Changes and higher bars

These past two months have had some big changes. At the beginning of April, I walked away from the job I loved. It had my heart and soul, and it surprised everyone, even me. I deliberately stayed unemployed for a month, giving myself time to self-reflect, recover, and commit to taking the advice I gave to Camden two years ago, before he started a summer job at a scout camp. 

On the long drive to the camp to drop him off, he struggled with feelings of self-doubt. I told him, "This is the chance to reinvent yourself. The camp is far away and no one there knows who you are. You're going in as a blank slate. Take this chance to rewrite what's on that slate. If you've always been shy but want to be outgoing, be that person. No one knows any different. Make a list of who you want to be, and from now on, be that person."

The moment I knew I needed my own clean slate came when I watched a co-worker publically berate another co-worker. It was a tongue-lashing: humiliating and cringe-worthy. I watched quietly. Given the story I had been told, it was well-deserved so I did nothing. Later on, I learned the full story from someone else and I realized that there had been a huge misrepresentation of the truth. I wept from shame. I had not only stayed quiet, but I had actually enjoyed the verbal onslaught. Me. The person who values integrity and kindness above all else. The person who would rather have everything she owns be taken before she would willingly be unkind. The outer lack of loyalty that I showed from having sat silently paled in comparison to my own self-betrayal.

It wasn't only that moment. There were other changes in myself that I wasn't proud of. I was becoming judgy, jaded, and at times back-biting. These are changes I can't blame on other people. It's me. I'm responsible for what's written on my slate. But I knew I needed to walk away from a storyline, with its well-established characters, in which the ending had already been written, and a plot that would never stop repeating itself. I was not proud of the character I had become in this story, and she needed to be left behind.

I intend to rewrite what's on this new slate rather than letting others do it for me the way I have in the past. As I'm doing so, I'm seeing my life and its purpose with new eyes. A good husband; beautiful children who love me; an amazing home; a wonderful new job; the financial means to not only sustain life, but to enjoy it also. Yes, I've been blessed, but God didn't give me all of these gifts with no strings attached. With each blessing, He's raising the bar. With each blessing, I'm expected to be more, to be better than I was before. Having the luxury to wallow in the mire of poor integrity and pettiness is not what He intended when He blessed me with so much.

I'm excited for this next chapter of my life. It's been a challenge and soul-stretching in its own beautiful way. But life was never meant to stay the same. We were never meant to stop evolving. Even the chapters without the happiest endings have lead me to the one I'm on, and for that I will always be grateful.