Now this
- billpetzold
- Apr 6, 2016
- 2 min read
I came here to do a couple things to get this website up and running finally, and I stumbled across my blog entry from July ... and suddenly here I am, writing a quick blog to update.
What anger I felt back then, nearly a year ago! Betrayal, humiliation, disgust, embarrassment, sadness, loss, frustration, fear, rage, self-loathing -- and in an immediate sense, relief.
Who do you want to be when you grow up? I had the vision, I made it a reality -- and then it was over, a career cleanly beheaded on a Wednesday without warning. I got up the following day, went to the bank and the grocery store and came home and it was 9:30 a.m. Now what? I started drinking.
Fast forward a few months and I take a job I'm not really sure about, to be honest. How do you follow up your dream job? It was a great decision. I love the people I work with, I love my boss, I love the new community I serve.
The answer, I discovered, is you dream again. You dream smarter, you dream bolder -- you dream with the confidence of someone who has chased their dream to the end of the line, grabbed it by the horns and wrestled it to the ground, only to watch it slip away.
There is no end destination, there is only the journey. Perhaps that was the lesson I learned. I was fully prepared to continue to fill that role, work that job, serve that community until I was an old man and I retired or had a heart attack. But it wasn't meant to be.
I suppose there are two ways to feel about this. Last summer, where I felt like the cut worm -- bifurcated, a free mind wiggling and staring at my "other half" -- my work self, the person I thought I was supposed to be.
But as William Blake wrote, "The cut worm forgives the plow."
It takes a moment for the cut worm to realize that it hasn't truly been harmed, just forced to change -- and change isn't always bad. Change can be painful, but it always tempers a person's resolve and, best of all, teaches.
Anyway, things are much better. I love my job, I love being a church organist and I am excited to host two open mics each week for my fellow musicians. I hope to find time to do a little blogging here and there, but it's a hectic life.
I'm trying to get out there and live it.
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