Rise

 If I were to write the story of our start up to break out SaaS, what would I focus on? What would be my hook, what would the flavour? Comedic by the minute, drama by the season? Would it be driven by an ego/equity focus? Am I looking for redemption? The answer to that is yes to a large degree - but in the end, is that what tells the story? Who is the protagonist and who are the people we want to focus on? 

I think if it was to be a meaningful story, the driver would have to be the inequity. Which is currently appalling in many cases. The story of two key female players that are initially empowered by the bright and insightful CEO, but then are overlooked and out numbered by the influx of male bravado hired to "get the start up to the next level"

• What got us here wont get us there
• 10x baby!
• Old guard vs. new guard
• OG's
• Some people are better in start ups and can't make the switch to the growth stage
• The wrong leaders in the wrong places
• Undermining historical context
• Maybe 5x... ?
• Crumbling infrastructure 
• Mistrust
• More wrong leaders in the wrong places
• More mistrust
• Doubling down on undermining historical context 
• More mistrust
• 
  

there is a story here, but I can't find an angle that I like. 

What's interesting today is that we might be in a bit of the scorpion and the frog scenario. With the help of a capitol partner, we've merged with one of our more friendly competitors with a common goal of beating out our shared major competitor. Our capitol partners - as luck would have it - has relationships with some former key players from the major competitor. In fact, now that the deal is done, in addition to the former COO of [major competitor] there is also a CPO and sales leader from [major competitor] coming in to "help us get to the next level and go beyond [major competitor]. However, my spidey senses say that our major competitor has simply outsmarted us. We'er quite possibly on the road to being absorbed/bought out by them. They are the scorpion. We are the trusting frog. 

That would be the story's end. All the work that these humble people put in to getting to a place, succeeding as a saas company, and passing our competition is made moot by this merger (turned acquisition). It's all for not in the end?

All that aside, I find I'm feeling a little listless this weekend. I'm tapped out on the hype of it all. There is so much work to be done and we have so much drama under the hood. It's silly and embarrassing. 

What I would like is to go to work with wonderful people with whom I collaborate with to solve fun puzzles for interesting people. We laugh at the craziness of our ideas, but then we turn them into innovation. We turn our ideas into beautiful, simple logic. That's what I love. 

But today, the reality is that I am tired and a little sad. Something is passing through me. There is a letting go, an undoing. A passing. 

I think of my mom often these days (hi mom 👋 !), I think she's really present lately. There's something in the air. A shift. If I ask, what do I hear? A ship keeps coming to mind... "hold fast" is the word connected to the sense I'm getting. Things are going to be fast and it is meaningful for me to hold on and keep my bearings. There's a calm afterwards that is of great value to me, in that it sets up the next stage of my life. 

I have to remember that it's okay to be low on energy, that is just a sign that I need to balance my mind and actions. Right now, I would like to simplify. I think I'm trying to hold too much together, everything is priority number one and I am on high alert. I would benefit from changing that. I will walk slowly. Slow my breath, keep my eyes open and keep moving forward calmly and creatively. 

💡

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? 

I had to read the last post to remember that I already decided not to question my lack of umph. But, I'm here to dig more regardless. 

I'm curious as to why I feel at odds with my surroundings. I'm tired of my furniture, it reeks of the life I grew up in. It's my mother in me. I've remade the home that she made. I did this because I loved growing up in it. But now, I loath it. Like somehow, it was a lie. It was a lie then and an even bigger lie now. 

I scan homes that I could buy and I imagine my "new" self in them. Then I will be at peace. I shop online for a new look: furniture, clothes. But when I find a home or look that I like, the excitement is replaced by revulsion in split second. What thought took place in that micro second that sent from Yes! to belly that screamed no... that is not the answer. It's bad. 

What's the psychology here? Am I stopping myself from enjoying life in a way that I can now afford because: 

• I think I don't deserve it? 
• It's a betrayal of where I've come from to be seen as 'rich'?
• It's not 'me'
• I know or think it wont fix me? I am unfixable, so don't waist money

All of the above are true in their own way. And this god damn change in my hormones is not helping any of it. 

This is the bullshit that is. Where are all the crones at? Can you tell me if I have to take HRT or if my body will level out again? Can I wait this out? 

50 and Crashing

This age range: where your hormones are slowly ghosting you, you don't recognize your budding crone-self in the mirror, but you've finally hit your professional stride, but your parents are aging, dying or dead, and your kids are grown up but there's still a very blurry line between them needing you and not needing you - it's a lot. 

Obviously, my world is spinning. Obviously, I'm going to say whoa, can we take a break here? I think I'm going to be sick. And obviously, there doesn't appear to be a lot of hope for it. It's a lot and all I can do is keep my eye on the horizon and ride this storm out. 

All this to say that it makes sense that I'm sad on the deep down inside. I'm sad and it feels really reasonable to allow the sadness some room to explore itself with quiet reflection - which often looks like me starring into the abyss from the couch. 

In the face of societies self help, gratitude having, live your best life marketing machine, staring into the abyss from your couch doesn't sound like the right choice. Yet, my inner voice is clear. Be still, be sad. 

In exercise's corner, I have a better sleep when I drag myself out for a long, still sad and reflective, walk. Given that sleep is my one true "stop the world, I want to get off" friend, I do my best to drag myself out for an exhaustive walk. Exhaustive walking seems to be part of the good medicine for elevating my sadness. 

Hitting my professional stride means that I can afford to pay for a foot massage after the long walk. 

These are the things I do now, and I do them with a heavy heart. 

I think it's supposed to be heavy. I shouldn't try and stop that. I should listen - hear - it. It's okay to be sad. In a world that tells you that sad means something's wrong, it's hard to accept that. I'm slowly accepting it. 

I am sad.

Sad makes you tired, sad zaps creativity, sad diminishes the appetite, sad excludes community. Sad is a rest stop that begs for your attention. You need it. Take the rest. 

Trust yourself that you wont stay here longer than you need to. Have faith  that you will find a way to be a  good friend to the process, and that your energy will be restored.

Go ahead, crash. 

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.