I am sitting here, having my morning coffee and thinking about a day one week from today. On that day, we will pack a large truck and we will depart our home community of Flagstaff. It’s been a pretty good transition so far. Not too stressful, not too overly worrisome. The real estate end of it has gone well enough, with C handling all those details like a champ. We’ve sold out house and bought another one in record time and very agreeably so. Sure, there are bumps, paperwork gets misplaced, items have to be rushed here and there, but overall our not-so-slow departure from Flagstaff has been filled with well-wishing, quiet catch up with long terms friends and many, many good-by-beers. (Note to self: lay off carbs…)
So, in one week we drive away. To a new adventure, to a new job, new school and new lifestyle. Its maybe the third biggest thing I’ve done in my life? Not sure and somehow, maybe it’s being the age I am (43) but it just doesn’t seem so huge and dramatic as I may have thought it would be. Surely, the worst of it was the tail end of the job and the horrible train-wreck that was. The stress and unknown ‘limbo’ of that exit was not fun and it has made me realize, I simply don’t have another one of those in me. At least not right now.
Interestingly this experience has made me a bit intorspective and perhaps sentimental about my previous experiences working with people who really *cared* about their jobs; who made their work a part of their lives without letting it rule their lives. Sure that is a fine balance, and not an easy one to achieve, but even to TRY to make your work about something with purpose and to take a passionate and thoughtful approach to it is enviable and commendable. It is when I have found myself working with people who do it to be ‘important’, to be ‘powerful’ or to make money that I end up losing sight of what matters in my own approach to work. Perhaps I am too malleable to those sorts of influences, or perhaps not malleable enough? Either way, these past couple months have really given me pause to appreciate those in my work-life who have pushed forward for the right reasons in the face of challenges and succeeded by their own definitions. In the immortal words of Alanis Morissette , “You live, you learn”.