Goodbyes are Odd

It was a strange thing saying goodbye to Qualtrics. I was thinking about it, and 10 1/2 years is longer than I've been a part of almost any organization; only my time at CenterPoint Church outlives my tenure at Qualtrics. 

I was lucky enough to get a sweet, simple goodbye party, and one of my former teams dropped by to say our farewells. As we posted for a photo, one of them pointed out, "You hired all of us!" And, by goodness, they were right! It was a stunning experience. 

I didn't set out to spend a decade at a single employer, but we were good for each other for a long time, and it just worked out. In an industry where it is normal to change employers every 2-3 years, there's a strange and solemn privilege for this one relationship to work out for so long. You learn different lessons than the ones you learn from job hopping. One path isn't necessarily better than the other, they're just different. Staying at one organization, you learn:

• That your internal reputation counts for a lot in the long run. Yes, your fortunes may rise and fall with the organization's whims, and the company may chase after shiny new people. Yet you also get the chance to prove your character over the long haul.
• To create internal opportunities to move adjacent and diagonal in ways that seem exciting.
• That karma usually does win out in the end.
• To dig deep and weather the storms (and maybe even steer the org through them) rather than moving to an easier set of problems somewhere else. 

After spending so long in one organization, it's an odd thing to release both the triumphs and the heartaches after I've spent so long holding tight to both. Odd. Good. I'm grateful for what has been and I'm also ok with letting it go. 

Two Months Post-Employment

It's been just shy of two months since I said goodbye to the corporate world and stopped working full-time. Lots of people ask me how it's going and how I'm adjusting, and those are hard questions to answer. The last two months have been chock full of adjustments - I stopped working full-time, Steve started working full-time, the kids were off school for the holidays, the kids went back to school, I finished the semester and started a new one, I started working at my clinical mental health practicum site. Oh, and Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's were all mixed in there as well. There's been little stability to adjust to - but the reality is that's the way of life, there is no such thing as a "normal" season. 

I don't feel like I've hit a "new normal," but I have discovered a few things in the last two months. Here's my list so far:

I am pleased with how I choose to spend my days. I go outside, I do yoga, I walk the dogs. I do homework and meet up meet up with friends. I ski. I go to practicum and learn to be a competent and attuning counselor. I work on Creating a Family and our Mexico service trip trip plans. Sometimes I just sit and knit or journal. I believe that "How we spend your days is how we spend our lives" (Annie Dillard), and I am pleased when I look at how I am spending my days.

I'm a little surprised at how much I crave quiet, alone time. When I have more control over my schedule, I tend towards large periods of being quiet and solo. It's interesting because that's so very different from my days over the last 5 or 8 years, with meetings pretty much all day every day. My natural tendencies build in much more solitude.

I don't miss my old rhythms. There's a ton that I'm grateful for, and I can feel nostalgia for the especially sweet moments of my tech career, but I don't crave it. This is a good place to be, and I want to invest the time and attention into this season and these new rhythms.

Three cheers for the revelations and learning that a new season brings!

2025: Delight in Simple Contentment

After all of the change and movement and extended periods of concerted hard work of 2024, I'm looking for something different in 2025. In many ways, 2025 gets to be the fulfillment of the first half of my career. I get to enjoy the space and self-direction that I have worked hard to earn. And I am keenly aware that it will be easy to return to old habits and fill this wealth of time with "stuff to do."

In 2025 I get to be rich in unexpected ways. We'll make substantially less income, and we'll gain flexibility. And I get to decide if I'm going to be content in this new wealth or if I will pine for the old kind, with its recognition and busyness and undeniably nice accouterment. 

In 2025, my focus is to delight in simple contentment. I get to enjoy that I have enough and that having enough is lovely. 

The word I keep returning to is "chuffed" - a quirky way of expressing the experience of pleasure, satisfaction, or delight. I get to be chuffed with my life and where I'm at in 2025. 

And wouldn't you know that my Bible readings brought me to the perfect verse to focus on in the new year:

"You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought."

Matthew 5:5