Shedding Layers-- Day 59

This morning I peeled off the brightly flowered laptop computer skin Matt purchased for me for my NWP computer.   I fell in love with the unique design during a stroll though Old Town San Diego.  The motif has served as a laptop identifier on my sterile black VAIO causing it to stand out among the many black laptops of  my colleagues as we sat around large tables thinking about large ideas with our chords intermingled and our keyboards fluttering.  As I prepare my laptop for return to NWP, I come across years of work, of amazing thoughts, of connections which have become layers of my own skin.
Another layer of this era was peeled back today, my role as Site Development leader.  Serving as a site mentor has been a highlight of my NWP program associate work.  Serving others is in complete harmony with who I am and working with the incredible site directors who are completely committed to supporting great teachers has been an honor.   Additionally, I've worked alongside some of my most respected colleagues and friends who have guided me into becoming more than I dreamed I could be.  On a call with these other Site Development Leaders, former directors, teachers, professors, writers, friends, we said goodbye and God Speed.  Praying our lives will cross and knowing things will never be the same, I pushed the end call button on my phone...just as I've done hundreds of times before on conference calls and visits with friends.  This time though my eyes filled with tears and my heart tightened as I moved one step closer to removal.

Once off the phone, I changed my NWPi profile to my new email, erasing my title and description, returning to my roots of my home WP site.  So many blanks in the profile:  job description, employer, title???  No answers, just me, shedding the layers of a era gone by.
What I know is skin renews.  Even with  the deepest cut, our body quickly clots the blood flow and begins to prepare a new layer of protection.  Will there be scars, probably; but, scars make us stronger and help us remember from where we've come.  From memories, we move forward.  And I continue to peel away the layers.

Day 45

So, I retreated.  I paused.  I slept and wept.  I felt the silence and stillness of God within me.  A piece of me is now renewed. 

I am more than the job I've been.  The words come easily but it takes much longer to internalize the reality.  I've spent years in the frenzy named "work."  Blindly, I'd launch from one task, one obligation, one responsibility to the next; so blindly, I lived more in the future than in the moment.  That obsessive need to give my all, to touch young lives, to live my passion,  has given way to a release of frenzied energy as I melt into a puddle of now. Fear ruled my life.  Fear of not being good enough, letting people down, not being self-sufficient, hurting someone else, failing, abandonment, judgment, and the unknown.  Fears on top of fears have been my driving force for years. 

It has taken weeks to come to grips with the fact that doing nothing means having time for awareness of everything.  I am happy for the opportunity to be unemployed.  What a relief!  What a blessing!  Time to BE.