Okay, more than two years have passed since my last entry. On this side of time I am divorced and no longer working for the person I once considered a tyrant but who became a dear friend. I have joked for much of these two years that if I had put half the energy into my marriage that I put into my relationship with Holly that I would still be married. In hindsight though, that's probably just me being hard on myself... which I do... a lot.
I've wrestled with guilt post-divorce and I have tried to understand why the guilt persists. Am I the cold-hearted beast I fear I am or just someone who knows what I will and will not put up with in the next act of my life? I choose to believe that it's the latter. And as I contemplate the next act I question what I will or will not tolerate from this career I have built for myself in Corporate America.
On the outside looking in I have more than what most women -- most people in general perhaps -- can imagine from a career: a healthy paycheck, stock options, respect, the ability to work from home (which enables me to stay home with sick kids, start the work day when I want and leave to run errands and pick up my kids when I wish), a hands-off boss, the opportunity to travel and dine out at nice restaurants with intelligent and talented people... did I say nice paycheck? It affords me a lifestyle as a single parent [whose ex is still not paying child support] to keep my kids in private daycare at a Montessori school, pay the mortgage and enjoy some of life's little perks.
That being said, I swear on all that is holy that if I don't exercise an exit strategy to do something more true to who I perceive myself to be that I will succumb to a depression far greater than what I have experienced in the wake of my failed marriage. This lament is nothing new, but my resolve to walk a different path this time surprises me in the hour of my midlife. Is it the clarity that comes with age, the ability to see the past 20+ adult years of patterns that motivates a different POV?
Two years have passed since my last entry and the weight form 14 years is off my shoulders. I do not have to keep a commitment to this corporate career any more than I have to keep a commitment to an unhappy marriage. Eight years in my job has netted enough drama to write a book in itself. Weary of the politics, ass-kissing and posturing, it is time to let go of the expectations that a promotion, raise or any other entitlement will come this way. I'm done whether it comes or not.
Reading from, Women Who Run With Wolves, "be you [I] a Black wolf, a Northern Gray, a Southern Red or an Arctic White -- [I am] the quintessential instinctual criatura. Although some might really prefer me to behave myself and not climb all over the furniture in joy or all over people in welcome, do it anyway. Some will draw back from [me] in fear or disgust. [My] lover, however, will cherish this new aspect - if he or she be the right lover for me."
When I or any of us begin questioning life we begin uncovering the condition of our relationship to our instinctual selves. We begin to flesh out the wild woman that we were meant to be. And this is my work - our work - here.
