I found a note to myself from several months ago.
It was a list of items:
What’s my attitude today?
Grateful for…
Just go to work (no brooding)
Resilience
One of the big themes of my writing has been capturing how much I desire to have some kind of stability and routine. What is the way to live? This has been especially essential for me as my past fractured a lot of my core identity and stability.
I still find myself wondering what and how people live and put things all together. What’s the right combination of ways to be or think? It’s haunted me my whole life, leaving me often feeling very vulnerable and weak, unable to really stand on who I am.
As a result, I’ve been on some kind of discovery path for most of my life, since I was a kid. It’s incredible to me that you can have significant natural talent and have it not affect you positively at all. In fact, it can be somewhat of a curse. It reminds you of how fucked up you are, that you can’t even shit or get off the pot. You’re paralyzed and all this talent you have is being wasted. Not long ago I actually thought it would have been better if someone else had been given what I’d been given. Maybe they could have used it better than me.
I have dozens of notes like this laying around, tucked in notebooks, my Daytimer, lose in drawers and random files. It’s the this strange littering of my life, the random thought that goes in and out of my mind, I grab paper and scribble something down that belies my inner turmoil and overall confusion. How do I live?
I sense some of the worst underlying instability is being resolved. I don’t feel as adrift. I am trying to claim what I have done and own it. Believe in it, believe in myself, and stand on it.
It’s still a journey but one that I’ve been on a very, very long time. Maybe this journey will end one of these days, and just merge into a path way of general life discovery, one that feels less morose and hopeless. That’s seems like a decent thing to wish for the new year.
*****
As I shed layers of the past, much of it physical, much of it mental, I realize that this is more the story of life than not.
I’ve believed some kind of story that life happens immediately and swiftly. In fact, I’m realizing the life I’m living, the one where there is a huge disruption and subsequent healing, is more common than what’s presented in the culture. It gives me the sense it might be okay to be pursuing healing on the timeline that I am. I’m pursuing healing. I didn’t stop.
I just put some more things downstairs to take away to the thrift store. I’m writing. I’m starting to watching shows and just be less triggered in general.
It feels right. The pace. The tasks I’m doing. It does feel like a life transformation.
*****
Had dinner tonight w/ a former employee who changed his career focus and transitioned out of the company. We didn’t need someone full-time with his skills.
He’s doing well and actually moved back to our city. We’ve reconnected and was somewhat like chatting two almost three years ago when he left. We haven’t seen him since then.
We had an up/down, intense relationship. There was a lot of creativity and creation of processes and content while he was here that he initiated and contributed to. There was a lot of tension over direction and what to do. It was good we parted ways as friends. He appreciated all we’d done to give him a chance when he was less stable. That’s sort of the story of our company for about five years. I’m still recovering from that effort and from the dysfunction of it. A company isn’t a social agency, and that’s what it felt like.
Overall, I’m super happy for him and glad we were able to stay connected. It feels redemptive and grown-up and sacred to stay connected to people that you have significant conflict with.