Not of the dark. That would be quite silly. Or maybe not. (See The Dark - or the audiobook to understand today's title).
I get scared because all of the illumination goes away. All the sound, all the noise that feeds me & keeps me preoccupied dissipates. All I am left with are my thoughts on life... and quite frankly, that is...
petrifying.
Let me tell you, my mind... it's a scary place. It's scary because I am a faulty, anxious, & mistrusting human being. Yeah. Let's stop there. I could down that list for a while, except it's not the point.
Over the past three months, I have felt a strong pull to change professions. I have been creatively unsatisfied & unstimulated. Of more concern, is the fact that I haven't been motivated where I'm at to change the fact that I am unsatisfied & unstimulated.
So...problems.
I have spent the last 4-5 weeks meeting with people, applying to jobs, researching positions & seeking after work that I have dreamed of since I was a little girl. There have been 2 phone calls about potentially setting up interviews (one of which I sort of biffed.) But mostly, particularly in the last 24 hours, there has been panic.
Will any of these places see me? Will they want me? Can I get my foot in the door?
If none of them want me, where do I go?
If one of them wants me but can't pay the bills, what do I do?* Take it? Pass it? Wait for next season to roll around?
*This one is huge for me. HUGE. I obsess. The thought of not being able to financially support myself almost puts me in hysterics.
And phone watching. There has been a lot of phone watching. Voicemails, emails, missed calls - I have gone absolutely bananas trying to monitor all of it.
Yesterday, I spent roughly 3 hours on the phone after the biffed call just trying to calm my brain down. Talking about possibilities of inferences & implications. If A, then B? If Y, then Z?
What I kept hearing from different people, in different words was this. "Hand it over." For me, this means surrendering to my faith. Trusting that God knows more than I do. Trusting that He will be faithful in providing a spot where I can shine for Him.
"Hand it over. Enjoy the process. It's out of your control."
All very necessary but stressful things to impart an anxious, controlling, perfectionist. And to hear it from both parents, several friends, & a roommate. I spent some time in meditation before sleep. It was grounding but ultimately lacked any sort of enlightening moment where the clouds parted & I finally calmed the *bleep* down. And I slept relatively well - minus one terrifying & unrelated dream.
And then today happened. I got no more information than I had yesterday. I did not hear back from either office I was hoping to hear from. And it was the best thing that could have happened. At work, it took me 20 minutes to leave because I had toddlers sitting on my feet begging me not to go. I didn't spend my evening shaking or wanting to cry.
Before I climbed in bed, I decided to pull out something to read. A real book. Nothing on a screen (since jobs searching & applications make you never want to see a computer again...for me anyway.) Some nights I reach for C.S. Lewis, Shakespeare, or T.S. Eliot. Some nights it's brief but dense works like Tuesdays with Morrie.
Tonight, I reached for Neil Gaiman. Not so very long ago, for my graduation or birthday, a very dear friend gave me a printed copy of Neil Gaiman's "Make Good Art" speech (video). I read it through, let myself be passionately inspired by the words & promptly filed it in with my other "inspirational" books.
The inside cover says in large, bold letters
"This book
is for anybody
who is
looking around and thinking
NOW WHAT?"
Well, I thought, that about nails it. I hadn't even started yet.
About 15 pages in, I find this -
"Sometimes the way you do what you hope to
do will be clear cut, and sometimes, it will
be almost impossible to decide whether or
not you are doing the correct thing,
because you'll have to balance your goals and hopes with
feeding yourself, paying debts,
finding work, settling for what you cant get."
Okay. Cool. Huh, maybe it's not terrible that I am so torn. It makes sense. I do have to find a balance.
Five pages later:
"If I did work I was proud of, and didn't get the money, at least I'd have the work."
Jeeze. Okay. No need to hit me over the head with it. It is a calling. I'm not crazy. Making good art feeds soul...blah blah blah.
And then this.
"The things I've done that worked the best were the things I was the least certain about... [ several pages later] I started trying to think what the best advice I'd been given over the years was. And it came from Stephen King... 'This is really great. You should enjoy it.' And I didn't."
...
.....
Now I am at this place where epiphanies happen. And, it's funny, isn't it? That instead of listening to the people who know me (& who I know/trust), it finally clicked for me, late at night, when the world was dark...
And I am no longer scared.
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