Courage Momentum

Today was a travel day for me (Legs) as I hopped on my first flight since leaving the Foreign Service.  Where to?  Ann Arbor, Michigan!  Yes, it's not as exotic as the places we've been in the last four years but I've never been to MI so check another state off the list :-)

I spent most of today reading my friend Stephanie Diamond's book Mountains Never Meet and was inspired to do some creative fulfillment of my own.  Stay tuned for a full review of her novel as I seriously can't put it down and am moved on many different levels--I even called Pancho to tell him all about it.  I'm also crowd sourcing the best way to do Mt. Kilimanjaro and told Pancho that he and I will have that adventure someday (you seriously have to read the book...)!

Reading Stephanie's book today helped give me the courage to get some of my own work out there.  I've been playing around with istockphoto and have been approved to contribute my photography (their website is really buggy and currently you can't see any of my submissions) and just today I submitted photos to three different greeting card companies to see if I can get any traction.  At some point I'll probably have to create a formal website or get better at categorizing my flickr account.  One step at a time.  You just have to show up, right?  I'm continuing to write when I have the chance and have become more strategic about outlining my story and setting goals.  I'll tell you when I can quit my day job ;-)

Hello from the air and happy creativity to you all!

Daydreams

I took the boys on a road trip this weekend so Pancho could have some time to do homework (like actual time to think without orangutans hollering in the background). My mom and I used to go on spontaneous road trips and there's just something about driving through country without a destination. I had a rough idea of where I wanted to go (East and not on freeways) and since it's 2016 and we live in Silicon Valley--I used GPS.

We had a blast! I learned that we live only 30 minutes from a valley of vineyards and I better take Pancho on a date soon! We wound through bright green hills on a two-lane road far from the freeway, the country music driving us forward (okay I was the only one singing). Flipper and Thumper played with each other while looking for trains and animals between patches of wildflowers.

We stopped at the first Mc.Donald's we saw once we were out of the hills and Thumper said, "Mom, I know this is a chicken nugget, but is there any chicken in it?" So perceptive, that one :-).

Onward to the strategically selected hotel with an indoor swimming pool. We settled in, played in the pool, went out for dinner, and watched cartoons in bed. The next morning, we cuddled in the giant king-size hotel bed, I enjoyed my coffee, we had breakfast and got back on the road to come home. Back to the city. I have to say, I really didn't want to come home. I wanted to see Pancho, of course, but there are times I just don't want to go back to real life.

As soon as I leave the city I feel this instant release, like I've just come 'home'. I enjoy it for as long as I can before I start daydreaming about what life would be like. What if we lived here? What would we do for work? I always wanted to own a farm...or a vineyard. Would the kids like it? What would they miss from city life? What's stopping us? I even start looking at houses online and check out the quality of schools in different neighborhoods. The time always feels too short and back to the city we go. But then, as soon as we hit the edges of the city, I get excited about the work I'm doing and the potential to have far-reaching, international impact in a way I don't think I could have otherwise. So my thoughts shift to scheming how far out we could live while having our feet in both worlds. Would I spend all my time commuting? Would I ever get to enjoy the 'slow' life if I continue to work in the 'fast' lane? The desire to get off the proverbial 'treadmill' is very strong for me right now but I can't separate these feelings from general feelings of wanting to retire and pursue my hobbies in the countryside after I've left my mark on the world...note that the desire to leave my mark is still there so perhaps I've got to nail that one down first.

Question of the year: what sort of impact do I want to have on the world? It's funny, as a university recruiter, candidates ask me all the time what advice I have for them as they start their careers. The advice I give is the advice I am still trying to internalize. Narrow your interests, pick three general categories (know that they can and will change). Next, identify what sort of impact you want to have on the world. Make sure that each step you take drives you toward making that impact in one of the three areas. Three is arbitrary but I can tell you from personal experience, you have to narrow if you ever want to achieve a meaningful level of impact.

I still haven't defined my impact or narrowed my interests BUT I am taking steps to do both--each Friday I have set aside one hour of introspection time so you can expect much more strategic direction from me this year :-).

These last few weeks I've been daydreaming of life as an author, living in the country, raising my boys, taking them to all of their after school activities, and selling my photography online. At other times, I want to be a political appointee and bring change to federal agencies. I think about going to law school and practicing immigration law, getting an MBA and shifting into business operations at my current company, consulting big companies on people operations and unconscious bias, finding my place in advocacy through organizations that are important to me like LeanIn.org or the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. I even have moments of crazy when I want to learn to code and become an engineer.

Patience has never been my virtue, at least that's one thing I know to be true about myself. Writing is helpful, sometimes just putting my thoughts out there helps them leave my mind and frees up more space to focus...and narrow.

I tend to relate emotions to songs (if you haven't noticed) so, here are two songs that defined my weekend.

Natasha Bedingfield, "Unwritten"

I am unwritten, can't read my mind, I'm undefined
I'm just beginning, the pen's in my hand, ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten


Florida-Georgia Line, "Dirt"

You get your hands in it, plant your roots in it
Dusty head lights dance with your boots in it
You write her name on it, spin your tires on it
Build your corn field, whiskey bonfires on it
You bet your life on it

It's that elm shade, red rust clay you grew up on
That plowed up ground that your dad damned his luck on
That postgame party field you circle up on
And when it rains you get stuck on
Drift a cloud back behind county roads that you run up
The mud on her jeans that she peeled off and hung up
Her blue eyed summertime smile looks so good that it hurts
Makes you wanna build a ten percent down white picket fence house on this dirt

You've mixed some sweat with it, taken a shovel to it
You've stuck some crosses and some painted goal posts through it
You know you came from it
And someday you'll return to it...

My Next 30 Years

Soul searching.  Still, you ask?  Yes.  It's probably exhausting watching me find my place in the world but I hope I never stop searching and I like to think I'm creating value along the way :-).

Admittedly, writing is something I love yet something I never do.  Here I am again on a year-long hiatus from posting and a year-long hiatus from writing anything other than work emails.  I bought a five-year happiness journal in which you write one sentence per day (ONE sentence!) and there are month gaps between entries.  I have two young children, a relationship, a full-time job, a dog, and a billion other things going on so I've learned to give myself permission to connect sporadically to any one of my many passions.

But, the urge to get lost in my own thoughts has become stronger over the last year.  Possibly because I don't get the chance to think while my mind is sorting out which of the four voices (the dog's included) I should be listening to when Flipper has dumped his milk on the floor and Thumper is heartbroken that Flipper has his really 'special' plastic egg, and Pancho is yelling for a rag while giving the 1-2-3 ultimatum to Flipper who is not responding to our time-out strategy and Bambi is high-pitch howling along to the cries of the children.

Since I 'transitioned' out of the Foreign Service (more on this in the next post...I swear I'm going to write more regularly!) four months ago, I find myself sharing my story with people from my past who, in what feels like droves, are asking my thoughts or advice.  I've kept journals since my first year of college (online, traditional, hotel notepads, loose line-ruled paper, sticky notes, and the margins of my calendar) and have thought a lot about turning it all into something.  Fiction, non-fiction, motivational, sci-fi, I have no idea but in the era of ebooks and self-publishing, it seems like the right time to do a 'must' rather than a 'should'.  It's funny that I feel this drive to pursue passion when I've just joined the #1 company to work for, one that is known for attracting passionate people and encouraging growth and innovation.  Maybe I'm finally in a spot where I'm giving myself permission to pursue my passions at any rate that I like while also feeling supported by my employer to be myself and follow my heart.  That seems like a recipe for something but I'm not sure what it is yet :-)

For now, my 'self' time is over and I'm off to satisfy another part of my soul playing tic-tac-toe with Thumper.  With a lot less time set aside to address the complexities of expat life as a government employee, you can expect to hear more from me!

Because I love country music, and Tim McGraw, and part of my soul-searching includes day-dreaming about owning a house in the Texas countryside, this is fitting...

I think I’ll take a moment, celebrate my age
The ending of an era and the turning of a page
Now it’s time to focus in on where I go from here
Lord have mercy on my next thirty years

Hey my next thirty years I’m gonna have some fun
Try to forget about all the crazy things I’ve done
Maybe now I’ve conquered all my adolescent fears
And I’ll do it better in my next thirty years

My next thirty years I’m gonna settle all the scores
Cry a little less, laugh a little more
Find a world of happiness without the hate and fear
Figure out just what I’m doing here
In my next thirty years