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| happy whack jobs |
This morning I turned back the clock. I stepped inside an earlier time in my life and I looked around.
Writing is my thing. I'm not necessarily a skilled writer. I'm a happy writer. I use writing to explore an experience. I use writing to both hide and reveal myself. And there's a side benefit to writing, it helps me remember when remembering is what I want to do.
My sister, Jane, has an outstanding memory. My memory feels porous in contrast. Photographs and words allow me to recall something I once experienced - whether my recollection of facts is accurate, the words help me return emotionally to another time and place.
This morning I called up old writings, ramblings which took the form of my previous blog. I was quite taken to step back into parts of this earlier life. I felt generous towards myself. While journal-writing can be viewed as self-indulgent, I've made a habit of it since early adulthood. I like my ramblings because I like the spirit of the soul whom I see through the words and images. I like how earnest she sounds.
If you were to click on writings from 2011 and 2012, you would read stories from another time - looking for and buying a home, moving into private practice out of said home. Now, today, I'm in a different place - a place of letting everything go.
I feel embarrassment rise up. The critic in me looks at my decisions over the last 3 years with hardness, holding me to a standard that I'm not sure I've ever met. Its voice sounds eerily like my father-in-law's: "what kind of loser buys a house and sells it 2 years later?! you're a whack job, building a successful business and turning it around and leaving it behind! What is wrong with you?!"
Maybe this 'standard' I've been holding myself to is not so much a standard as it is simply one way of being in the world. Maybe stable, stalwart and settling into one experience is not the way this creature I am moves. Perhaps "success" can be defined in many ways.
Certainly my resume reflects moving, shifting, engaging new and different experiences. Is that wrong? My financial status doesn't so much shine with sturdiness as it does being freeform. And as we purchased and moved into this beautiful home 2.5 years ago, I was yielding to an idea of becoming rooted in one place. This idea might have been a fantasy. However, I don't believe it was a mistake. In the last few years, I've been given so many beautiful moments of falling in love, feeling into a space, meeting myself through a new endeavor and being altered by the people who came to this lovely environment for support.
I fear I'm falling prey to the impulse to defend myself to my own inner critic - likely this will only cause it to have more credence. Simply, perhaps the success of a life is too narrowly assessed through balance sheets and income statements. How do financial statements accommodate learning (answer: Education & Training Expense)? How do they reveal the innumerable moments of feeling moved to tears by beauty? Where do financial statements reflect moments of inspiration? Laughter? and Love? I look to my right and in the early morning light just breaking into dawn, Onslow is curled up and dreaming. I realize that adopting this lovely being came directly out of our decision to buy a property that could host his happiness and health. I wouldn't be who I am in this rocking chair today without him. How do I account for Onslow on a financial statement (answer: Food Expense, Veterinary Expense)?
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| relaxing at 'home' |
And so, today marks my last day in private practice - at least private practice as it is generally defined (seeing 6+ clients in a day within an office setting for an hour at a time). The last couple weeks I've been closing up with the people I see in my practice and I've felt so moved, so altered by how they have shown up in my life. In showing up with their stories of pain, with their vulnerability and sense of being lost or frozen in fear, I have been forever changed. While many have expressed their gratitude that I have in some way helped them, I don't think I have been able to convey to any of them what their presence has done for me.
While my income statement reflects how I was paid for my time in the last couple of years, it in no way reveals what really happened. To these wonderful and beautiful souls I devote my ongoing journey. Sounds paradoxical. Some people would say that I could better express my devotion by continuing to work with them as their therapist. But that's not the way I view life. The practice and the property began to feel like items of clothing that no longer fit very well; like a sweater or a pair of pants that felt right and comfortable for a few years but through changes in my body no longer clothed me naturally, binding in some places and gapping in others.
Of course I feel a little unsettled sitting here today, not knowing where we will be living at the end of next week nor from where my next paycheck will come. What I saw as I re-read some of my writings from years ago is that I've been 'here' before; I was living in contact with the unknown with $9 in my bank account just before it was revealed that I was about to go to Portugal to learn massage and then begin to practice in New London. Life generally asks that we let go of that which we grip before it can gift us with new delights.
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| happy to be your helper! |
A 'friend' from my practice gave me a beautiful card yesterday as our session came to a close. In it was written:
Sometimes life takes you down new and unexpected roads.
This too is part of the ride.
Remember, when nothing is certain, anything is possible.
There's good evidence to suggest I'm a flakey, unstable whack job. Maybe the world needs more of us. Sounds rich from the voice of a so-called 'trained professional.'
So, here's to all the friends I made on this part of my adventure! May each of us find our own way to embrace and expose our inner freak.
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