This photo may not mean much to a random observer. But to me, it’s everything.
This past week was horrible. I couldn’t smile for the life of me. I was exhausted and frustrated and disappointed and did I mention exhausted?
I was learning a new job, parting with some of my favorite responsibilities, mentoring and being mentored, being left in the dust and trying not to leave anyone in the dust, and just plain trying not to make eye contact because everyone knows my heart is affixed prominently to my sleeve.
“Don’t ask me if I’m fine, and I don’t have to lie to you and pretend” was my motto.
Then Thursday afternoon hit. And a series of text messages … and stuff taking place around the ranch … pushed me from not happy to miserable.
I know I have to slap on a smile and eventually it will come. I know that the job I had is gone, and though I really liked it, the new gig will get so much better once I figure out what the hell I’m doing and why it has to be done this way for now.
I also know that my brain was atrophying and that now there isn’t even the REMOTEST possibility of that happening because it’s GO-GO-GO time, all the time now.
And my decision — and, from what I understand, I was the only one among the ranks offered the opportunity to decide my fate — will pan out. It has to.
The sad news was that after I, say, hopped from the Titanic onto what I’m hoping is the Carpathia and not the Concordia, my best friend on the boat was handed a lifejacket and bid farewell.
I had lots of anger to deal with, for my friend and for a bunch of others. And for myself, being all too familiar with the strategy to start bailing out water by the bucketful before, say, plugging the holes.
Alas, fast-forward to Saturday, which I actually spent with said best friend and, well, I found my smile again.
The photo means more to me than I will ever be able to explain on these pages, for reasons I can’t explain but that stretch from Jupiter, Fla,, all the way to the city where the brick from that lighthouse originated, Philadelphia.
But the long and the short of it is, I went from hovering between fearing that last week would kill me and that it actually WOULDN’T and that would be even worse, to realizing that:
A) I don’t have to work for the Crackhead Brothers or the Boob Twins. And that nothing, NOTHING will ever be as bad as either of those places.
B) Jobs will come and go. But more than resume-builders, they are relationship-builders. Everyone who is important to me now, came to me through one of these adventures. And even though our time together at these places is finite, if there’s one thing they do right is put great people in a room together and we are smart enough to keep up the friendships forever.
So, I don’t know what else to say to convey what’s happening in my life right now without getting Dooced yet again. 😉 But where the lines between beginnings and endings were blurred by tears and coffee and Grey Goose, I see what … and, more importantly, WHO … is important.
The rest is simply a pile of details I’ll either forget or put into that book I’ve spent 10 years writing in my head.