into something good
I didn't listen to any podcasts or the radio on my way into work that day. I wanted to take in everything- my surroundings, the time, the flow of traffic, the people out on the street and my fellow commuters on the road. I wanted to make note of it all because it was the last day that I would do it myself.
Today, will be a day of many firsts. My first day being self-employed. My first day going for a morning walk instead of hopping into my car. My first day working from home while natural daylight streams in, flooding my window nook studio table. My first time preparing lunch in my own kitchen on a workday. My first day being a stay-at-home cat mom (awww).
Yet, these firsts are really the middle. And, it feels like the end of an era.
My career in administrative work spanned fifteen years, the last six of which were spent at Harvey Mudd College working alongside the most remarkable team of creatives in Communications and Marketing. Since I first began, I always understood that there would be a point- a threshold reached- in which it would no longer be sustainable for me to do both. Should Lacelit continue to grow, I would need to choose- and leaving a meaningful community and the work we create together in order to take a leap and see what I might achieve is no small decision, no mere thing.
To take into account the time and work and people that fifteen years carries- both in unhealthy jobs and the very best of them all- is important. There is the hard and the good and the incredible, there is what I've gleaned and what I've mastered and how I've grown, there are conversations and mutual respect and friendships and mentors. I remember everything.
Sitting in a cozy living room with closest kindreds, we made note of it all together. We gave it the weight it warrants. We celebrated the struggles as well as the wins. We remembered who I was before I started and how each of them walked alongside all the while believing in me again and again even when I wasn't sure. We toasted and we cheered and we clinked and we cried.
Sometimes, journeys are round about and things seem unapparently so. Sometimes, we devote ourselves to a career and unexpectedly happen upon new interests and aptitudes. Sometimes, we try something new and end up awakening a part of ourselves that has been lying dormant all these years waiting to be noticed. And, it changes possibilities and dreams and futures and who we choose to be.
I used to wish that I'd noticed sooner and had more of a head start. But, as I look back and see all that has been, I find tremendous hope in what I've experienced and gained through it all. For this whispers to me with a gentle prodding that there is always a reason to explore- to taste, to listen, to read, to imagine, to remember, to begin. Just as there are so many somethings to learn and achieve and strive for in the meantime, even when steps seem slow.
"Good" can signify many things, but for today, it means happy and hopeful and bright. And while there will be much hard work ahead with calculated risks and a vast realm of unknowns, in the nostalgic words of Herman's Hermits introduced to me by my dad all those years ago,
