Today’s an important anniversary for me, and I thought I’d share it with you.
It was one year ago today that I was told my position, Director of Social Media at Canoe.ca was being eliminated, and I was unplugged and off trail whether I liked it or not.
I liked it. I packed my bags and left at the end of the day, “kicking stones down the road”. That’s what I’ve been doing ever since.
That was the culmination of more than a decade spent working for major Canadian media outlets, and I knew I’d had enough. The loss of my job struck me as an opportunity to get clean and clear, and to feel what it felt like to fly free.
I won’t lie: it was really, really difficult. I’d gotten very used to that substantial, biweekly paycheque and all that goes with it. But getting out of the rat race was something I’d always known I’d do, and I chose this time to do it. Or it chose me. Either way, it was the right time to do the right things.
I learned to be more mindful about my money. I paid much closer attention to my health. I gave up drinking. I was reminded of the depth of true friendship and the support of family. I remembered to give thanks for all the abundance at hand. And I had the opportunity to experience and nurture new love, which blossomed into marriage.
I was able to give more thought and clarity to my relationship with my daughter, whose life is changing as, or more quickly than mine.
My heart would not have been prepared for such journeys, distracted and numbed as it had been for the past several years, had I not been free to spend this time wandering in the wilderness.
That goes for my creative work too. With my attention freed from quotidian commitments, I finally had the energy and focus to enter the recording studio. The result was that I made a new CD, which I’m very pleased with, and will be launching shortly.
I got the opportunity to do more, and better gigs than I’ve done before, including a summer spent at seven different folk festivals. I found a week to do volunteer work up North easily.
And, just recently, I learned that yet another blessing had emerged: I’ve been awarded a Writers’ Works in Progress grant from the Ontario Arts Council, to turn a story I wrote for my daughter a couple of years ago into a full-length novel.
Now I have the time to do it, the energy, the space, the support, and the sense of possibility. I can feel it moving through me, along with so much else. It’s sublime.
All because I got sent kicking stones down the road.
Lucky me!
If envy were acid, I’d be down to my teeth and a belt buckle. YAY you.
Kudos David!
Be sure to kick a few of those stones for those of us who can’t!!
MFN.