how she would act.

Molly thinks everyone in our neighborhood exists only to fulfill her need to be loved on, so when a neighbor is in sight, she pulls and yanks in hopes of greeting them. (I recently read that while her breed is loyal and loving, they are hard to train and stubborn. That about sums up Molly.) Oftentimes, the neighbor is walking their own dog, which Molly doesn’t care about very much. Basically, we’ve got an elderly gal who can’t quite figure out why puppies are so wiggly and some dogs have bounding energy. But she is learning to adjust and tolerate the different personalities of the dogs we encounter. She even has a boyfriend, sort of.

The boyfriend is a younger dog – a border collie mix who runs along the fence line of his property. They can only see each other through the wire fence, but they touch noses, sometimes he licks her, and then they run along the fence line together. Both are annoyed that the extent of their relationship is limited to a hundred feet. We don’t see him very often because he’s not always out in his yard.

Then there is Sunny, a long-haired dachshund, who stops and rolls on his back to show us his tummy a block before we even reach him. He is an absolute love bug and just wants his belly rubbed. Molly is obsessed with Sunny’s mom – a friendly human in our neighborhood who always stops to chat and give her a pat.

Sometimes we meet the duo, Neptune and Pluto, a cat and dog combo who live two blocks from our house. Pluto is a shnoodle doodle or a labradoodle – I don’t know exactly, but his fur hangs in his eyes, he bounces a lot like Tigger and he likes to sniff Molly. He’s bigger than she is and while bouncing generally annoys her, she seems to tolerate his energy. The cat, Neptune, has zero fear of dogs and walks right up to Molly, who looks at us in horror as to why this “wild animal” is being so friendly. We hold the leash because we don’t know if Molly will chase her. Their human parents come from an area where we previously lived, so we like the connection between old and new worlds.

Down the street is Tutti; one of our favorite puppy neighbors. She’s a tiny little thing with soft black fur from head to toe. I don’t know what the heck her breed is, but she’ll always be small. Molly likes Tutti, even though she’s a puppy. But more than that, Molly likes Tutti’s moms. We do too, and are excited about the slow development of what we hope will be a good friendship with some lovely neighbors!

On the other end of the neighborhood is Bruh. His Dad clearly has a sense of humor! We say, “Hey Bruh” and laugh. My guess is that he’s a Havenese, which is basically a small-ish-size fluffy dog that is the most chill pup you’ll ever meet. He’s not really interested in Molly; he comes to us for some scratches under the chin, while Molly goes to his Dad for some pats.

And then there is Wally. A very strong, bouncy, and wiggling juvenile black lab who gets all up in Molly’s face. Her hair goes up a bit and I can see she’s annoyed and about ready to tell him where to stuff it, when he licks her face and she then realizes that he really just wants to play. We try to play with Wally and keep him busy so Molly can get what she really wants…pets from his Dad.

There is one gentleman we call “Bob the Cookie Man” because he always has treats. He is joined by Mrs. Cookie Man and together, they bring joy to all the dogs in the neighborhood. There are two other doggie cookie givers in the neighborhood. There is a sweet older couple who recently lost their beloved golden retriever. When we see them, we give them the space to reminisce about their old pal. And finally, an elderly gentleman who carries cookies in his jacket pocket and Molly runs right up to him and puts her nose on his pocket. So embarrassing! It’s impossible to train the sniffing trait out of our hound dog. We endure her lack of manners with the cookie people.

When we go down to the bay, we sometimes encounter Cooper, an Australian shepherd puppy who loves to run. Molly actually likes to run with Cooper, but it stirs the wild inside of her she often doesn’t get to feel I guess, and she loses her mind. She bolts down the sandy path and runs ahead of us. If we are right next to the water she gets in and swims. Neighbors chuckle as Molly swims in neat little circles in the inlet, dunking her head and blowing bubbles.

There are many other pet and human pairs in our neighborhood. There is Arthur the German Shorthair and Francis the Bichon Frise. There is Loke and Tyson the boxers and Toke the Shepard mix. There is Scout the rat terrier and the super friendly cats, Blackie and Luna. And a chihuahua and rat terrier pair whose dad is an ornithologist and constantly dazzles us with his bird knowledge. We see Nina the pig on rare occasion and recently met Atticus and Hamilton, cats being walked by their college-age owners. We are a regular pet menagerie here!

Molly is becoming a bit of a socialite in our neighborhood. People I don’t even know walk by now and say, “Oh hi Molly! Nice to see you!” From blocks away, she recognizes the neighbors we see regularly and hurries to greet them. If she hasn’t seen one of her favorite people in awhile. she cries and whines, immediately dropping down to the ground for belly rubs.

I never imagined that Molly would be the ambassador to meeting our neighbors. That her love for humans would facilitate conversations and help us make new connections. While we still can’t remember the names of all the pet parents, we are so grateful for the warm welcome from the people in our crazy, eclectic little beach town!

Empty Nesting Act 1: Finding a New Nest

In our first act as an empty-nesting couple, we bought a coastal cabin in a little beach town. The intent was to downsize our property so we could spend more time outdoors doing the things we loved and less time cleaning and maintaining a house. We knew the property was “as is” when we bought it, but as it turns out, it is more “as is” than we thought.

The center of the house is the family room, with a 25-foot cathedral ceiling and an open beam design of tongue and groove cedar planks. It’s rustic and charming and stunning all at the same time. Almost all the other spaces of the house connect directly to the family room. Each room is funky, eclectic, and has its own personality, and dare I say, some of the rooms have more personality than we asked for.

The previous January there had been a monster storm – 12 inches of rain fell in a 24-hour period. This is quite a lot for one day, as this town is used to having around 13 inches of rain ALL season. During that monster storm we were informed that there was some water intrusion in the house. We could see it on the cedar ceiling in the form of water stains, and in a few places on the wall.

We set a budget for repairing some of the “as is” issues and began the process of finding contractors. First up – a new roof. After securing the roofing contractor, we negotiated the timeline for when they would be able to start. Construction is booming right now, so a 2-4 month delay in start time is common. With the rainy season upon us, we were able to secure part 1 of the roof upgrades in mid October and part 2 in November. Then, we held our breath, looking at historical precipitation records that showed generally light rain in October.

Late in October, with only half the house re-roofed, a gale-force storm came through. We prepared by stapling plastic on the roof and over parts of the house that we thought might be leaky. In general, our house looked like it was owned by the Clampits with all the plastic and tarps. The storm raged through and my husband ran around the house placing buckets and towels anywhere water was coming in. In total, he identified 30 points of water intrusion between the house and the garage. We cried. We called the insurance company. We called the mold inspector. We wiped up the water and turned on fans. We begged the roofing company to come finish part 2.

It was clear that it wasn’t just the roof that was leaking, so we rerouted our General Contractor from working on the remodeling plans for the kitchen and bathrooms to our new project “SOS”….Save Our Siding (and windows). This project entailed finding a framer who could repair the damaged siding and install new windows. It also involved finding a builder who could repair the rotted parts of the balcony and put a new coating on it, as it happens to also serve as the roof over our mudroom.

We got windows ordered, but alas, with supply chain issues, we would have to wait 8-10 weeks for their arrival. While we waited for the windows, we would board up or staple plastic sheeting over any windows we thought were failing. And we would have workers start on repairing the entryway and some of the siding.

The entryway project was just supposed to be adding a new roof and windows, and repairing the siding. But as the workers started to dig into that project, we discovered that the entire entryway was rotted down to the foundation. We boarded up the entryway from the rest of the house, and began that massive project.

Soon after, we learned that the siding on our house is no longer made. I mean, we could get a similar style milled, but it would cause all kinds of funky issues with flow from one section to another. Plus, the deeper we looked at the siding, the more we realized it too was in bad shape. No matter, just add that to the “to do” list. We got a framer who had the time to put new concrete siding around the entire house – a less expensive option than wood. The cost of siding an entire house? Just a mere 10 times more expensive than our original budget. I’m not kidding.

We are now in month 4 of the external house projects. We have had work crews here practically every day, Monday – Friday, since October. We are at the point where we are so close with the workers, we are ready to invite them over for the holidays.

Each day is the same thing….my husband gets up and moves the cars onto the street at 6:45am. The crews arrive at 7am, and park their work trucks and trailers on our driveway, along the street, and in front of the neighbors’ houses. The banging and clanging starts promptly thereafter. And this is where my work begins.

My first duty is to find a place to hide our cat in the house so that she doesn’t lose her mind from all the noise and our dog doesn’t eat her. She yowls and cries as if someone is piercing her eardrums until I find a little niche for her to hide. The most quiet spot in our house today happened to be the linen closet in the master bathroom. She spent the day snoozing in there, curled up behind some towels.

Next, we spend the day trying to work and manage “regular” house duties like laundry, dishes, and pet needs, but invariably we have to check in with the workers to make decisions as new issues pop up. Today’s issue was how to fix some wood rot that is UNDER the new balcony we just had built. That meant propping up the balcony with some studs to bear the weight while the workers removed the rotted beam and replaced it with a new one. Tomorrow, we get to figure out how to put flashing in the right places so that we don’t keep getting water running into the walls of the mudroom when it rains. Glamorous, riveting work, I tell you!

Between the banging and clanging and lack of privacy, we have nearly lost our minds. My husband is now setting up shop at a family member’s house during the day as he can’t get work done with all the noise. I move my work station around the house, looking for the most quiet spot, if it’s even possible. This includes the kitchen table, the mudroom, my son’s desk, and sometimes, even in my car.

We are emotionally and financially drained. The house is a disaster. We have pillow cases hanging as window coverings. I swiffer and wipe down surfaces daily. Our yard has been completely trampled down to accommodate all the workers and their tools and saws.

There are black specs in my water glass. I don’t know what it is, but I’m pretty sure I’ve been drinking them all day. (Perhaps 40-year old dust is falling from our ceiling?) I’m ready for the contractors to be gone, but we still have two months of work remaining. I can’t get a quiet moment to think during the day. House chores and work needs fall by the wayside so I can project manage this entire enterprise. At one point, we had 9 work trucks in front of the house. A neighbor commented, “It seems like you are just rebuilding the entire house.”

“Yes, it does seem so, doesn’t it?” I respond. We are completely, utterly, and totally in over our heads.

I know the house will be great when it is done, but today my head aches from all the chaos and noise and the money that is flying out the door. I’m thinking of having a sign made to hang by our front door, “Welcome to our money pit! Please come inside! Oh, but wait, the entryway is currently boarded up, so please come through the master bedroom to get into our house.”

Until the exterior projects are complete, I focus on other things. Like, how much I love this neighborhood and the quirky, eclectic design of the houses. I love that we are two blocks from the water. That we leave our kayaks on the community beach of water vessels. That we are surrounded by nature preserves. That the air is a lovely mix of sweetness from the fragrant flora and salty with a hint of marshy from the bay and ocean. I love hearing the fog horn at night and the waves thunderously crash onshore. I love watching the birds and monarch butterflies migrate through our little town.

Someday I will love my house again too.

Butterflies

Have you every had the feeling that butterflies are flying around inside you? It’s a fluttery feeling of lightness, almost like you are being tickled on the inside.

My first memory of the butterfly feeling was in grade school. I was swinging on a swing after school, day dreaming, and watching the clouds float across the sky. I leaned back in my swing far enough that really all I could see were clouds and feel a light breeze across my body. I have no memory of why I was playing on the swings after school, but I remember that fluttery feeling and the tremendous joy and excitement it brought me. I could stay on the swings all day! It was, perhaps, also my first memory of feeling blissful. You know, how everything falls away in the world and you are present in the moment at such a deep and profound level that time doesn’t exist?

I tried to replicate that feeling over and over again on the swings, but the butterflies didn’t always arrive! It was like there needed to be a perfect mix of splendor for me to feel that ticklish, lightness. As I got older, I found I could experience the same feeling on the rope swing tied up to the wise old oak tree in the open space beyond my neighborhood. Swinging out over a field of golden grass with the sun shining, the wind whipping in my hair, and the noise of traffic a quiet hum off in the distance, I felt like I was in my own little world. It was then I realized the connection for me was being immersed in nature.

Later, in my 20s, my husband and I lived in a beach community. We spent our evenings after work and many hours on the weekend in the water surfing. I discovered that the butterflies felt different there, out in the water where all you can hear are the birds, the quiet lapping sound of the waves, and then the boom as they crash onto shore. This was more of a zen moment – a quite, meditative calm where any trouble in the world fell away and it was just me and my surfboard.

Somewhere along the way I lost the butterflies. Sure, I found them from time-to-time, like when we were going on a roller coaster at Disneyland, or if something tremendously exciting was about to happen. But for the most part, life had shifted so slowly that I just didn’t notice the butterflies were gone. They were replaced with a constant ache. Not like a stomach ache of pain. More like a feeling that something profound was missing. There was a yearning there and nothing I did resolved it.

When we moved out to a small valley town, we started to spend a little bit of time up in Yosemite. Yosemite offered a LOT of butterflies! I came to realize that I felt the most whole when I was completely surrounded by nature. The problem was I just couldn’t sort out how to be in nature all the time and be in society, where family, friends, my son’s school, and my job was. It was incongruent that my best “me” was when I was enveloped in wild spaces beyond practical living.

So for years, I dreamed of moving off the grid, I researched how we could have our own little plot of land in the middle of nowhere, and what making a living could look like in a more secluded setting. But it just wasn’t realistic with raising an extroverted child who needed connections with friends, family, sports, and school.

My husband and I made a pact that after our son graduated from high school, we would find a place where we could literally step out of the front door and be surrounded by nature, but still connected to modern society. I didn’t think it was possible. Until it was.

We moved to a little coastal community a few months after our son graduated from high school. We live two blocks from a bay and four blocks from two nature preserves. We have miles and miles of beaches to choose from, enumerate mountain peaks to climb, trails to hike, and a community of like-minded nature lovers to share it with.

Today, I find the butterflies all the time! In fact, in the afternoons, we walk our dog down to the bay, take in the salt air, watch the birds on wing overhead while the sun sets, leaving a glow of liquid gold across the water. Or we go down to walk on the beach, watch the waves crash, and feel the cold water between our toes as the tide pushes and pulls the water up and down the sand. Magical!

The butterflies I feel today are more a feeling of gratitude, of having a deep appreciation that Mother Nature could be so beautiful and that I get to live HERE among all of her beautiful creatures.

Funny, we chose a beach town right in the path of the Monarch butterfly migration. Or perhaps….it chose us.

Hello, Is There Anybody Out There?

New Blogging Me: Hello? Old Blogging Me, are you there?

Old Blogging Me: Yes, still here.

New Blogging Me: Where the hell have you been? You haven’t written anything for, like, years!

Old Blogging Me: Actually, I did write quite a bit! I just didn’t get around to publishing any of my blog posts, and now they feel, well, old.

New Blogging Me: Yeah, I went back and re-read everything your wrote and holy cow! So much has changed in my…our life since you started this almost a decade ago.

Old Blogging Me: Has it now?

New Blogging Me: Yes, and well, on that topic of change, I think we need to talk about something really serious.

Old Blogging Me: You mean, like work and home life? We really struggle with balancing those!

New Blogging Me: Yeah, we can talk about work and home life. But there’s something else. I’m moving forward…and that means I’ll be writing new things. And it won’t always be about work-life balance. It might be about other topics.

Old Blogging Me: That’s great! I can definitely help you write those new things….hmmmm, you might have to help me learn about our life today.

New Blogging Me: Well that’s just it. You can’t help me. Too much time has passed. I’ll be moving forward without you. I’m a different person now. But don’t worry, every now and then I’ll go into the drafts of all the stuff you wrote and never published, and I’ll pull out a few nuggets and post them here.

Old Blogging Me: I’m feeling a little bit sad. So much of our life is just sitting there in the drafts! So much of our life story wasn’t told!

New Blogging Me: It’s okay to feel sad. But it’s time to move on. And those stories will be woven into posts moving forward! It’s just that I have a new perspective from the last few years that you just don’t have.

Old Blogging Me: Change is hard.

New Blogging Me: It sure as hell is.

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I have been writing since I could put a pencil to paper. In my younger years it was fanciful stories. As a teenager it was poetry, dripping with angst and an old soul’s view of the world stuck in an awkward teen body. In college, I pretty much stopped writing for my own pleasure because I was writing papers about things like the Iliad, the Oydessy, and two of my favorites – The Bluest Eye (Toni Morrison) and The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood). I didn’t pick up writing for pleasure again until 2010 when I started writing little quips on Facebook, commenting on the hilarity of my work life. But with the encouragement of friends who said I should write a blog based on all the crazy things I experienced in my work life, I finally did and in 2013 I launched Falling Off the Corporate Ladder, which feels like a lifetime ago!

I have been writing in fits and starts since then; when I’m feeling inspired or introspective, the typing fingers crash down on the keyboard with fervor and out come more blog posts. And then, life gets in the way and this little corner of the world sits and sits and sits, well, in the corner.

Several chapters of my life in the last few years have already been written – chapters about love, unimaginable loss, joy, gratitude, self reflection, personal growth – and all before we landed smack-dab in the middle of a pandemic (that seems to be going on forever)! I’m in another “growth spurt” in my life, so it feels timely to pick this up again.

The title of this blog, Falling Off the Corporate Ladder, may be misleading as to what I plan to write about, because it won’t focus solely on work-life balance. But at this point, I don’t know what I want to call this next chapter, so I’ll hang on to it for awhile.

Also, I know that the URL having “wordpress” in it is incredibly annoying to type, but it’s a whole thing to strip it out, so maybe I’ll fix it another day when I decide to make the time.

Until then, I hope you’ll forgive me for the inconvenience of having a LONG URL and come back each week to ask me questions, comment on my view of the world, and share your own stories. Also, I hope that blogging isn’t totally dead with podcasts and vlogging all the rage nowadays. I guess we’ll see!

Life, Unfolds

Almost two years ago I left my high-level, high-stress job to take a sabbatical. I had hopes and dreams of traveling on a journey that would lead me to a more meaningful life; one of purpose and joy and a strong sense of direction.

When I left my job, I left behind a huge amount of responsibility. I stopped making a 7-8 hour daily soul-crushing commute. I stopped spinning mentally at night, trying to process all of which I was responsible for, both at work and at home.  I stopped cramming tasks into every minute of every day. I gave up reports and deadlines and board meetings and revenue goals. My suits and heels gave way to sweats and ponytails.

And inasmuch as there was a last day of work, that doesn’t mean I suddenly shut it all off. Instead, it took me about a year and a half to unwind. And in those moments, there was a lot of darkness. That’s because taking a sabbatical, while we may want it to be vision quest or a journey to enlightenment, means that you are now unemployed, making no money, and trying to figure out what you want to be when you grow up, while still maintaining all your life responsibilities. That felt terrifying and limiting.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like my husband and I didn’t plan for this. We saved money and made sure that we could live on one income. We reevaluated where we were spending our dollars and cut out a lot of nonsense spending. You know, when you buy something just because you’re standing right there in front of the product and you have a moment of where you think you need it. Interestingly, among our friends and family we’ve been known to be the “frugal” family; and yet, we found lots of places to cut back.

This cutting back was psychologically more difficult than I thought it would be because leaving a job is losing a job, even though I chose to do it. And leaving a job is not having an income, which I had correlated so closely to my self-worth and independence as a woman. I didn’t know that I would mourn the loss of my career, my job, and my income. But when it hit all at once, it became a full-blown existential crisis.

I went into the sabbatical with a goal: to explore the most fundamental questions of our existence: Who am I? and What is my purpose on this planet? And I had told myself there was an explicit outcome for this adventure: get a job you love doing. I thought it was mostly going to be a glorious journey of self discovery, you know, puppies and kittens and unicorns. I didn’t know it would be quite the opposite: trying to build oneself back up after tearing down the job, the title, the responsibilities, the money, and the ego.

I had to unlearn all my bad habits. To rethink how I wanted to be as a worker, a wife, a mother, a friend, and all the other roles I play. I had to deconstruct myself. All my patterns, my beliefs, my behaviors. And as I was deconstructing the old me, I was trying to figure out the new me. And once I got to the bottom of it all, I realized I had no sense of direction and I didn’t know what I wanted to do.

I wasn’t sitting around all day eating chocolate, but maybe I should have been. Instead, I kept uber busy. I trained and ran a 24-hour relay race. I started a non-profit soccer club with friends. I acted as the “GC” to remodel a bathroom. And I projected managed the relaying of new tile on half the floors of our house, when our house was flooded.

I got anxious and overwhelmed that I didn’t know what to do next. So I started to take notes on my absolutes. What did I absolutely want out of my next job? What were things I wasn’t willing to give up? That helped me during my job search and interview process, even though I didn’t have a strong sense of the job I wanted to have.

Far down the sabbatical road, I realized it wasn’t really about the job. It was about my life in its entirety. How did I want to spend the hours of my day? How did I want to interact with family and friends? How did I want to show up for my family? And how did I want to show up for myself?

My biggest discovery was that life’s most fundamental questions are difficult to answer because (a) there is no wrong answer and (b) society, family, and friends make you think there is a correct answer. I found myself in a state of mental anguish trying to please myself and the rest of the world. (By the way – it’s not possible, and most people choose to succumb to their outside influences – their families, their friends, their church, their culture, whoever in their lives they align themselves with by choice or default.)

So, after months and months of soul searching I found a job with a small non-profit. The commute is pastoral, meaning I drive through hills and green grass and cows. Through trees and horses and barns. It’s a quiet, soul-pleasing commute. When I get to work, the pace is slow but steady. The responsibilities are reasonable. But there are humans involved, as there are in any company, so we have our problems. And there are revenue goals. Those never go away. But the work serves a purpose bigger than me. And the people are driven on most days to be doers and givers to our community. The office? It shuts down at 5pm. Everyone goes home to their lives outside of work, including me.

I’m working hard at being really intentional in my work. At not falling back into old habits and ways of doing things. I’m protecting my work schedule from the kind of meetings my old life demanded of me. Team meeting? Once a month, not once a week. Leadership meeting? Every other week, instead of every Monday. Planning meetings? Now they are unstructured moments where I grab a colleague for a few minutes to help me think through something. This lack of structure requires a significant amount of self discipline to not over-schedule myself. But I know the intention allows for creativity and deep, thoughtful musings that will serve my organization well.

————

I have come to the realization that there isn’t a new me, per se. Instead, it’s that I have peeled back all the unnecessary, self-destructive layers. I have removed what no longer serves me. What hurts me or binds me. And it’s a continuing process. What have I learned throughout this sabbatical journey? Life, unfolds.

Letting Go and Moving Forward

One thing I have learned through this process of separating from the Rat Race and contemplating a more meaningful life and career for myself is to get rid of things that are no longer serving a purpose or bringing me joy.

Oh wait, this may be a direct quote from a book I read on minimalism, but it seems equally appropriate in speaking about my career!

This means that it is time to let go of the unrealistic expectations I have placed on myself.

This has been no easy process. The Universe and my husband in equal measure have been pushing me along, sometimes begrudgingly, to figure out my own Truth: I don’t want to go back to Corporate America. That is not to say I am burning a bridge; rather, it’s just that for this moment in my life, decidedly it is not the best fit for me anymore.

Part of it is the commute: a soul crushing 3-4 hours into the City and a 2-3 hour return. This means I would miss all meals with my family and I would have a measly hour each evening to spend with my kid before bedtime. And that gives me zero time with my husband, let alone friends, family, and our pets.

My husband and I moved out to the country 5½ years ago to seek a slower-paced, quieter life. And boy we got that! People don’t move fast around here and we have learned to love it. If you call a contractor, it may take them three days or even a week to get back to you. If you are expecting the lines at the stores to move quickly, they won’t. Talking to your patrons is as important as the sale itself. People look you in the eye, say hello, and talk about the weather. They ask about your parents, remark on how the high school sports teams are doing, and believe that community is more important than what car you drive or the brand of clothes on your back.

It’s not Mayberry. Far from it. We’ve got problems with homeless and druggies and a lot of poverty. We have run-down areas of town, gangs, and crime. But we also have wide open spaces, Mother Nature, homemade everything, and stars that you can see at night.

It’s the right place for us and the right place to inspire in me a new Dream. Except that I’ve been ignoring and running away from all the opportunities that have presented themselves to me.

Part of my struggle with letting go and moving forward is the expectation I feel from society to be seated at the board room table. To shatter the glass ceilings of oppression. And to pave new pathways for women (and other minorities) to balance out corporations more evenly.

Somewhere along the way I came to believe that if I chose a different pathway, one that doesn’t include corporate offices and acquisitions and building and scaling and contributing to a top line and bottom line, somehow I was letting all womankind down, and failing to contribute as a productive citizen of the world.

But in my heart I know that it just isn’t true. So now, how to get my head and my heart to connect?

And so, with this overwhelming sense of guilt, I have been stuck in an “ever-tightening spiral of [my] own thoughts,” (John Green, Turtles All the Way Down). Thoughts that made me believe I was only valuable if I was doing a high-level job and bringing in lots of dough.

So, in the depths of this spiral, I applied for a position in my Old World. It is familiar to me. I know how it works. And I know how to be successful in it.

For this particular position, let’s just call it Chief Underwater Basket Weaver for fun, I had five interviews with the start-up company spanning over a four-month period.

The entire process has been exceedingly slow.

The Universe is turning on light bulbs that I’m not seeing illuminate.

The communication strings have been awkward.

Hello?! Are you getting it yet?

And then, hearing only crickets after the last interview — a three-hour long “working session” — the crickets became the straw that broke the camel’s back. The last interview, I thought, would be the final one. I mean, after five interviews, don’t you know if a person is a good fit? I’m so over it.

Finally! She get’s it! (Sorry, camel.)

And so, it’s time for me to move forward into a new realm: the realm of possibility. It has no expectations of me, no structure, and asks only that I be true to myself.

As soon as I let go of this expectation, my mind quite literally started opening up and acknowledging the little corners of my mind where I silently and secretly have been keeping ideas for my new pathway.

It’s time to start talking about them and giving them a voice. It’s time to mull and consider them, share the ideas with friends and family, and test them out.

I think I need a new file folder on my computer to start collecting articles, anecdotes, and ideas.

Hmm, but what to call it?

 

Know When to Walk Away

There are times in our lives when a simple action can change everything: walk away. It may be from an unhealthy relationship, a job that stifles your creativity, or in my case, bad habits that waste your precious time.

So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what is holding me back in life, why it seems like I never find the time to do things that interest me, and why I often feel like I’m missing out on something significant.

Like, why don’t I ever pick up my paint brush? (I’m a terrible painter, but who cares!) Or what about that half-finished quilt that’s been sitting in my drawer for well, 15 years? Why haven’t I taken that wilderness medicine course that interests me?

Aside from hunkering down to write now and again, the list of hobby-related things I’m not doing is pretty long.

I didn’t use to be this way. In fact, many moons ago when my husband and I lived near the beach, I would pick up my watercolors, hop on my bike, and ride down to the cliffs where I would sit for hours painting flowers, the surf, or whatever caught my eye. Sometimes, I would just sit and marvel at Mother Nature. Other times I would people watch – especially when the community’s favorite Naked Man would roll on by on skates, wearing nothing more than a thong, but usually having painted his body in some kind of dramatic way (like the American flag, or a bird, or well, just about anything).

Or on rainy days I would pick up my sewing machine and some fabric remnants and sew together a quilt. I spent hours and hours on end, pinning and sewing together bits of fabric (who needs a pattern!), sometimes listening to the radio but more often than not quilting in silence.

Somewhere along the way I became scatter-brained, unable to hold together a single thought, unable to maintain a task for a long period of time, and constantly feeling anxious when I tried to stay focused on something. This made me incredibly angry and frustrated, as I felt like something was holding me hostage in my own life.

I’ve been ruminating on the cause of this angst for months and it wasn’t until this weekend that I figured it out.

The other day while driving, my husband and I were talking with our son about how the lottery works, and that somehow got us onto discussing how stock trading works, and then suddenly we found ourselves singing Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler. While we couldn’t remember all stanzas of the song, we sure knew the chorus and happily (and off key) sang:

You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run
You never count your money
When you’re sittin’ at the table
There’ll be time enough for countin’
When the dealin’s done.

After our Sunday drive, the line, Know when to walk away, kept playing over and over in my head, like a mystic message for me to interpret. So I decided to go back and read all of the lyrics and lo and behind, there was a message there for me!

Every gambler knows
That the secret to survivin’
Is knowin’ what to throw away
And knowin’ what to keep

I’m not a big The Universe Is Talking To Me person, but the message came through quite clearly, and it confirmed what I had been thinking for months: my technology and social media usage are sucking the quality of life out of me and it’s time to throw them away.

And so, for my first magic trick, I decided to make Facebook disappear. It wasn’t because of the recent massive security breach. It wasn’t because of all the political banter and bullying (although that influenced it). No, it was because my little check-ins and multiple-times-per-day perusing of Facebook had caused me to become mentally fractured, listless, and unable to concentrate.

It’s not just Facebook. It’s all social media and technology toys we use to entertain (and even inform) ourselves in all those little moments throughout the day: Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime. Really, it’s any apps you have on your phone that you go to throughout the day when you really should or could be doing something constructive with your time. (Or, doing nothing at all, so as to give your brain a rest!)

Excessive use of technology and social media have become a drug of choice for Americans. Don’t agree with me? Take a look at your own use. Aside from work or school, when do you use it? How often? Which sites or apps? If you are on technology for more than an hour a day for non work or school related purposes, in my unofficial opinion, you’re addicted.

Technology is holding you back from trying new things, having healthy relationships, exercising, sitting in silence to marvel at a sunset, making a home-cooked meal, snuggling with your kids and reading a book together, enjoying a glass of wine with a friend, or noodling on which life adventure you want to explore next.

For a person who didn’t think she had a technology and social media addiction, I have thought about going on to Facebook to see what’s going on with my “friends” no less than ten times already today, and we’re only at 1pm. 

I haven’t disconnected from my Instagram or Pinterest accounts yet, as I think I use them more reasonably and less frequently, but I guess we’ll see.

I’m making progress in other areas though, as I no longer take my computer into my room at night to watch Nextflix, (except for falling off the wagon a few times recently). Instead, I read real books before bed, the kind with pages that feel good between your fingertips.

And for my next magic act, I’m going to figure out how to make my hobbies reappear. Or maybe I will find new ones. I’m going to work on stringing an entire thought together. And then another one. Until I can stay in the moment for hours on end, without fracturing my thinking with useless distractions.

But for now, my hour of technology-use-for-entertainment is up. And I’m walking away. You should too.

 

 

 

 

Shifting the Career Conversation

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I hate that question. Why do we ask it? It’s so linear and final and discrete. Like the center part of a target. Now it’s cute to ask this of a 4-year old, because the answers are often comical. I want to be a superhero! or I want to be Moana [or insert other Disney characters here]!

My son, when asked this question, would say, I want to be a contraption builder! This was obvious to me, as we had Legos from floor to ceiling with all his inventions, from a candy dispenser to a pebble launcher, he built them all. Prior to his Lego obsession, he used wooden Keva planks, Hot Wheels tracks, wooden marble maze blocks, and whatever he could find around the house to make wonderful Rube Goldberg machines. I thought, For sure this kid is going to be a mechanical engineer!

So in third grade, when his teacher required the students each to do a presentation on a career they might like to have as an adult, I thought this was a good moment to dig into his contraption-building obsession and see where it might take him. I connected him with a colleague friend of mine who was a product manager with an interesting background.

They had a Skype meeting and she explained to him that she got a degree in mechanical engineering. She talked about the courses she took, from thermal dynamics to robotics. His eyes lit up when he saw video clips of robots she built for various assignments she had in college. After the video interview my son proclaimed, I want to build robots, Mom! 

And so as the years progressed and people would ask that annoying little question, he would respond, I want to be a mechanical engineer.

He knew he loved building things, especially robots, so the simple conclusion for him was to become a mechanical engineer. And society continued to reinforce it as he was given verbal accolades from people when they found out what his career goals were. But I knew that his understanding of career choices lacked depth, purely because he was so young.

This started to bother me because I knew how easy it would be for him to get pigeon-holed into something and I didn’t like this traditional thinking about life after high school and college. He was, after all, just a kid.

So I intentionally shifted the career conversation with him. One day I asked, If you could solve any of the problems in the world, what would you be interested in solving? 

His answers gave me some real insights into how he views the world, where his potential strengths might lie, and what excites him. While I don’t remember the specifics, I remember being in awe about what he was noodling on at twelve years old: the use of solar energy, how to keep the oceans from dying, how to desalinate water, and how to reduce homelessness.

There was something in there too about how to end all the wars in the world, and create peace and harmony among mankind, but he scrapped that saying, Mom, there will never be total peace in the world because we need the bad to know what’s good. But if we could have LESS bad, that would be good.

For the last few years my son has been throwing around the word entrepreneur. He’s always got an idea for a new business, a new product, or an improvement on a process. Once, he sent Microsoft one of his ideas saying, It’s okay if they make money off this idea, Mom, I’m giving it to them for free. That opened the door for discussions about patents and trademarks.

And then he wanted to start his own t-shirt line, designing shirts that have a surfer feel to them. So we talked about writing a business plan, all the steps in setting up a small business, needing capital to have his designs made and printed, completing all the legal and licensing bits necessary. Understanding his target audience so he could market to them and how to come up with his product price based on the cost of goods. His eyes got big. Wow, there’s a lot to running a company, he remarked.

I can see a shift in him. He no longer tells people he wants to be a mechanical engineer. He still tells people he wants to build things, only now, instead of contraptions, he says he wants to be an entrepreneur. And yes, while it is a bit of a discrete answer to the age-old question, I feel it is broad enough for him to explore his options for college and career.

And I’m watching what courses he does well in (history, math, science), and which ones he abhors (English). I listen to his friends talk about classes they are taking now, and dreams after high school. One of his friends is a math genius and is 100% certain he wants to be an architect. Another friend gets straight As, doesn’t have any idea what he might be interested in for college, but has more grit and perseverance than any kid I’ve ever met. And still another takes ROTC classes and does the after school Navy SEAL fitness training. How will these choices today influence their job paths tomorrow?

The truth is that my son will have to choose a major and minor course of study his senior year of high school when he submits those applications. That seems to be a big ask we have of our young adults who go to college.

For now, we’re focusing on all the things he has to do to get into the colleges he’s interested in. He’s created a short list of what’s important to him. East coast schools are out because he hates the cold weather. Any college he applies to needs to be close to the beach for quick access to surfing. And the economy of the community surrounding the college has to support his transition from student to worker in the Real World. These are the things he is sure of.

But there are other things that he’s got a few more years to think about. Like his specific course of study. The other day he came into my office and said excitedly, Mom, I can get a degree in entrepreneurship AND marine biology! Wow, what an interesting combination. I’m sure seeing his love for history and science here!

I often wonder what the impact would be to the world if we counseled our children early on to think about what problems they want to help solve, or where they could make a difference. Would it help kids make more thoughtful choices that lead to jobs they truly love? Or, are there other, more heavily weighted factors like a family’s influence, pressures from society, or even common stereotypes that force a child’s path?

Recently I asked one of my son’s friends what he might like to do after high school. I’ll take over managing my family’s cattle ranch with my brother, he responded. When I asked him if that’s what he really wants to do he said, Hmm, I’ve never really thought about it. It’s just what I’m going to do. At first I was surprised by this response, because I admit, my husband and I have always told our son his career path is his choice alone, and that we will support whatever he wants to do.

But when you live in Middle Class America, not all kids go to college. Some of my son’s classmates will take over family businesses. Some will go into the military. And still others will got to vocation schools to become electricians, HVAC technicians, plumbers, hair stylists, phlebotomists, veterinary technicians. Some will love their jobs. Some will do well financially. Some will hate their work. And others will constantly struggle to put food on the table and a roof over their head.

As my son ponders his future, I will keep pushing him to explore his interests, ask tough questions about what kind of life he wants to lead, and how his strengths might parley into job tasks. I’ll try to help him sort out the truth from the lies, like you can have any job you want! (Not true…you would NOT want me to be your surgeon – I couldn’t hold a scalpel still, or your personal stylist – fashion, what’s that?)

I hope these career conversations help my son choose a job path that is wonderfully dynamic and challenging. I hope that he doesn’t make the same mistakes his father and I have made, but in my heart I know he will make some of them. And at the end of the day whether he becomes a mechanical engineer, an entrepreneur, a contraption builder, or something else entirely, all this mama really wants for her boy is to have a meaningful, full life. ♥

Get Sh#! Done

Laundry list. Honey do’s. Daily tasks. To do list. No matter what you call them, if you are a list writer, you are keen on mapping out the entirety of your tasks (or your partner’s) in a long, often bullet-point format.

The list-making process fascinates me.

My husband creates a list with a circle in front of each item, indicating that it is incomplete. Then, when he finishes a task, he just checks off the circle. Not only does it look like he is accomplishing a lot of shit, it feels pretty good too. Check. Check. Check!

My friend draws a grid in her notebook and writes down the name of each person with whom she has unfinished business. Underneath each person’s name she writes the to dos. Budget review. Proposal editing. Blog post ideas. In this way, she aligns her tasks to her colleagues.

A former colleague of mine creates a mind map. He draws a circle with the main idea written in it, say studio recording. And then he draws lines off the center circle with related tasks, like create asset tracker, edit voice-over copy, or schedule time in sound booth. When he completes a task, he crosses out the circle. If it is really important, he highlights the circle a different color.

A previous boss keeps a detailed mental list. It seems impossible, but he really does. He could spout off all the to dos he would have me complete with great specificity. In fact, I never saw the man write a damn thing down. Ever. Except signing checks, which doesn’t count as a list.

I love the different ways people think about their work! Some people are linear. Others more conceptual. But in the end, the goal is still the same. Get shit done.

At home, I am a bit less formal than my former work-related processes of crafting user stories in our web-based Agile tool or creating sticky notes on my wall à la Kanban board style.

The grocery list is written on left-over sticky notes from one of my husband’s previous jobs (like 10 years ago). It sits on the counter waiting for my husband and son to add to it. Today my son added guacamole and lunch meat to the list.

Appointments go on the family calendar hanging in the kitchen. And on my personal calendar. (It’s really pretty and has flowers all over it.) And on my virtual Google calendar. Hmmm, Houston, we may have a problem here….

Sometimes I send Google calendar invites to my husband and son about important upcoming events. Cross country meets. Family activities. Doctor appointments. This is really helpful because they can’t tell me, I didn’t see it on the family calendar, after they have already accepted my invite.

A week before school started I sent both of them an invite to my son’s first day of school. He sent me a personal response to my invite. Yes, I will attend!

For things in which I’m musing heavily, I write them in my notebook with grand authority, but no real regularity. I write a dash and then a neat, printed notation after each one in my best kindergarten teacher handwriting. For things that are more gitter done in nature I write a quick chicken-scratch list on a sticky note that no one can read except for me.

Today it occurred to me how different my lists are from my former work-related ones, now that I am at home. And so I gathered up my notes from the last week (at least the ones I didn’t abandon or lose) and reread them. They included things like pay bills, walk dogs, and mow lawns. And other not-so-pleasant things like pick up dog poop or clean toilets. It’s not that I never did those things when I was working full-time, instead, it’s just that I have the free time now to write down such tasks.

I admit, I often crave a list that says, develop budget or design new org chart. How about review strategic plan or even draft performance evaluation metrics? Any of those would be wonderful! I know some of you are rolling your eyes at me now, or even crying, wishing you could get away from these kinds of tasks in your work life. But as a construction, organizer, builder kind-of-person, my brain needs noodling.

In fact, the other day I came home from a client meeting all smiles. My husband asked how my day went and I responded, I think my brain grew today! I can actually feel my brain cells doing a happy dance. Such is the life when you are a heady, bookish, um, nerd.

For now, I’m OK with wash son’s cross country uniform, take car into break shop (again), and weed flower garden. These are the things that are necessary duties in my at-home life. And maybe, just maybe at the end of one of the days this week, I’ll find the time to complete this mental note:

Sip wine while watching sunset with husband.