Window Shopping

You people are just...my readers are really wonderful.

Whoami has offered me these jumpstarter questions to get my mind turning in the right trajectory. I find them very energizing!

At some point, I may feel it appropriate to process this offline, but for now, I don't mind brainstorming here. I think it might be nurturing and supportive and good.

So here goes:

The first one is clarification- by new role do you mean at that company or a new role in life?
Neither one.
Since the division of the company that I work for is going away, so will I.
My roles in life will not change. I will still be God's beloved, Delighted Husband's friend and lover, Dear Children's Mom, my friends's friend and (somebody's) talented new teammate who does (?). Who that somebody is and what I will be collaborating on is yet to be defined. I find it very comforting to realize that my core defining roles will not change. I'm still defined by all the loving relationships in my life. I still have all the talents and skills and passions to bring to bear in my working life. More actually, after this gig. I've learned a lot and accomplished a lot here.

What I meant when I first posted "new role" was I believe my title and function will be different at my new career home. I don't want to go inhabit the same title and function at another organization. I want another title and function. I want another tribe actually.

How much does the family need the money you are earning now. Is this job or a similar paying one critical to the family finances.
We could live without my money but we'd really rather not. Delighted Husband is a wonderful provider and I am also a valued contributor.

If you could do anything you wanted to, and money wasn't an object, what would you do?
That's easy. I'd move my creative work from backstage to front-and-center. I'd have an agent actively shopping my books to publishing houses and I'd be spending 3 hours a day writing my books. I'd be spending several other hours a day working with a creative team building other deliverables like music and screenplays and video treatments. I'd have a balance of time with solitude to listen to my characters and write down what they say along with creative collaborative happy yak time with other artists and producers creating beautiful deliverables.

When you think of your options, what does each option mean to God, to others, and to you?
To God
Holistically, I think each option (without even listing them) shows a beautiful symbolic link between my heart and God's heart. That's a tall statement, so I'll tell you what I mean by that. When we take delight in the Lord, he gives us the desires of our heart. I believe that before he gives the desires to us, in the process of delighting in Him, our desires change. If I am so tuned into seeking and savoring the delight of God, then pretty much anything I desire is gonna be a good desire. If I am so bent on pleasing him and so keenly tuned into seeking his heart and offering him mine, then generally I'm not going to desire to run out and rob a bank. I trust that whatever creative longings rise up in my heart are good desires that are worth pursuing.
To Others
I believe my heart is good and that it has beauty that will bless other humans. I believe even when my heart goes off the rails and I sin, that my transparency in letting Himself heal and forgive me could also bless others. I've been very real here, very vulnerable and women's and men's hearts have been touched. You people have taught me a lot.
To Myself
This job change comes as not so much of a surprize. Once the initial shock wore off, I realized how very ready I have been for a change. Making some changes in the kind of billable work I do during the workday would mean putting myself in my native habitat full time instead of just every now and then.
Let me give you a visual.
I went to see Prince Caspian this weekend. At the end of the film, Peter Susan Edmund and Lucy are fully actively invested in their roles of kings and queens in Narnia. The going is tough, but they are in their element and that sense of being their true selves gives them the gumption to fight their battles and win. They're in their glory. In their element. Complete with comfortable beautiful royal clothes that fit them as well as their role does. And then, all the sudden they are yanked back to England and they find themselves in the middle of a noisy clangy bangy train station fully of pushypully meaningless busyness and a train taking them away to a soul-draining school they do not want to go to. The royal clothes are gone and they are once again in tight uncomfortable school uniforms and tight uncomfortable braids. In Narnia, they are their special true selves living out their calling. In England they are considered nothing special. It's not so much the tasks, it's the tasks in alignment with their true sense of identity.
You with me so far?
At the end of the film, when I saw the crestfallen looks on the character's faces, I started to weep silently. I wept for the entire screen credit music. I told Delighted Husband, "I feel like that every day. I feel like for an hour every day or so when I'm writing I get to live in Narnia and the other hours in my work day I am yanked back to England."
Spending my paid workday working on creative deliverables will mean I get to stay in Narnia all the time. Tough and beautiful days will come. But without the aching dissonance between who I really am and what I spend my day doing. That's what it would mean to me.

I'll stop there. This is a good place to stop for now. Love, SW

What have you done in the past that is in line with your passion that has worked?, that hasn't worked?

What do you want more of in life?
What do you want less of in life?