Transitions

For some the new year begins with a bang - corks exploding from champagne bottles, fireworks, and boisterous laughter. For others the new year begins with something more low key - a quiet evening at home with the family, games with the children, or a night at the movies. Not so for me. For me, the new year begins with a hard look at my stuff.

I mean that quite literally. I am moving.

I am leaving a job of ten years, at an organization for which I've worked twenty years, and from an apartment in which I've lived seventeen years, to begin life anew in a different city. I am not leaving because I found a better job. I haven't found a job. I am leaving because I have come to a place of transition.

My priorities have changed. My needs and wants have changed.

I climbed the corporate ladder, albeit in a niche industry, and made it very close to the top. I spent the last ten years as the assistant to a vice president of a 501(c)3 organization. I know what it's like to carry a lot of responsibility, have authority, and interact with people whose names are recognizable. I know what it's like to have to step up and make decisions that need to be made in a very timely manner. I know what it's like to know things before others. I know how impressive it can seem.

I no longer want that life.

I am fortunate to have a community into whom I can lean as I search for the life I want. I have been assured that, even in a new city with no job, I will have a home for as long as I need to become reintroduced to the life of my deep heart. I have heard some murmurs of what that life might look like but those are still whispers.

I expect those whispers to grow into a clear voice as I transition into my new life. 

Twenty years in one place is a long time. It's a lifetime. Or half a lifetime. It will be interesting to see what this next year, not to mention the next twenty, holds.

Happy New Year!!