continually surprised & amazed, pt. 3
adventure, story, & the culmination of my own growth & investment!
Blue Dog snuggles while I blog
Three days ago, on my drive home from work, I recorded the following blog post as an ad-lib voice memo (the second one this week!).
It turned out to be much longer than I expected, and it has become the largest project I’ve taken on so far on Everyday Magic!
I’ve transcribed and edited it into a four part series (which has taken hours, spread across a few separate work sessions in the last two days!), and each part also includes the attached audio file, raw and unedited, as a sort of podcast-style addition to the series — the origin of the whole project. If you’d like to listen instead of, or along with, reading, here you go!
*note: the audio file came first, but talking and listening is different from reading and writing, so some edits have been made below for clarity and brevity, as well as minor add-on thoughts I had while transcribing. Thus, the audio and textual versions are nearly identical, but not quite.
I am amazed, in my personal and professional life, how stunningly beautiful and exciting it is to me right now. I don’t want to be overly dramatic about this, but I think it’s probably been two years since I have been this excited about what I’m doing, how I’m feeling, where my immediate future is headed, the direction I’m pointed towards, how I’m spending my time, and what my days are full of.
My work day just flies by! Each day is full of one exciting project after another, for the most part, and it never looks the same from day to day, which I love! I am overjoyed about it. Overyjoyed. I am hungry for more. I am thrilled. I can’t believe it. The day flies by, it is so satisfying, and it’s so fulfilling.
That is so lucky because it is absolutely the opposite of my last job. The job I had before that was fabulous and a perfect fit; I had so much fun and still talk super warmly about it and have excellent memories from it. But also, I outgrew it after a time and felt like I was still stuck there another half a year or nine months past when I wanted to move on, as far as applying for jobs, the job search process, getting a different offer — all took longer than I thought it would.
My last job, I hated most of the time. I literally started applying for jobs barely a month after beginning that job because I could tell it was not a great fit, and it did take seven months after that to get a different job offer that I wanted and accepted. Which was a lot of work and a great growing season and a huge period of time of investing in myself and learning about myself. I learned, through experience, shit-tons about resilience, courage, getting back up, and failing failing failing failing forward. Just keep moving forward and deal with your failure. Get stronger because of it. Don’t give up. Keep going. It was a huge, huge, months-long time period of Keep Going, for me. Joy through the struggle, as much as possible. Finding magic, even when your overall big picture is really not feeling great.
And now?! The reward, the benefits I’m reaping from that season are just this stunning, awestruck “oh my god! The culmination of all of that!” Right now, I am living in the culmination of the successes of everything I worked so hard for, for the last eight months, or two years, or however long it has taken. It is stunning.
Personally, intellectually, emotionally — I feel like I am getting to enjoy the rewards of all of the hard work I have put in for so long, all of the effort I have made to become resilient and be brave and creative and generous and aligned, living my life aligned with my values and dreams, to live my life in the way I really want to live it. The hard work I have done to face myself, head on, with love and compassion. Which is really difficult for me, and I miss the mark on pretty often, as far as self-compassion is concerned. Practicing facing myself with my shoulders squared, my head held high, noticing everything. Offering self-compassion. Offering a growth mindset and a willingness to change. Practicing facing my biases and weaknesses, the things that hold me back, and trying to set myself free for the life I really want to be living. Trying to set myself free for growth and improvement. Moving forward through hard obstacles and situations I felt stuck in that weren’t the right fit.
Right now, I am in the sweet spot. The thing you keep going for. I am now in the season I was trying to build so desperately for so many months. I’m here! It’s arrived! This is what they tell you to hang in there for! This is what makes all the hard work worth it! And it blows my mind!
Every day, I am amazed by what I get to do. I am AMAZED by how I feel. I am AMAZED by the big picture of my life. By my job and how I spend my time. By what I’m working on. I’m amazed. I’m amazed with delight, success, and satisfaction, and I’m so grateful that I did not give up. I’m so grateful for everything I’m learning and who I’m becoming. I’m grateful for where I’m at, exactly, precisely right now, which is stunning! For so long, I have been working to get to something, to get out of something, to get somewhere. You know, until then. Until when. Until…
Now, I’m just thrilled. It amazes me every day, and I think I still kind of don’t expect it. I still kind of have the leftover foggy remnants of that pit of dread that enters my stomach sometimes or the gray negativity that clouds over my mind and tries to make me feel overwhelmed or unhappy about my situation. And then, I get to work, or I am leaving the gym, or I post a blog, have a great night with friends, or whatever happens — especially through my work day — and I realize, “there’s nothing to dread here!” Which is amazing me, because for so, so long, there have been giant portions of my day that I dreaded nearly every single day, day after day. Over and over and over, one after another.
And now?? Sure, there are irritations and inconveniences and some difficult people and tricky things to navigate still. Things I’d rather not have, sure, but it’s fine! I’m amazed that I can think to myself, “I don’t want to go to work tomorrow,” and then I go to work, and I just have a blast! It’s still blowing my mind that it’s THIS great! (related: love it completely and unreservedly)
So I think in some ways I’m still not expecting it, and I’d gotten so used to expecting distasteful situations and things I dislike, stuff I feel stuck in, stuff that isn’t a good fit, stuff I do dread. I got so used to that. Which ALSO kind of blows my mind: humans just adapt to what they have, you know? At no point did I think I was just going to stay in that forever or that it was an acceptable way to live; I knew I was pretty miserable most of the time, but it’s amazing how you just get used to something and tolerate it and deal with it. I was actively working my ass off to improve my situation and was trying to make the best of it, but still, I was getting used to it, you know? Even though I didn’t like it, even though I was aware of it and was trying to change it as fast as I could.
Now? It’s changed! It’s lifted! The burden is lifted, and it’s just stunning. It still surprises me. Almost every day, I am still surprised by how much joy I’m feeling and how much fun I’m having. By how even the hurdles and irritations are worth dealing with and I don’t mind them so much because the payoff is so grand.
