People At Work

Some of my co-workers feel so empowered to tell me how to do my job better. And I would like to see how some of these people, who are so free with the easy answers, would fair. Indeed, I would like them to take over my job and then say, "Jesus, how did you manage all of this? And for so long on your own?"

And then I could/would say, "I know, right? It's hard. Good luck, let me know where I can help."

I Wrote

I wrote and it felt good - and it was a much better direction that I had been getting before 'the break,' so that's promising.

I noticed a difference, too. Before taking the unexpected break, I had been getting feedback here and there, people reading it a bit, and the feedback was things like, "I want more back story and there could be more about this person" and ... I agreed. Suddenly, I looked at the whole thing as it being a mere introduction to a much larger story. And then, suddenly, I was planning a Game of Thrones like epic.

That is not what this book is or was ever intended to be. This book should be a an accidental cross between a fairy tale and a novel. Like Naomi Novik, but still not even as grand as that.

So, phew.  That makes things a bit more manageable.

As it usually does, work carries a similar feeling - the one where I catch myself taking in information as if I never had my own direction to begin with, so clearly everyone and anyone has the wisdom I should seek.

However, it's just not true.

At work, I don't exude the confidence of "I know exactly where I'm going" and I don't demand resources so that I could delegate work, leaving myself to really take the time to shape the vision in a way that people could just look at a board and say, "Oh, that's what's happening."

I'm unorganized, I work haphazardly, messy, 'it's-all-in-my-head', fast and lose. I'm creating the rough draft of our new platform and the engine is throaty, strong, and smart. Fail Fast! I'm not building the sleek skin. But somehow, I've failed to communicate this. As well, my c-suite has failed to support this communication, they're getting as turned around as I am  in the fast paced cluster fuck of growing a team exponentially and with mixed leadership and communication. It's messy.

So, if I could take a page from my book, these people don't understand that story I'm trying to tell and they might not until it's finished. Then, once they read it front to back, they say, "Ohhh, I see your vision now. Yes. I like it."

And like my book, I must have confidence in the fact that

1. I can't explain it anymore than I have
2. I don't have to explain it anymore than I have
3. They can't see the big picture over time because they're not in the work
4. I know where I'm going - and this is all I know. 
1. this doesn't mean that that I'm writing the best book every or producing the best solutions for our software. But this is the thing I'm doing, have been selected to do, and so I will do it the way that I understand how. 
5. I can and will take feedback objectively

So, what do I want? 

I like my job, but I would like it to be less critical. My original manifestation was to have a day job where I

• laugh a lot
• feel successful
• gain financial freedom

I have the financial freedom (thank you, Universe), but I've lost the laughing and feeling successful. 

It's all three of these things that contribute to me attaining the larger goal of having a day job that leaves me room to write and/or sculpt.

There is so much pressure in this job right now, and honestly I don't know who is more responsible for creating it, me or our new shiny CTO. 

So here we go: Dear Universe, 

I would like to bring into my life the joy and feeling of being successful, a confident and restful mind, the space to write with excitement and enthusiasm, financial and emotional wellness, and laughter. 

And I want to be able to give these same things as much as I receive. I want to reciprocate. 

These are my manifestations. 

An Elizabeth Gilbert Overdose? Perhaps.

I mean, she's not wrong.

I've reread a lot of this blog this week, this quiet anonymous little journal that threatens to be found by someone, anyone, and is read (eventually and finally) by no one. It was interesting in a mildly boring way; the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I would appear to be someone who is obsessed with relationships and love (and that my job is all sorts of soul suck). Well, that too would not be wrong. I don't really care that it comes off that way. The context, that things are written with months in between, is lost in the journal format.

None of this is my point.

None except that little job bit that I snuck in.

I have been so consumed by the love of the project I have been working on for the last 3 (4?) years. No project in tech should be that long - that's the first BIG problem. But, it's a bad relationship now. It's eating me like fire ants on whatever it is they eat.

For a year I got up every morning and wrote between 5-7am. My eyes opened and myself said "write the book." I exercised laser focus, nothing else mattered. Write.The.Book.

So, what happened?

The end happened. I got to the end, looked behind me at all the words, and said, "Oh man, I gotta go back and .... "

and now here I am, almost five months later, making excuses about how it's too big of a fix to attend to from 5-7am everyday and then go to work and pull off this feat I am trying to pull off. My brain simply said, "Please stop. Right now, you can only have one of us. You can't have both."

So I looked at my wealth of words, "I'll come back for you" I said with my heart and eyes.

"Sure you will" she nodded, and not without genuine empathy either. She meant it. She meant it as if she would wait for me.

But the job is killing me nonetheless. Resource Management does not care for me like Lemke does. Lemke adores me and waits for us to tell her story - and certainly before my sister accidentally kills herself - in the hope, that for one moment, I  can show her her life from my perspective and that I can pay tribute to her sacrifice. You know, the one that she now martyrs herself with, and with such Irish gusto.

Anyways, I'm here: standing equal distance between work and that book. I'm as close to the the end of this project as I am at the beginning of the end of this book.

So what do I need? I need help. At work. At work I need to ask for, and demand they take me seriously, the help I need. This work is going hurt me with or with out considering anything about my personal creative desires.

It's a boyfriend that just keeps asking me to make him a sammich while laughing with his friends - he's a good guy, he just does not know what an ass he's become. He thinks that taking me aside once and awhile and saying "hey babe, you know I love you right?" is enough to sustain a marriage. It is not, but, of course we all know that.

Maybe I can get back to a place of balance. I just have to get out of this pit of fire ants.

I know the universe is speaking to me. I hear you, although, I may be taking some liberties with your inability to be perfectly clear (when in fact you may have been absolutely clear)?

Dear Liz,

I didn't like Eat, Love, Pray the book (yup, I liked the movie). I couldn't get past your voice, it was just too passive for me at the time I suppose. I didn't read anything of yours again until recently and then, I binged City of Girls, The Signature of All Things, and, just today, Big Magic.

I had seen your Ted Talk years ago and you were redeemed to me as an intellect. I saw the you past ELP. I connected inside and out to that talk (though, I did not run out and get Big Magic, not yet).

What am I trying to say?

Two days ago, I wrote you an email asking for friendship. I did so because sometimes you have to take chances or else how will you ever know? I am so want to surround myself with like-minded souls. I didn't have anywhere to send this email however and I hated the thought of it being just another DM you might skip in your Insta. So, I let it go. I'm a reasonable woman, I knew deep down it was a cathartic exercise as much as anything else.

And then today, after coming in from a long walk while listening to your audio book of Big Magic, just trying to regroup my priorities and direction, I sat on the couch and opened up Instagram, chatted with my daughters there, and then noticed you had a live story happening. "Huh" thought I.

I clicked on it (it was near the end) and there you were saying "just send an email asking for a friend!" My email had had the subject line "Coffee and Words #askingforafriend"

I mean, I had just taken Big Magic out of my ears. You can see where I'm going with this, right? No sooner had you said that though, you followed with "but, don't email me! laughter. I'm not going to email you back laughter. Ask other people!"

Ahh, Universe you funny, funny sly little big thing.

However, I can't risk not taking a chance. Something tells me you might click on the link I slip in your DM's. If not, Universe, no harm, no foul. I can't say you didn't explicitly have Liz tell me that very thing.

And Liz, if you find yourself here and you've made it this far. The name of this blog is not a sassy nickname meant to personify me (I am loath to imagine you thinking of me as "sassy blogger"), it's how I take my coffee.  If you find yourself curious about that, let me know and I can send you an email I wrote recently that explains it all :P

Yours Truly

PS: I know my odds here and rest assured, I will find my people, I will write and will write for me, for the love of story telling, and for the love of Lemke and the land from which she comes, which - no surprise here - is ripe with natural magic, a sneaky nightmare of a tragedy, and three sisters, their houses, and a wolf.

Looking at Discontent

I really just shouldn't, I shouldn't stare at my discontent. If I do, it's the only thing I'll see, and while it does exist it is certainly not the only thing, right? I can admit that discontent exists and trust that I will move past it.

If I only stare at all that junk and garbage that I have left on my living room chair, that for some reason seems like such a chore to deal with, and shame myself for being a... a what, I don't know. A lazy, dirty person perhaps? Then I will only see that reflection in the mirror.

If I only look at the parts of my relationship that make me feel trapped and lonely, it will be the only reflection of my life I will see.

If I think I am trapped, I will feel trapped.

I don't think I'm trapped. I think I have previous experience that leads me to see a relationship as a marriage, but mine does not have to be that. I only need to live the life I want, my inner emotional eco-system, and it will be. My partner could be my lover.

I need to kneel to my inner most desire, take a deep breath, and follow that path, trusting the unknown.

Maybe the stuff on the chair just represents to me the other things I'm not doing, the things that I really want to allow to come to fruition.

Woman of Arrival

I'm listening to a "morning chill" Spotify playlist. It's got that easy listening FM for over 30 vibe. It's got all those songs that you romantically cling to in those early relationship times, the ones where, as they play, everywhere you look love inspires and butterflies abound.

It's taking me back to those days where, separated by miles from my new crush, my new love, my heart swelled and swooned at the thought of him.

Now, he's in the next room.

Long gone is the lustre, and I now romanticize being a spinster; being one of the the most logical people I know, this interests me.

Do I really want to be a spinster?

Yes, right now I do.

I love the person I live with. He is very kind, responsible, funny, sexy, energetic, he's intelligent. I also know that being alone is lonely - and I don't love or fair super well alone with my brain, or do I? I don't know really.

It just feels like I chew through relationships and that, maybe, I am a "man eater" ?

For some time now, I have imagined myself as a "woman of arrival" who is content, independent, and is never want for the company of a faithful and kind lover. They just don't live with me.

I have my own witch like den and I only take distractions as and when I want them.

Indeed. This is absolutely where I see myself. A kind, self-possessed, generous, magical, contented, beautiful woman of a certain age and agelessness.

I feel resigned, patient, happy, and sad all together.

I don't really know where to go with all this. It feels a little shut up and wait.

Ya, So...

After writing yesterdays post and just feeling sad in general, my partner awoke to my somber, reflective mood and asked, "What's up?"

I told him, "Nothing really, I'm just... sad."

He came and sat beside me, his arm gently around me, and asked some gently probing questions until I said, with tears, "I think it's work."

Facing all those permutations of numbers and functions disguised as words and needs, validating those needs and words against existing uses, protecting it from... who? Too many, too much. So complex, it's like rubbing two sticks together for two years and - finally and again - getting smoke.

I'm disappointed that I'm burnt out. I wanted to be stronger, the strongest.

It's a Deep Breath Kind of Morning

I don't know why, but it is. Dear Diary...

This morning I will just pray and send gratitude out into the spirit energy layer. Pray that I can stay on that layer today.

Work is work. It's tough, but I feel like I know it's important to persevere.

It's important to love myself as I am.

Also, I feel like my relationship will wrap up within the year. I could be wrong, but I can see it on the horizon. I don't know if it will be me or him that will end it. It might have to be me.

It seems so clear to me that he needs to move into a new challenge in his life, but he's not quite ready to admit it. I think he's afraid of giving up what we have become, but there are ways in which he will always have me and still be happy, happier even perhaps.

I find myself dreaming of being comfortable alone. At peace. At oneness. I should be careful what I wish for, but the key word there is being comfortable. It certainly doesn't mean I wouldn't have a life.

But I dream of it like I used to dream of leaving my marriage and falling in love. And I still want that love, too. I just want to move into the next stage, the stage of graceful independence and a beautiful joy that penetrates all that I touch.

So, I would like to bring some of that into today.  A letting go of the frenetic synapse that my world is full of.

I want to put forward gratitude and pray for kindness, successes, and love.