It took me a while to gain clarity that the “weed” that was growing all over my backyard and that I had been pulling up was actually this lovely blue flower. Regret cloaked me. The flower is so delicate and lovely that it brings smiles to my heart.
Sometimes, life is like that. Rather than removing the unknowns, they require time to develop and open up before us. I am hoping this is a metaphor for all current aspects in life that are blurry.
As a mental health professional, I held my clients walking through a pandemic for the first time as I held myself walking through the same pandemic. I reached out to my doctor, therapist, and virtual support network of lifetime friends for support.
Meanwhile, as a military spouse and parent, I held our family together, as we do. As a medical spouse, I offered support and holding as my husband went through his own crisis of meaning.
This isn’t the first time I’ve written about this. I wish it would be the last. I wish I could write about it once, process it, and move on, but I haven’t yet. I remind myself that in many ways I, and we, are still in the trauma of the last year. It isn’t over even though many things are getting better. My dad and stepmom arrive tomorrow, for instance.
I am grateful I could pull back from work. I could do so because my husband and I made the decision a couple of years earlier to completely change our lives. Because of that time, this wasn’t the most difficult year for me. That was a couple of years ago. It was during a time that I wanted so badly to stay on a career trajectory, but I didn’t have the support I needed to make it work.
I said, “I need to be in a position to take my clients to zero,” in case anything comes up for my family. I had a vision of taking the training side in such a direction that the finances wouldn’t depend on my seeing clients to pay for the overhead. This was what I needed that job to become. I had helped them take the training online and I had faith that we could reach out to more people and build an offline training program to build passive income. I knew I could make it work and carry on the legacy of the institution.
One day I will write more about this experience and how oftentimes men simply don’t see the support network around them that allows them to work and excel. Without that same network, I could only work at the same level by putting in extra hours at night and the early mornings on top of a schedule that already had me working at least one evening a week and multiple weekends throughout the year. My family was paying the price. They were hurting. So the decision was obvious. It was difficult. But, I quit and started my heroine’s journey.
That year was harder than this year.
By the time the pandemic started, I was just adjusting to the new life we sought and created. It is so much better now. We have more time for ourselves as a family. And, of course, as it turned out, when I needed to take my work to near zero. I could and did. I’ve managed to build a new foundation for the dreams I walked away from. When the pandemic hit, I was grieving and letting go of the previous goals and visions I had held and worked toward for many years even before arriving. That vision inspired me to get my doctorate. My husband alerted his career trajectory in support of it. Still, having a fully supportive husband wasn’t enough.
The grieving process surrounding this career change was interrupted and compounded by the pandemic.
I’m progressing rather slowly toward whatever is next. At the same time, however, I am enjoying my family. My downtime isn’t whittled away. I’m not piecing together a string of babysitters and filling a freezer full of quick meals to make it all work.
Rather, I’m here. And I cook for us. Sure, I’ve burned a lot of meals over this past year (brain fog, distraction, stress, etc.), but we’ve enjoyed our meals together. Sitting down. At the same table.
I just realized that I am not writing about what I intended to write about. I don’t know where this is going and I’m not sure I am comfortable sharing all of it. But I’ve learned to trust my instincts (“I need to be in a position to take my clients to zero” in case anything comes up for my family.) So, here we go.
In the midst of everything that is going on, I’ve been sorting out what parts of my original dream to keep and what parts to let go of. I was very close to a certification that I no longer want or need, but have invested a lot of time and money in. I had a book contract. Since then, I’ve planned out both fiction and nonfiction books that would reach more people, and, I think, address broader social issues that feel urgent.
These unfinished projects feel like swords over my head. Do I finish them? Do I walk away from them? I feel 50/50 on both options. I’m at a point of needing to take action to remove the swords … either by finishing the original goals or by cutting the strings, placing the swords on the ground, and skipping freely ahead. I wish I had clarity about this. These unfinished projects are making it hard for me to finish processing that period of time and move on.
Before COVID, I had started to make progress to move forward toward both goals. But COVID happened. And things have changed. I treasure my time even more. I see life as fleeting. I don’t take my healthy mind or body for granted (I bright side of getting COVID and having both compromised, I suppose.) I want to spend my time doing the things I love. I used to enjoy doing things that moved me forward along a trajectory.
I changed the job trajectory prior to COVID. COVID interrupted my processing of that difficult time. I’m holding on to these two former goals. I constantly feel like I should be doing something else.
What am I holding on to?
What comes to mind immediately is “my truth.” I know the story of my departure has been twisted and warped. The narrative I’ve heard swirling is that I left because my husband got a good job. I hate this narrative because it’s so opposite to what actually happened. He changed his career for me! And he didn’t get his new job until after I quit and we jointly made the decision to restructure our lives around lifestyle and having more time together.
Ultimately, I left because my experience there was not seen/validated. I was told I was getting the support I needed and asked for. It was crazy-making. I don’t think this was malicious. I think, honestly, that the support system we wrap around men so powerfully lifts them that they don’t feel their feet on the ground. Meanwhile, without that same invisible system, my feet were burning on the concrete.
“What hot concrete?”
Crazy-making.
Perhaps I am holding on to these two goals because I fear how the narrative will be spun about why I let them go. Perhaps I feel like I can’t let go until my experience is validated.
It’s hardest to move forward from an unvalidated experience.
I don’t expect to get validation.
I will be cast as the Persecutor (Karpman drama triangle reference). When will I own my experience without external validation? When will I stop feeling like a Victim?
I feel like the answer lies in either finishing what I started or making the decision to walk away. Passively, neither will happen. But it’s not the same as choosing to not do them because I don’t want to.
I don’t want to be passive.
I wasn’t passive when I worked my hardest for that institution while my husband was deployed and I was raising four boys alone.
I wasn’t passive when I felt a strong urge to restructure my life and career.
I wasn’t passive when I set an ultimatum: restructure the institution to work for me.
I wasn’t passive when I shut down our lives to ride out COVID.
Or when I found pockets of energy and creativity to write and move forward with a new training program.
I am aware of how I am limiting myself to the two options I discussed. There are others, but I am keeping this simple for the sake of clarity.
Clarity
I wish I had clarity. Interestingly, for the important things, I get clarity. Always. I have a driving intuition. And I’ve learned to follow it. Maybe … this just isn’t that important. To do or not to do is not the question because it doesn’t matter.
Perhaps it feels unsolvable because it is not the problem.
Things have changed. What once were core goals are now extracurricular. The core has shifted.
I love the core.
I’ll focus on the core each day and see where this takes me. Perhaps it will energize me enough to want to do the extracurricular. Perhaps it will guide me to other extracurriculars. Or, better yet, more core.
It’s time to actively take my energy away from this decision. Just like when I decided to stop putting so much energy in pulling up those lovely flowers. It’s time to put the energy where it belongs: It belongs in my tending to other things.
I trust the clarity will come.
For now, I accept that what once was important, no longer is. And that is OK. I’ve already got what is important:
Time with my family.
Time to be.
Time to heal.
Time to emerge.