hi. today it is tuesday night. yesterday, i gave my notice at work. my last day of work will be 8/18. it is strange just how reflective i am over this. i have spent the last 8, nearly 9, years working there. it is my home away from home. it was when i started really liking my job working with teen mothers that i started taking a look at myself. it was my work with these young women, my relationships with them, that changed me. i mean i was always me but these girls, they made me want to be a better me. i found myself encouraging them to make healthy choices and feeling that i had a choice to make. if i stayed working with these girls i knew i had to stop drinking. i just didnt have it in me anymore to say one thing and then conduct my life in a totally different way. it was wrong and i knew it. once i realized that, i guess my life was already really changed or changing.
so yesterday and today full of so much other business-my dad's upcoming surgery, job interviews in ny, house stuff, my moms cat bite, my own health stuff, i have found myself distracted. maybe not quite able to really take in that i am leaving. perhaps this is protective. there is no real way to leave anything--except to leave. i know deep down that it is time anyway, that i have grown up and am ready for a change, that i have learned and done what i was supposed to and now i need to find the next thing. i know that i leave this job and this town more whole and capable then i ever thought possible.
i remember sitting in my first therapist's office, age 28, no friends, a boyfriend who i didnt understand and just crying. i would sit and cry on her couch and hold this big teddy bear that she had. i would leave her office and stop and pick up a twelve pack. i would drink six or seven beers in a row. smoke a joint. take a sleeping pill. and then try to sleep. i just didnt understand why my boyfriend was ruining my life and why i wasnt happy. i never told her about my drinking. i didnt think it was relevant.
today there is little in my life that i dont find relevant. this is my recovery. the realization that all of me, every single cell, organ, tissue is relevant, real, connected and ultimately ok. hope you all are feeling just as ok tonite too. thx for listening again tonite. xxk
Bravo Karen! Yes you are ready. You have grown up. You are incredibly healthy and awake. You have learned and given steadily since working in your job. You really became the role model you wanted to be, and your girls know that and have benefited from the gift of your transformation. And so have your co-workers and friends, your family and everyone who comes into contact with you. "Ripeness is all." My favorite line from all of Shakespeare, applies so perfectly to you right now.
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