Passion - trapped

I have been watching a lot of documentaries on Netflix. I am not that interested in fiction anymore. Maybe because I have been living in the fantasy inside my head  for so long I not sure I want to spend time in another persons fantasy.

The ones I have been watching are about passion to do complete something and the drive or creative process behind that.  I watched the story of Elmo and his creator and then last night the Indie Games the story behind some of the geeks that are creating top independent video games.

Both stories were similar in that they were passionate and it never occurred to them to do something else instead. The Elmo creator and puppeteer made his first puppet out of his dad's coat lining after watching Sesame Street.  Luckily his dad was supportive and told him to ask next time. His story was what you imagine it would be like if you were born to do something specific.

The geeks were a little different for sure obsessed but because they were pressured to release their games at a certain time their lives were full of stress.  One person coding day and night for years. Some worked in pairs but others were totally isolated for years without money and even without a car. The movie was about the successful ones that have now made millions who are now working on new games.

I could relate to their suffering it reminded me of the time I spent during the recession without customers feeling stressed and trapped wondering whether I should just quit and go back to my previous profession. I had invested so much time and money at that point but with the lack of success I wasn't sure what to do.  I was there alone in the office waiting for customers to come in and at that point the were coming in maybe once a week.

Sometimes you are at a crossroad but sometimes you are way past that crossroad and in a space of complete emotional exhaustion.  In my case when I looked at the jobs out there in my old profession it made me feel physically sick. Mentally I don't think I would have been able to pretend to be excited about a new position during an interview.

I had left that part of me behind and I couldn't go back. Those were some of the worst years of my life and I do feel grateful at this moment that I am busy and happy where I am. It was the right move for me to leave my old profession and it was the right move for me leave that small shop and work for a larger company.

Both decisions were forced on me for different reasons.  They made me have to re-invent myself and accept that the plan I had for my life was going to be different. It didn't make it easier that I was having to do that with my personal life too.

The good news is that I made it and feel like a success.  Even though didn't have millions waiting for me like the game developers did. It all worked out even though I couldn't imagine how it was going to at the time.

In the big picture passion can seem clamorous but in the day to day it can be a grind to stick with something when you can't imagine it will ever end.  The thing you once loved stops being fun but you just have to get up and do it anyway. You have gone too far to turn back.

I love design and I love anything creative.  I am happy that I made through both transitions and work in a field makes good living and allows me to be creative.  Happy to be no longer stuck.

Food - Kurt - The most wonderful time of the year

Here it is upon us once again the season to be jolly. It is 80 degrees today and I have been shopping most of the day.  First for flooring for my kitchen, the first selection looked too pink and then for groceries.

I am fixing a traditional fish taco Christmas eve dinner.  I am sure it is traditional some where but that is what sounded good to me and made with fresh local seafood it will be really good. Avocados were on sell and very ripe for the roasted corn avocado side dish. They are not in big demand for Christmas day I guess.

Tomorrow I am eating with some program friends and we are having hamburgers.  I guess you can tell none of us are much for following traditions. It should be a fine day with a variety of food including a few vegetarian dishes.  I am making lentil salad with roasted red peppers and feta cheese.

Getting past the talk about food and on a more serious note today I watched part of the Kurt Cobain story on HBO and the underlying theme was that he felt his family rejected him. His dad and stepmother with their combined children couldn't meet his expectations of how a real family should be. He turned angry and they decided to send him off to different relatives who rejected him after a short stay and he eventually he ended up back home with his mother. We know how the story ended.

Of course I could relate to the rejection part and I have to admit I do feel the shadows of rejection during the holidays. My family didn't reject me they were indifferent to me and still are. I spoke to my sister last night for over an hour. She told me about all their plans for the holidays. I does hurt that she doesn't even consider wanting to spend the holidays with me.

We have both created lives without each other. I know now some of this is because she lives with addiction and it is just easier to manage everything without an outsider.

For some of us the holidays bring up the lack in our lives even though it is suppose to be "the most wonderful time of the year" according to the song anyway.  I can't help but wish things turned out differently for me and my family but it didn't and come Monday all these feeling of lack with be gone until next year.

I am happy to have the time off we are closed this weekend and I don't have to be back until Tuesday. This will give me time to finish my work around the house and have enough time to recover physically before returning to work.

I am grateful I have my friends to spend tonight and tomorrow with.  I wish for you my blogging friends that you spend this holiday feeling peaceful and wanting nothing which is the same thing. Just knowing if your holiday doesn't resemble the one you pictured in your head that it is just one day of the year and by Monday it will be mostly forgotten.

Merry Christmas.

Let there be light - Moving forward

I was talking to a friend yesterday about our Thanksgiving menu and she mentioned that she saw my ex at a restaurant a few months ago. I am not sure why she picked this moment to give me the news just a few days before the anniversary of our break up.  The day before Thanksgiving.

This is a tired story and this will be the second year that I feel that I am truly over it.  This didn't keep me from spinning my wheels for a half hour of so or having a dream this morning about being back there in that house. What I can remember about the dream is that I had gone to the doctor and he ask me to look into a clear bowl and tell me what I saw.  I said it looked like a piece of coral flooding in water. Evidently that was the wrong answer and indicated that I had some kind of brain disease.

I was happy when I woke up without a diagnoses this morning. I was also grateful to have a home improvement project to work on today. Yesterday after a trip to Lowes for a light bulb for my microwave I came back with under cabinet lights for my whole kitchen.

I feel like my life has been in limbo for a long time. This includes what to do with my sad dreary kitchen. I kept thinking that at some point I would feel inspired to gut the whole thing and design a dream kitchen like the one I had before.  The person that wanted that then doesn't exist anymore.  

I think I have been waiting for that person to show up again and take charge. It has been a long wait and I am starting to accept that she isn't coming for me. I left most of the girl I was behind and I am here with mostly a blank slate. I have noticed lately that parts of her have been popping up here there.

Like today after installing the lights I couldn't believe how excited I was getting about redoing my kitchen. After adding lights to one side of the kitchen couldn't believe the transformation. I was so excited I was coming up with one idea after another for what I wanted to do next.

I do love design and have always improved the places I have lived no matter how little money I had. Truthfully when the budget is small creativity really is all you have.  Investing time in your home and making it reflect who you are can transform your life. Having a beautiful space can make coming home at night something to look forward to.

Tonight with the extra light in the kitchen I actually enjoyed making dinner for myself.  I have decided not to gut the kitchen for now and just address the things that will make it more inviting. The lights went a long way in doing that this weekend I am planning to paint.

Being inspired today gave me hope that I am on a path to the new me which includes some of the old me as well. I wanted to believe that I could be inspired again but it has been so long I was beginning to wonder.  Today I am grateful for the new light in my life.

Change - Uncertainty versus Freedom

I ended my six day work week on a high note. We were extremely busy and yesterday I never sat down for the six hours we were open. This helps relieve me of some of the uncertainty I have with my and the idea that might run out of business.

This idea stems from the recession when I had my own business and the customers were few and far between. I had to make something out of every person that came into the showroom. That isn't the case where I am now we have a steady flow of customers. I haven't relaxed into this fact yet.

I had a glimpse of the past yesterday when a woman I knew from the mortgage business came in and I helped her make some final decisions about tile for her kitchen. I identified myself and she acknowledged who I was but she wasn't too friendly. She never was so I didn't take it personally she was in accounting and the numbers people aren't known for their outgoing personalities. She is working with another designer so I won't see her again.

She is still there at my old company which has changed its name a few times. Later I was thinking I could still be there 14 years later.  It has been that long since I lost my job and made the decision to pursue a more creative profession.

At the time I was devastated and angry. This didn't keep me from taking action I sold my house and moved in with my ex and went back to school. It never occurred to me that I could fail. This is what that relationship gave me that I never experienced with my alcoholic husband. We were emotionally and financially on the same page and I felt secure enough to not go back to the mortgage industry.

I am a analytical person and usually look at every situation with a critical eye looking for what would have worked better or what I could have done differently. I never look at what I have done right. Seeing her made me think that I could still be there doing the same thing another 14 years. It wasn't my decision to leave but I could have found another job and spent the recession in a cubical.

I do love my work it is something I was born to do even if I have to live with more obvious uncertainty every day than most corporate jobs. I say obvious because there is no search thing as certainty in life ever just sometimes one situation appears to be more certain than another.

I like feeling safe but I like being free too and these two things don't actually go together when it comes to my profession. I don't often feel like I can just be free to take off mentally. I usually do best on Sundays when most people aren't expecting anything from me.

Today I feel grateful I had a very productive week and ended the week with a glimpse of how my own ability to be fearless gave me a career that is perfect for me. I can also thank my ex for making me feel like I could trust someone to have my back when I needed to make a change.

Freedom - What a concept

My life is about to get really crazy so I am not sure how often I will be able to write. We are dissolving our business partnership. It has never been a partnership just two people working under the same roof.   I thought she was going to buy me out but the low ball ofter was really low so we are going to liquidate.

Closing a business that has been in the same location for 40 plus years will be no easy task. We were put together by circumstances and at this point we have irreconcilable differences.  Nobody knows this yet but you. I have a few jobs to wrap up and then I will go on to my new life.

I got to work this morning and vandals had broke one of our huge plate glass windows.  In my mind this is just another sign to get out. We are both ready she wants until the end of the year but I am not waiting that long.

It feels a little like divorce but without the loss of love that was once there. We are similar in a lot of ways we even say things at the same time. She is a mirror of myself 10 years ago. I wanted to avoid yet another breakup but it isn't possible.

I am actually happy and when I saw the window I thought "it is time to go." I am sad to give up this dream but I think it has played itself out. I don't really feel too invested in anything anymore.

It is really peaceful in my head and I don't feel I have to prove anything to anyone anymore even myself. My ego is disappointed that I not the driven person I use to be. I am happy to just be who I am.

The years of depression changed me forever.  I haven't been a great partner all the time. I couldn't take the lead like I did in the past to get things done. I was burnt out emotionally. I wasn't able to be the rock for the first time in my life.  The rock was under water. With those word I feel so much emotion.

I am so grateful to no longer be there. I found my way out, with God's help I was able to see the lies I believed about myself. I could see how I believed I was unworthy of love and thought that was why everyone left me.

People leave because they have got to go. They leave because they think they can be happier someplace else and maybe they can. Maybe I need them to go so I can be happier too.  I stay too long I use relationships to avoid dealing with the deepest of issues I can't face.

I have faced
those demons and I am finally free for the first time in my life. It feels weird to not be waiting for someone or something to make me happy. I can just be happy where I am doing what I am doing. What a concept.  

Discipline - Do I need it?

The word discipline keeps coming up for me this past week. I have always considered myself pretty determined but never disciplined. Discipline is for athletes achieving a life time goal. I was just strong willed and pushed through anything that stood in my way.

I never gave myself credit for what I accomplished. I wasn't achieving I was just surviving. I didn't have time for basking in the spotlight of self-admiration I had to get to the next thing on the list. Nothing was ever enough.

I didn't appreciate my own discipline and my ability to get things done until it was gone. With the grief I lost myself and my ability to make myself do anything. What I did get done was done by a ghost of my former self. I barely made it through each day and this went on for years.

During that time my spirit refused to listen to any gentle coaxing or not so gentle threats I made towards myself. I felt totally lost without this part of myself. I had to learn to love a person that accomplished nothing achieved nothing. This isn't easy when you have spent your life tying your self-worth to the number of things you get done in a day.

I think that was the point for me anyway. I finally got to a place of acceptance and told myself well this is the person you have become so get over it.

Now it seems I have returned, not exactly the same, but a wiser version of myself I have to say I learned some other things too. I have learned just how much you can do without. Just how many days you can do little or nothing and still survive.

Most things on the to do list can stay undone the world won't come to an end if you don't live up to your own expectations or the expectations of anyone else. I learned that the pressure comes mostly from me and besides food and shelter(food can sometimes be optional) you can survive.

I not suggesting that anyone take the same trip that I have but maybe just question the belief that everything on the list is so important. That the world will stop spinning if you don't meet your commitments for one day.

In my world I am happy to report that today there was some monotonous things of my list of to dos. I told myself I had to get them done and felt grateful that my spirit went along with it.