the best conversational moment of my life, right up there with the first “I love you,” but even more important and illuminating.

The volunteer is about to come in, my boss is about to come in, the new copier is being delivered today, I have a bad feeling my computer won’t accept the print drivers because of the old operating system, there’s a scheduling conflict I need to work out, the food bank is here today, an engaged couple is coming to view the facilities, so I’m starting a long entry about a confusing and important personal issue. So very me.

I journalled a lot this weekend. I was honest about where I’m confused and where I’m unhappy. I wrote lists of priorities. I made and remade budgets. I acknowledged what I’m doing well and what matters to me. At the end of it all, I had a two-year plan. It’s less of a plan than a vague gesture in the direction that seems to lead out of what often feels like a swamp. Why two years? Because during that time I’ll have the car paid off, the loan from my folks mostly paid off, my dad (barring more miracles) will be dead, we will have figured out a support system for my mom, Little Yes will be in school, my relationship with Mr. Yes will be pointing toward permanence (or fading), I will have saved enough money to pay for life coach training or whatever other career change training I desire, if I desire, I’ll be in good enough shape financially to approach my employer about working 30 hours a week, AND I will have gotten some treatment, probably EMDR, for my PTSD symptoms.

There’s enough in that last paragraph to make me want to lie down and weep or take a three year nap. So many variables that planning seems pointless. I did figure out some important points. The next two years are going to be full of change originating from outside, so I don’t want to initiate any large changes. I’ll stay in the same job and housing situation. I want to do some work to stabilize the PTSD. I want to be with Mr. Yes. I want to build up savings. I want to make fun, health and spiritual connection a regular part of my daily life. I want to spend more time with other artists. (Look, I just called myself an artist!)

All that sounds reasonable, but there’s also this itch to immediately change the things I don’t like. I don’t like working 40 hours a week. (The guilt over that is HORRID and the voices shrieking “who the hell do you think you are?” deafening.) I don’t like living in suburbia. I miss having an active social life and seeing live music every weekend. I want a quick fix for the PTSD. I want a more consistent felt sense of the Divine NOW. I know that regular small changes will transform my life in a more lasting way, move me toward a life in which I use my gifts and wake up glad to start a new day, but I am impatient. So the next step is to articulate the two year objectives in a way that inspires me, to set up a system of rewards and regularly check in with myself to see if what I ultimately want has changed and if I’m still headed out of the swamp.

On the other hand, I don’t know that I’ve figured out anything at all. Is it all just more words I’ll forget in a month? Am I going to be 60 and still writing about what I’ll do someday? The new copier is here, as is the volunteer and my boss. Off to do whatever I do for whatever reason I do it.

From Edward Creagan, M.D., Oncologist, Mayo Clinic:

“Time helps, but it may not cure. We’re told that time heals all wounds. That’s not entirely true, of course. Time does have the ability to make that acute, searing pain of loss less intense, to make your red-hot emotions less painful. But your feelings of loss and emptiness may never completely go away. If you question this, ask any parent whose child has died, even if that death occurred 60 years ago. You may never return to your previous baseline. The death of a loved one changes us forever. Instead, you may find yourself at a new “normal.” Accepting and embracing that can help you reconcile losses.”

And the word that keeps surfacing in my head:

damaged

Calm down, dear. You know who you are, who you love and why you were “on” in that circumstance. Being smart about networking with other artists is not the same as being manipulative. Three deep breaths and to bed with you now.

to shout, “It’s all going to hell! There’s no way this can work! Run! Ruuuunnnnnnnnn!!”

A bit odd, given that I’m alone in a church office at the end of a fairly uneventful day. Fingers crossed I’m not psychic (that way).

I feel so lucky that I had horrible things happen to me in my 30s, when I was old enough to learn from them without letting them define me and young enough to make radically different choices. I wouldn’t have half my compassion or strength if I hadn’t survived those dark days.

If I had the chance to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a single thing.

Talking on the phone in a LOUD voice, telling me jokes and stories, playing music LOUDLY on your laptop, asking me computer questions about your home computer, trying to impress me with your knowledge about subjects that have nothing to do with my work, sitting in front of my desk and talking to someone across the room…is it so difficult to see that I’m trying to work here…at my job…where they pay me to work?

SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!

::deep breaths::

You can be bad at it forever. You never have to attain mastery or even competence to earn the right to do something you love. You don’t have to make money or make anyone else happy. Make yourself happy.

That’s why you’re here.

It doesn’t matter how long it took me to know. I know now and it changes everything. In the future, I’ll be able to look back at January 3, 2008 and see how my life changed direction, even though nothing at all looks different from the outside.

Remember how it felt when you were in the car and you thought it wouldn’t destroy you, in case it does or doesn’t.

_{and really, shouldn’t it?}