Let’s set the scene for this post. Imagine I’m standing in front of you but not making eye contact. I’m twisting a ragged piece of paper around my fingers because I fiddle with my hands when I’m nervous. I’m speaking in halting, jumbled phrases as I try to get through a reasonable explanation for why I fell off the blogging planet.
Because there IS a reasonable explanation. But I still don’t feel good about shutting off and shutting down when my momentum here was just starting. But on the other hand, I needed to shut down. I needed to shut this out and mourn this blog a bit and rethink my direction. This blog had started to become a place to talk about life change and taking action and careers. And then my life and career – and my husband’s life and career – got entirely turned around. Upside down. Inside out. In ways I couldn’t talk about publicly. In ways that made all those New Years Resolution Plan Posts go poof. In ways that made me reassess and release a number of cherished dreams. In ways that forced me to discover new ones. In ways that forced me to make peace with regret because it’s a package deal with my new opportunities.
Enough with the vague exposition. Because what happened was simple enough, even though the aftermath is emotionally complex:
On the first day of the new year, my bosses offered me an opportunity to move to Washington DC for three months. A career-changing, life-changing opportunity. An opportunity that means I could do great work. But an opportunity that means a lot of compromise and loss as I mourn the business I had hoped to start. And the lifestyle I’d been hoping to develop. And the husband and family and friends I’d have to leave in Los Angeles. I went home to think about it.
The next day, my husband’s job cut his hours (and pay) by 20%. On the plus side, we narrowly escaped another layoff (really, his company is exemplary for the way they fought to keep staff at reduced hours instead of laying people off.) He’s had the downsizing ax fall a few times since 2008. We feel grateful he has a job. But it means we’re finally accepting that his job is volatile – even after leaving his previous field for presumed stability – while my job is more secure.
So life decided for us. I am taking the DC opportunity while my husband will focus on growing his freelance work into a full independent business. I will be the stable breadwinner in our family. And being the stable breadwinner means I do not have the freedom to pursue an independent business, at this point in our lives.
(Bonus round in Life’s game of Gotcha: I managed to get walking pneumonia during that same crazy week. It turns out that sorting through giant life changes is NOT easier when wading through three weeks of snotty tissues.)
The DC job details have shifted a lot since the beginning of January. I still don’t know whether I’ll be in DC full-time or part-time. I don’t know when the job will start. I don’t know all the responsibilities. I am living in limbo and trying to get comfortable with not knowing. I am trying to get comfortable with What It All Means for our lives. I am trying to take joy in the work I do and not wallow in the stress it entails. I am trying to see the glass half full with reflections of rainbows and sparkles glinting off the surface of a delicious (alcoholic) beverage. I am trying to move past what I’ve lost and on to the legitimate joy and excitement for what I’ve gained. I’m trying to not be jealous of my husband and this immense opportunity he gets to grow his business.
I’m trying. Which means I sometimes succeed and sometimes fail. And I am very whiny and miserable when I fail. And I chose not to inflict that self-pity on my readers in January. But I didn’t know what else to write about here when my recent posts had been so full of career-driven purpose and determination.
So. I’m taking this blog out of its career-ish niche. I’m heading back into personal blog territory, if by “personal” you mean “whatever I personally feel like writing.” I will probably still write about leadership development and personal growth, since that’s where I’m putting my career (and personal) focus these days. But I want to write more about politics, since I find myself election obsessed (not strange, for a policy nerd.) I may share more photos, as I turn towards photography as a creative outlet instead of writing (my writing-brain tends to get fried after 11 hour work days, which leads to guilt about not writing, which leads to stress, which leads to more brain-fry and is just a vicious circle of not-fun.) My Friday Link posts will probably become more eclectic. We’ll see. Much like my life, this blog has been thrown back into limbo. I’m finally ready to see where that takes me instead of stressing about what I no longer have.
January was all sorts of stumbling. I’m aiming to make February more of a leap, in whatever direction that leap may take. If you’re here and still reading, thank you for sticking around. Welcome to the glorious confusion.
