Reinvention

It's been awhile, I know.

I am not sure if my sabbatical was the equivalent of a summer vacation, or that I couldn't sustain the pace I was trying to keep, or simply that I couldn't hear the voice in my head because of all the background noise, but in the end, I think it's just simply that I've needed time.

Lots of things going on since I last floated my fingertips across these keys. I buried my grandma, got a new boss, changed my hair color (slightly and not actually on purpose), found out my thyroid was out of whack (probably not the technical term for this condition), started learning elementary German on Babble, but most importantly I learned a lot about myself.

On my second to last post, my mother, revealed as one of the most prominent readers of this screed (hey I need all the fans I can get) mentioned that many of my posts sounded angry and it really shook me.

I stood back and took a hard look at myself. And when I began to really measure it and take stock, I was staggered at the sheer amount of negativity in my life. How many times had I metaphorically shot myself in the foot, not believing myself capable of the tasks entrusted to me?

It's hard to change, as a negative person, to begin to embrace positivity. Very. In fact, it's downright excrutiating for someone as diametrically opposed to change as myself.

Sometimes though, you get help along the way from the places and people from whom you'd least expect it. Remember in school when you were getting your schedule at the beginning of the year, how someone would look over your shoulder and shudder and say "Oh Wow, you got O'Malley for Bio!", as if to say, man are you in for it!  But then unexpectedly, O'Malley would turn out to be the teacher you most remember looking back, because even though he was tough and demanding, you found yourself doing better and getting more out of his class, because he inspired you, because he believed you were capable of more than you'd even thought you were.

Remember how I said, I got a new boss. I didn't want one. No indeed, I was going along just fine, thank you very much, but Non-Company decided our team was getting one anyway. And there were a few fraught days where I teetered on the verge of taking my marbles and going home...after all... it's just an assignment anyway, right? I took a few days, went to Connecticut to attend my Grandma's memorial service, and I came back thinking, okay, I'll see what this guy is like.

Mr. New Boss is a very austere ex-Naval officer, incredibly soft-spoken in tone, yet somehow as steely as they come. And just like O'Malley the Bio teacher, he demands a great deal from you, but before he did that, he did something that no one had ever done before in all my days at Non-Company, he told me I was valued. And he conveyed the fact that he believed I could do more than I'd settled for. And somehow for the first time in many years, I was inspired again.

Please don't get me wrong here, there are plenty of stressful moments where the old me comes back the one that says, I feel that I just can't get this or that done, but then somehow I find myself digging deeper into reserves that I didn't know I had, because I don't want to let him down and also surprisingly I find, because I don't want to let Non-Company down. Not because of who they are, but suddenly because of who I am.

In many ways things are the same, but somehow, I've subtlety changed. I'm no longer angry at smart phones, I use one all the time and I love the exasperating little dude, I've embraced Kindle and wheras I once dismissed them as red-neck idiots, I now absolutely love the values and faith of Duck Dynasty. I've been to a food truck and while I still don't completely understand the allure, I won't knock it anymore. In short, I don't feel the need as much to run somebody else down to elevate myself and make me feel better.

I'll try to make it back to regular weekly postings and Flashback Fridays, and for those of you who are still reading this, I thank you...