From a professional perspective, leaving a job I had given my heart to for six years, in a month, probably wasn't the "best" way to exit, but there it was. It happened and it's over now. I write this with a conviction that I cannot change what happened in the summer. I cannot take back the stress it caused my peers, or the silence that grew between me and the youth I served. I remember the stress and the emotions it created of course, but I won't be tied down by them. I won't lie. I have to do some serious Jedi mind tricks with myself at times to get through the day. How could I not? Do people really believe me to be that strong? Or maybe they think I'm actually made up of stone and not water. My life is very much here in the Bay. My spirit, very much aware of the mystery of time. What will the wind blow my way? More so, where will that wind take me? For now, I am completing the things I left unfinished. I am trying to let go of the rage that set so much of my life on fire. That rage burned so much.
This stress I speak of now, is actually pretty positive. Yes, an actual push to do better, be better, and grow professionally. (There is more than my professional growth happening, I'm just choosing to highlight that here.) I had to go through an interview process before I landed my current job. I had to face white elephants in the room. I was asked tough questions about my capacity to take on a new position in the organization, and respectfully informed about my weaknesses. I wanted to earn it. I didn't want to gain it because of my personal relationships with the leadership team, but go through the same application process as all the other candidates. I was more than prepared not to get the position. In fact, two days before the call I had already made those resolutions with myself. I moved on, believing that things would always end up exactly as they should and I wasn't the best person for the job. Here I am now, serving as a Director for a program that is striving to go district. It seems almost ridiculous and impossible for stress to be anything but bad, but I believe my need to do well is not just from the blessing and curse of being a perfectionist, but something very deep. Something that I place in secret places-- dark, sweet and bitter. They stand side by side with my smile and my optimism. Aware of the fetal position it holds, this that sometimes strengthens me, also eats away at my self-confidence. I cannot describe what it is, but I am aware of her presence. Maybe it's guilt. Maybe it's just fear disguised in many other emotions. Whatever it is, I embrace it as part of what I carry until I no longer have to hold it, anymore.
Many people whether to my face or under their breath joke, "but you didn't really leave at all." Do I go in fighting stance? Spit obscenities and regurgitate words instead of tears? Do I lunge and shake them? Maybe they will feel the shaking of my very foundation. An earthquake. Tsunami. It shook my very core. Will that give them a clue? I was grounded, immovable. Then I was a mess. Am I suppose to spend a long amount of time, sharing all that? Of course not. I simply, just accept that these questions will come over and over, until the memory of my departing is forgotten. I face quite humbly, that my moving was quite the public news. I won't pretend that it wasn't. In fact, not a weekend or public event happens without someone coming up to me. "Aren't you suppose to be in Chicago?" or "Didn't you move?" or "What are you doing here?!" I go through these mental challenges often. I try to keep my response consistent. Who is asking me the above series of questions, or the isolated, just straight up, "What happened?!" oh yes.. with the sympathetic head tilt included, I try to keep it-- my answer very chill. My most favorite inquiry is the story my coworker told me about her little one. She was sad about my leaving, and upon hearing that I had come back, smiled and said, " Yea, she's back! But wait...... why?" This brilliant mind is five. Not one public event or place I walk is without these queries. I am very clear about the consequences of my decisions. I feel them when I walk over the bridge that separates West Oakland and Downtown. The view quite different from the one in West Town. I'm writing here because I choose not to blast a note on Facebook or write a long extended email in the form of a journal entry or morning page to those closest to me. I mean, it would probably be faster. It would more than likely spare me the questions. I wonder what the sound of water falling really sounds like on paper? But I figure, whose ever eyes fall here, he/she knows me a little bit deeper anyway. Or maybe they are strangers, just taking in one womyn's digital stream of consciousness. Either way, this is the entry I choose to write, because this is the space I made for myself. No apologies. Just narrative. Maybe no one get's it. Or maybe you, will.
It is not my whole existence, but certainly a small piece. I know this--- I want some parts of my life, private. Regardless of the many digital spaces and communities I am a part of, none of them are the total truth. That's like thinking my smile is everything. My words encompassing my entire life. My most deepest conversations happen, in private. They happen in the form of shared cries on the phone. The take place sometimes in screaming matches, cracked glass, and in frustrating tones. They fit in the lines of my palm. They appear like cards on a red blanket. They happen ever so quietly, like the changing color in the sky at sunset.
These here are just pieces,
on colored paper.
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