If you’ve been with me a minute,  you know I’m on a journey to pivot my work after retiring in October of 2020.

But we’re in a pandemic. Every person around, every plan, every continency plan is subject to change.

Which is all to be expected, right?

But sometimes I get caught up into the I saw things going differently mindset.

I saw things getting easier.

Or I thought things at work would end smoothly and on a positive note, or I’d always envisioned this to be a more relaxed and sentimental time.

But it seems it cannot be helped. The world is upside-down.

I read an email from HerStories Project, who quoted a terrific piece by a fierce young writer:

‘ “In “Why Gen-X Women Are Furious,” Lynn Shattuck writes,

‘All the women I know bear the brunt of the fallout from the pandemic. All the women I know are exhausted and depressed and furious. All the women I know are trying their best to solve the bulging, overripe problems of the world, clumped in with our new pandemic problems as if they were a Rubik’s cube handed just to us.

‘Here, fix this thing,’ the world demands.

We stare at the sides: Pandemic. Racism. Health care. Climate change. Education. Social Security.

Just as we eyed our once-glimmering futures, we think, where do we even start?

And beneath the rage, we’re so, so sad.

Because we thought we could be whoever we wanted to be.’”

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For me, I do well to rush to graveyards when the world presses down. It’s the first place I go when solo-traveling. In Paris. In Buenos Aires. In Barrow. And now, at home in Alaska.

Monday, I dropped my youngest daughter off for a doctor appointment and trotted over to the cemetery in downtown Anchorage. Immediately, I intersected with a young man I’d not met there before.

Zane, I later learned from Google, was a fifteen year-old who died long ago of heart issues. And while I knew he didn’t write his own headstone, it was as though he was speaking to me. I felt my shoulders lighten.

 

How fortunate am I to have some life left for a re-boot? Zane’s message was a perfect reminder to re-evaluate how much energy I want to give to things I can’t control, and how much energy I’ll happily devote to places I can make a difference.

My three lunch hour takeaways were:

1. We can be fearful, but why? Our time is so limited. The worst that can happen is we try and fail. And hopefully, choose to keep trying.
2. Nothing has ever been under our control. Our influence? Sure. But not our control.
3. There’s no guarantee that things will get easier. So we need to sally forward and make our impact, and push for what’s important.

Within 60 minutes, I slipped back to pick my daughter up, strangely refreshed. It feels fitting to end my career working with teens,  and finally guided out of it by the wisdom of a teen.

SO, against conventional wisdom, I’ve decided to host my first webinar on  September 27, 2020 at 9AM Alaska time,  and  another on the  following Friday, October 2nd at 7 AM to introduce my new course on Teachable, When Push Comes to Shove: Stay Safe and Sane and Say the Right Thing When Someone You Know is Being Abused, launching mid October.

Feel free to join in, and enjoy a conversation and Q & A. And please, invite your friends. I could use the encouragement, wobbling with technology. 🙂

Life does go on. Together, we’ll still find meaning and humor, more sadness and growth. Until it inevitably ends.

Life is still a gift. Let’s not waste it.

Connect with you soon, I hope, and thank you for stopping by.