It's Monday, right?

This morning I met with a VP of client services for a career marketing and management agency. I was told that I'd be good as a corporate trainer or working with a lobbyist, and that I'm overqualified for most of what I've been applying for because my experience and ability lends toward being able to do my (potential) boss' job. 

I don't recall ever having been pegged so well in terms of personality - a straight-shooting outgoing introvert who truly cares but has limited patience with stupidity and who really enjoys seeing the lightbulb go off in someone's head when he/she finally gets something. Um...wow...  Yep. I resemble that.

I'm still slightly stunned by my morning...

My First 5K

I've never been a runner. And I've never even thought of competing in any sort of sports. Since I moved to Austin, however, I have been diligently working my way toward becoming a runner.  At the moment, I am doing 5 miles every week using the Galloway Method of 2 minutes of walk time with 1 minute of run time.

The last time I clocked my 5 miles, it took me a little over an hour to complete the loop, which is okay. Eventually, I hope to increase my endurance, distance and speed so that I'm running more than walking and so that it takes less than an hour to complete 5 miles.

A friend told me about a 5K race in which she was walking. I agreed to walk it with her. She's much taller than I am, with much longer legs, so walking at her pace might have been challenging had I not been doing my weekly 5 miles.

For those who don't know, of which I was one until recently, a 5K is actually 3.1 miles.  I knew that, in theory, but the reality of doing this 5K race made it clear to me that I'm in better shape than I thought. The 5K actually felt pretty easy.

For a lifetime non-athlete, I think I'm free to pat myself on the back for this one.

I did a 5K. I have the shirt and number bib to prove it.

I want to do another. Then a 10K. Then maybe a half-marathon and, ultimately, a marathon.

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!!

Does It Matter?

"It doesn't matter."

How many times have I said that to myself when dealing with a painful situation? It's as though I minimize what was said or done simply so that I can make myself move forward in strength and maintain some sort of dignity in the process. Really, more than dignity, I want my power back.

In a way, saying "it doesn't matter" is like saying that the person(s) who hurt me don't matter enough in my personal world to be able to get to me ever again. It's a way of hardening the heart and devaluing the other, so that I have a kind of power over them inasmuch as it removes from them the ability to approach my heart.

Never again will the arrows of their words penetrate the armor I've placed around my heart. I will immerse my inner being in kevlar. I will make myself bulletproof. Becaues I have made myself bulletproof, it doesn't matter what is said or done by anyone else. They can't get to me ever again.

 That's the thinking. It may not even be conscious thinking, but that's what's going on internally.  And I am fairly certain that I'm not the only person who has this sort of self-talk.  I daresay there are many of us who chant the "it doesn't matter" refrain in the hopes of eliminating heartache.

Reality is that it does matter. They do matter. If that were not the case then we wouldn't hurt.

Eldredge has this to say:

We must forgive those who hurt us. The reason is simple: Bitterness and unforgiveness are claws that set their hooks deep in our hearts; they are chains that keep us held captive to the wounds and the messages of those wounds. Until you forgive, you remain their prisoner. Paul warns us that unforgiveness and bitterness can wreck our lives and the lives of others (Eph. 4:31; Heb. 12:15). We have to let them go.

Forgive as Christ has forgiven you. (Col 3:13)

Now - listen carefully. Forgiveness is a choice. It is not a feeling - don't try and feel forgiving. It is an act of the will. "Don't wait to forgive until you feel like forgiving," wrote Neil Anderson. "You will never get there. Feelings take time to heal after the choice to forgive is made . . ." We allow God to bring the hurt up from our past, for "if your forgiveness doesn't visit the emotional core of your life, it will be incomplete." We acknowledge that it hurt, that it mattered, and we choose to extend forgiveness to our father, our mother, those who hurt us. This is not saying, "It didn't really matter"; it is not saying, "I probably deserved part of it anyway." Forgiveness says, "It was wrong. Very wrong. It mattered, hurt me deeply. And I release you. I give you to God."  (Captivating, 102-103)

Do you see what he said?  "It was wrong. Very wrong. It mattered, hurt me deeply."

What difference would it make in our lives if we actually believed that? If we actually believed that our hurts, our heartaches, matter? Not just because we feel them but because of something else.  Something that speaks of value. My value. Your value. Their value.

Because there is something true there, too...