Many people, when learning of my intention to take time away from work, ask the obvious question: Why? Or in some cases, they ask the second obvious question: Why now? In this installment, I will try to answer both queries, lest anyone, feline or otherwise, succumb to a fatal bout of curiousity.
First of all, neither I nor anyone close to me is dying, ill or otherwise suffering from some dread affliction. So no worries there. As a matter of fact, I’ve been contemplating some “me” time for a while now. The catalyst for the now part comes principally from my experience attending Priscilla’s university graduation in December.
Being something of a “live in the moment” kind of fellow, I’d not really thought much about how this event would affect me. (Aside, of course, from the extremely selfish notion that I’d have a lot more disposable income from now on.) It all truth it kind of sneaked up on me, as many things seem to do of late. But I digress…
Late last fall, Tonya and I planned a road trip from Calgary to Oklahoma for the first two weeks in December. Our purpose was twofold; to both witness this auspicious event and to pack up Miss P for a “homecoming” trek back to Canada. The plan, as we understood it anyway, was that she would shack up rent-free with mum and dad for a while. This would enable her to start building some career-related experience free from the pressures of fully supporting herself right away. We’d all discussed this rather extensively, so things seemed all set.
A week before hitting the road, Priscilla dropped a bit of a bomb on us. She’d decided that instead of living with us in Calgary she intended to move to Dallas and seek her fortune there. Needless to say, our first reaction was not overwhelming joy. In fact, it seemed capricious and rash. But as the notion settled with me for a bit, I started to see things in a different way.
It really all hit home as I was sitting through her graduation ceremony. I found myself transported back in time some 20-odd years to my own college commencement. I started to recount the years and assess what I’d accomplished so far, all the while trying to remember what I’d set out to do in the first place. I found quickly that my current reality didn’t resemble much of anything I’d envisioned. Indeed, I struggled to remember what I’d envisioned at all.
Now that’s not necessarily a haunting realization, but one that did puzzle my puzzler for a time. (Thanks to Dr. Suess!) I began to understand that my current reality was as much a product of random chance as any kind of planned journey. Priscilla had actually leaped ahead of me in some ways with her bold plan to pursue that which she had clearly wanted for some time – a genuine career working in museums. I both admired and envied her single-minded sense of purpose, and I vowed to find my own.
Armed with this new insight, I started thinking about how I might discover a sense of purpose for myself: my career, my life and those meaningful relationships I believe we all crave deep down. I also realized I needed complete focus, not a “fill in the cracks” approach around my work, which at present doesn’t allow for much mental bandwidth.
So, here I am. All in, for you Texas hold ‘em fans. Six months to sort things out and arm for the fights still to come. I’m not sure what the future has in store for me, but I’m more excited to find out than I’ve been in a long time. Maybe not even since that stifling Sunday afternoon in a gym in Fairbanks so many years ago, decked out in cap and gown and dreams aplenty…
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