Had such a good weekend. Still have some work to do but wow did I enjoy the last four days.
A friend was in town and it was so good to hang with someone in my field … someone who knew me way back when. We joined our last place of employment at the same time, and whoda thunk it that we’d still be friends so many years later when we’ve both taken very separate paths away from it.
It was good to reminisce and look ahead and just plain be in the moment, too. I got to meet a lot of cool people as well, and that’s all it really takes for me to be on top of the world.
I’ve been restless because I haven’t traveled in months. I’ve been frustrated because life keeps giving me lemons that are too spoiled with which to make lemonade. I’ve been aimless and rudderless, forever wondering about the paths not taken.
And to hang with someone who also goes wherever the wind blows her, knowing with full confidence that the universe will take good care of her, I was reminded of when I was that way and that, really, that’s the way I still am and will always be.
I realized in a big way that I’d be miserable if I were still in D.C., spending another year in the hamster wheel. I would be cursing the cold, the motorists, the shared apartment with Mom. I guess I miss the routine of it all more than anything. And I hate routines!
I guess my struggles with identity don’t serve to make life any easier. But when I break it down into what I like, I can more-easily identify what I want.
What I Like:
- Florida, if you can believe it.
- The beach.
- The fake snow that my favorite haunt (pictured) is generating next weekend.
- The freedom to write my own ticket, if I’d only just pick up the pen and start scribbling.
What I Want:
- To say goodbye to editorial.
- To market, to market.
- To “get out” in my field more and talk to the people I admire and, like, learn stuff from them directly.
- To reconnect with people in my field who give me that “oomph” — those who remind me that my niche market is super-cool and not only am I lucky to be part of it, but I’m pretty much a rising rock star in my own right.
I think — nay, I know — I’ve been worried that I’m losing my mojo. I went from rising star to plateaued pudge muffin. I felt like I got downgraded from planet to dwarf planet. I’ve been feeling like fucking Pluto.
And it’s pretty hard to figure out who you want to be when you have no blessed idea of who you’ve become … and all you can cling to is who you were because everybody said that person was pretty special and it’s easy to miss the time and place where that specialness reigned supreme.
I don’t have any brilliant “next steps” in mind right now, but it’s been exhausting and yet strangely exhilarating to retrace my steps with my friend and get me back to where the roads diverged and my mentality careened into a ditch.
It was good to talk to people who had heard of me and who needed to hear about me. It really made me see that my place in this world is as memorable and remarkable as I make it.
I’m so very ready to try new things and bring along the best of the old. I’ve been feeling very done with this world (not in a suicidal sense, just in the sense that I’ve done enough and I’m tired and could stand to get my strength back). But this world is far from done with me, and I can either park my feet in the wet sand and not budge, or I can parasail to my next level.
Look out, world — I don’t know where I’m going next, but unless you’re helping me along, you’d better step out of the way and watch me fly. … 😉