Tag: evolution

widening circles

KatieLeave a comment

The house is quiet in these early morning hours. My final grades are in, commencement ceremonies are over, and I can feel the slow pace of summer around the bend even among May’s madness. Its been 6 weeks since I’ve written here, and such a shift has happened for me in that time.

Six years ago, I had a crawling baby and a preschooler and no real desire to go back to work just yet, but a former contact from a decade prior reached out to me and nudged me to apply for my current position at the university. I’d been a stay-at-home-mom for three years, and there were a million pieces of me that were terrified of that leap, but also there was something else beneath the fear that felt like a solid yes, so I jumped and applied. I got the job. Fifteen months after I went back to work, I found myself as a single parent, a development I never saw coming. I have thought about that chain of events many times —  the way that the entire universe seemed to be moving to line things up for the next chapter even though I wasn’t aware of it. The way that one thing leads to another and another. It was a God-Send in the truest way. It saved me. Not just that I had an income but that I had colleagues and community and a purpose outside of my home when my life was blown apart.

The kids and I are in a new season now. One mom and two active kids and school schedules and extra curriculars, and though my core group of friends has remained unchanged for 20 years, our family is also deeply rooted in a different community than we were a few years ago — a natural result of kids at these ages. Jude commented this weekend that “it seems like all moms know each other” when I was chatting with someone else, and it made me laugh but also it seems to be true at this stage of parenting when we are orbiting the same small universes.

Anyway, among all this growth and changing shape, I began to see that there were things about my current position that just weren’t working for me anymore. The long (very long) commute, first and foremost, but other things as well. I could feel that desire for change simmering beneath the surface, but I wasn’t sure what to do with it.

This is making a very long story very short, but essentially I reconnected with a colleague from 14 years ago who is an administrator at a school here in our own community, and it began with lots of questions over coffee, then a tour and a class observation, then meeting others there, and now here I am with a new job and a new classroom welcoming me in August.

Nearly everything about my life has changed in the past 5 years, but my place of work was the one thing that didn’t change. I think I hadn’t really considered that stagnation, hadn’t recognized what a security blanket it was for me, until this last few weeks as I’ve come to the decision to close that door and begin something new in another place. Regardless of how sure I am that this is the right decision, it still means leaving my comfort zone behind. This last month has brought a lot of sleepless nights and that slight internal tremor that always comes with the territory of immense change.

There are a million other things I could say about all of this but won’t say it here — Career moves are always sensitive and personal and particular to one person. But I will say that the way this all unfolded and the way I responded illustrated so much growth for me, and I even surprised my own self. I advocated for myself in ways I haven’t before, and it felt natural rather than terrifying. Maybe here I finally am at 38 seeing my own value clearly. It takes courage to look at something that was once perfect and see that it just isn’t working for you anymore — whether that is a relationship or a job or a place you live or anything at all. Cutting that cord is never easy but always the right thing to do.

It’s strange how a life circles back on its own self, isn’t it? The way we revisit old problems and reconnect with old friends and are given a chance to approach the same problem with new eyes and a more solid backbone than we had before. I keep thinking of that widening circles Rilke verse lately. My circles are ever-widening and always moving but still circles nonetheless.

My friend Chyla (another circular connection as I met her years ago at Jen Pastiloff’s Atlanta workshop and we’ve remained friends) has an online group that I’ve been supported by this spring as I laid the groundwork for this transition. The whole workshop has been built around that one big yes that lives inside of each of us. We all have it, and it can change with the seasons. But Chyla prompted us to consider what it is for us today. What is that flame burning inside and wanting to grow to something bigger? What is that dream you cannot shake? What is it that you want to see come to fruition in your life right now?

Mine was simply to follow my own bliss to create a bigger life. I don’t mean bigger as in notoriety or success in the world’s terms perhaps, but just bigger and bolder for me. I want to listen to my own calling and be braver with my choices and lean into what creates joy for me, knowing that it always lights the way to what you are meant to do next, that next widening circle.

In our last session together, Chyla led us in a guided meditation and we journaled a bit. We had to write in answer to the prompt “I pledge to the most high in me…” (that highest form in each of us, that one who holds all the potential and possibility).  The first thing that emerged for me was that I pledge to always keep moving, always evolving, to trust the flow of widening circles. In this season, I’m trusting that if I leap and do the hard thing, the road will rise to meet me. The right people, the right timing, the right experiences are here. As Rilke says about his widening circles, I don’t have to know where it’s going and where it ends, but I give myself to it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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process and evolution

Katie2 Comments

I’m almost to week three of this semester, but it feels like years. Winter can do that to you.

Where to begin? I haven’t written here in weeks, and I have been doing nothing and everything. We’ve had school closures during both weeks of the school year so far. Only little days sprinkled here and there, just enough to throw you off your usual routine. The kids have gone to dad’s for 24 hours instead of the usual every-other-weekend 48 hour routine because of his travel schedule, and it seems to be exactly enough time to answer an email or two, mop the floors, and grocery shop before they come pouring back in. Rinse, repeat. Do it again.

We were home on Wednesday for school cancellations when I walked in my garage to grab something from the car and saw my back tire flat as a pancake. It’s a long and boring story, but this is not the first time I’ve had issues with this tire. I kept going back to the same shop because they were under warranty there, and the man on duty persisted to attempt to flirt with me in such an overt way that it made me dread walking in, and then he’d fail at fixing my problem so that every time I returned I was increasingly aggravated and uncomfortable. Car issues are a major trigger for me in terms of stress. I know next to nothing about cars, and I rely on mine so much with long commutes and kid pick ups and general life needs in the suburbs.

But here I am on Saturday morning in a warm and quiet house with a functional car again and a clean week ahead of me with a weather forecast that promises five solid days of work and routine. I’m feeling for the rhythm again and trying to use its beat to push me forward.

I’ve heard before that the specific challenges that emerge in your life point to where you need to grow. I hate car trouble. I hate being assertive in general and especially with an auto mechanic. I hate it all. I lived 35 years of my life without once getting a nail in a tire, and in the past year I’ve had this happen 4 times. I also ended up with a dead battery over the summer. And the broken compressor I wrote about a while ago. But this time I walked in with a different feeling. I was happy to see a different mechanic there, but I fully intended to ask for another one if I came in to see the same face who made me so uncomfortable before. With some instruction, I used a tire inflator to reinflate my own tire in my garage just before I drove over – which I know is simple and not impressive to anyone who knows anything about cars, but this is a major improvement for me.

I was watching this documentary last night on the Galapagos Islands and all the animals who have adapted and evolved to survive in such a strange climate. All kinds of miracles happen when you need to survive — you grow webbed feet or your wings get longer or shorter or you change your diet or you cooperate with the other species around you to get what you need from each other.

When I rewind my life three years back and compare it to my current self, that evolution is no less impressive than a bird growing webbed feet when he never had them before. Anytime I feel frustrated with myself, I think I just need to rewind the frame a few years and remind myself of that.

I ran across someone else’s words this week that said something along the lines of “People mistakenly think happiness is the goal in life and are persistently disappointed and endlessly searching for it. But when you realize that personal growth is actually the goal, happiness happens anyway as a byproduct of your growth and evolution.” The joy is in the process, isn’t it?

Part of the reason I chose Trust as my word this year is that so much of my life feels like process instead of completion. I’m trying hard to trust that this is, in fact, going somewhere very good if I just keep taking on the assignment in front of me. One foot in front of the other. Next right thing.

I haven’t been writing here as often because, as much as I love this space and all of you who read it, I’m seeing that it does take a little time and creative energy, and I am chugging away on this book one line at a time with real progress now. I’m seeing firsthand the feeling of that famous Doctorow quote about how writing a book is like driving in the dark with headlights where you can only see the little span of road in front of you. I get that. I can only really see one paragraph at a time. But at the same time, I see the whole vision now, too. Finally. I see the general shape of what this will be, and I trust the process that will take me all the way there.

The process is ugly sometimes. I’m digging deep and writing about moments that have been beyond hard for me. I threw out something like 33 pages last month and started all over, but I’m at that moment where I can feel my little boat floating from the shore with this project, and I think I will be on the water for a while. Letting it float me all the way home.