Darkness sometimes can hit without warning. No call, no siren of impending danger, it slithers up and strikes the psyche while infecting your being with it’s lethal venom. While there are varying forms of darkness, it visited me yesterday. It slid up next to me whispering nasty everything’s into my mind. It had more of a revealing quality, yesterday – one of those flavors of darkness that presented it’s side of the truth in it’s twisted and emotionally heavy way, forcing me to stare directly into it’s big, black, darkened eyes. It beckoned me with intensity to confront it. And so I did. We sat on my bed with the lights of the day snuffed out by the hiding of the sun, and took turns tossing the information presented – wrestling, dancing, chiding, and humiliating. It cast accusations at me while I held up…
I’m mad. Not like, fiery, furious mad. But just really frustrated. There is a rebellion in my soul right now. The kind where I absolutely cannot make myself work. See? It’s 3:44pm right now on a Monday. I spent half of my Sunday the weekend before last working until 10pm. Which is fine. I wasn’t too upset about it – except for the fact that it was in Nashville and I had my last night with my best friend planned – but had to work. Luckily, she’s one of the bravest souls I know and has a deep comfort with exploring new towns (and cities… shit, and countries too!) on her own I have to admit – I do not have that level of curiosity and adventure. And she had a great time. And because I had a 7am call the next morning, I had…
Sometimes I can’t shake The Burn. Actually, almost everyday, I carry it inside me. What is the Burn? Well, for starters it has taken up a lengthy residence in the center of my thoracic (chest) cavity. It lives a little closer to the chest surface, but it is definitely inside. Pretty sure it’s not indigestion (but I’m open to correction) as I’ve seemed to house it since I was around 16 years old. But rather, it’s more of this emotive sensation. I’d liken it to heat in my chest – sometimes scorching, searing hot and sometimes weak and exhausted – but always with a definite degree of warmth to it. It governs my life if I am honest. And well, seeing that’s kind of the title of my site and all – it seems like a fitting topic to discuss. As…
So many things to be grateful for. And I am. I don’t want to sound like a brat…. But I do, and it seems like I am ungrateful. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I am in a job – the box. Been at this job for a long while lately. Sure, it’s hard. Sure, it’s challenging and it feels some days like a false sense of reality, working to fulfill insignificant goals. A place that I use to pave the way to afford the things I want, need, and love. And that is the truth. But I am so grateful. I have been tossing around and testing a truth that I think I have discovered: that “For something to be true, you have to see it from both sides.” I truly feel that is a place where…
Woke up at 4:30am. Made coffee. Straightened up the living room. Last night, although my heart was terribly heavy, was also full. Of memories and magic. My guy, in the kitchen crafting and curating an orchestra of flavors on a pork butt. Me, on the couch, serendaded by jazz music as I rumaged through a few pages of Bird by Bird. I stopped to take these moments in, and pushed aside the panic and dread I felt in my chest about the weight of my current job. When I go a few weeks without travel, I find I fall into a corporate haze. The Rat Race. Suits. Chains. Beholden to the Almighty 9-5. In my desk most days, I sit in my cubicle, watching the minutes sludge along as I eagerly anticipate my release into freedom. Locked in a brightly halogen-lit mecca box of clacking &…
Ok, so an update to the last post, I was offered that job. And yes, that’s right – I took the job. I was officially working again for another company. The very one, indeed, headliner of the wrestle in my previous post. When I had been at it just barely over a month, it was too soon to really know how it was going to work out. I mean, I thought I would eventually really enjoy it. However, in the first 3 months of “drinking from the fire hose” season, it felt stressful and overwhelming during the learning phase. I was particularly perturbed at the level of responsibility I already had with no official training; however, this complaint was just me being exhausted from my last position that entailed a much higher level of the same. Smaller companies tend to not have great training programs built…
There is a theme in my life. It’s overachieving. Yes, Yes. I know… That sounds arrogant. Especially following my confessed failures in my last post. But it’s true. Sometimes our greatest strength is also our deepest vice. Or in my case – my curse. So, what is overachieving? Glad you asked. Let’s get personal. It’s what it looks like when I have a day off, but I at LEAST have to get the dishes done, or make the bed because I have to achieve something on a day off – no matter how big or small. It’s what it looks like when I work full time, attend grad school full time, and take far too many 5-week, Saturday-only courses (back to back) just to ensure that 4.0 GPA. Which, in turn, made me neglect my family…
I’ve been there before. That place “In Between.” Different scenarios, of course have this identification, but I’m referring to that in-between place of my career and living in this almost “no mans land.” It took me around a year – actually a little over a year – before I found my next path on the first go-round. It was challenging. It was demoralizing. It was hard. However, that next time (with the grope) was different, in that I had it kind of happen to me, rather than a choice I made to get me there. However, that wasn’t my first rodeo folks. The first time I chose it. I chose to branch off, and create that kind of career that I believed would propel me into my own business, and would kick-off my new found life –…
From my last post, I apologize. Not for expressing myself, but the rant and anger that I displayed. Don’t get me wrong, all those feelings and emotions were incredibly present, and still 100% are when I reflect back. However, giving in to a lot of those fueled expressions was…potentially distasteful. And for that, I am sorry. But again, it doesn’t mitigate my experience. Not one bit. Those were real emotions pouring from me, real experiences, real heartbreak. That was my absolute reality after the most powerful man in my company, and my direct boss, took it upon himself to violate my body by touching my butt, sexually, multiple times. And as I chose to press forward in the complete dark, I wanted to reflect back to raise awareness to the very real consequences, of not my choices (but also yes, my choices too in…
Sometimes life throws you some deeply unwanted curveballs. An emotional rollercoaster of events in such a concentrated amount of time can change the trajectory of your life as you know it. It’s ok. I had been seeing the change in the distance looming nearer and nearer during the time this all had occurred, I just had no idea it was going to crash up against me the way it did. Let’s go back to a time when I thought I had found myself at pretty much the top of my game in my career. I had secured a great income and had worked my way up in my career over the course of a year that had found me working directly with the CEO and COO of a wildly successful startup company, I was helping them form a leadership team, of which I was a key…