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What are the times in between writing all this stuff out? What are the highs and lows made of? There's a trend here, I'm sure. Is it change? Shifts of growth? The time before big decisions that need to be made? Is this feeling of anxiety simply the plant protruding from the seed and wanting to push through the ground with no idea of what'll face on the other side? 

I booked my trip for the fall, and I would expect that to cause anxiety. Perhaps it's far enough away from reality that instead of anxiety, it feels like pending relief from my job.

Tomorrow I will be joining my 'peers' on a celebratory offsite. It's the senior leadership team - the C's and VP's, a few key Directors (which includes me?) - sequestering themselves to: revel in a job well done and strategize about the months to come. Yeah, that makes me want to puke. Even my hands want to start shaking a bit. 

I don't belong here feels like a deep knowing that fuels dread. Then, I recall a therapist that the main husband and I went to see once. That husband was talking about his feeling that - given his past - he didn't deserve all that he had, a wife and children. To my shock, the therapist said "you don't." 

I think I even laughed a surprised ha. The therapist explained that no one deserves anything. "But" he followed, "you have it, nonetheless."

Knowing what your afraid of is helpful. How can you know that turning the lights on will make you feel better if you don't know you're afraid of the dark? Huh. That might be one of more profound things I've realized I didn't realize. 

I'm afraid of the dark. And what is ahead of me professionally doesn't have anything I've ever seen before. It's completely foreign. I'm absolutely in the dark. I'm having a very visceral response to this epiphany. My body is heating up, my arms feel weak, and there are slight waves of nausea. If I inspect it, I'm both nervous and excited. 

I'm not dying, I am alive. 

I'm in the line up at the fair. I don't know (trust) if the ride I'm lined up for is safe. It's a gamble of sorts. Yet, I know the ride will not kill me - not physically anyways. it's not life threatening. It's lifestyle threatening. 

I don't want to be rich. Rich as in those people rich. I don't want to be one of those people, and I'm terrified that in my goal for financial freedom, I've found myself in the line up for the wrong ride. This ride is not steeped in humble goodness. 

I grew up on the mean streets of the Shires ghetto and it's legacy is written within me: 

• People like us don't get to cross over
• People like us don't want to cross over
• We practice solidarity to our kind
• Being one of them means you're vapid, stupid, and selfish
• You must stay humble, keep your heart close to the ground
• The air is cleaner - more honest - down here
• Don't be too smart for your own good. This is the advice I rebuked. 
  

Obviously, this is sounding painfully close to the narrative of my current read:Wool. Am I attracted to this book because it mirrors my own thoughts and feelings? My own trajectory? 

"I don't belong here" is only true because it's not a question of belonging or not. You just are where you are. You are (I am) going to have to deal with it. I could get stranded on an island and weep because I don't belong there, but that's not going to help. 

And if this situation, this current trajectory, is that island; well, I'm not stranded. I can leave anytime I want. This is a party I'm attending. I'm standing outside the house in the rich part of town wondering if I'm going to have fun while a keen sense of knowing is hinting that I will not like this crowd. 

I'm choosing to be curious about it. I'm not walking into a house of bullies. I'm walking into a house of a type of folk I've never gotten to know. There may be times where they are thoughtless, but if I turn the lights on, I'll see that they simply know not what they do. I wont be a victim, I would just be a witness, unscathed. It's only if I walk in with the lights off that I may get hurt. 

I'm an explorer from the other side. I'm well equipped to survive. I can explore this world a little bit longer. I will leave when I want to leave. 

I imagine an older version of me, my career days long behind me, looking back at this time and, with a nostalgic smile, telling herself, "if only I'd known that those days were the exciting parts, the fun rides. If only I hadn't been so afraid of them. If only I had raised my arms in the air and embraced the joy of being alive." 

Maybe I do that lady a solid - at least once?