15 Til 30 - Thought-Provoking Tarot Card Reading

I was just talking with a friend about how we both were in need of a tarot card reading, and I happened to be around a person who actually read cards.

When I do it for myself, I always feel like I have too much of a bias, and I need someone else's eyes to help me out.  So, I jumped on the opportunity to have my cards read.

I told her a little bit about what's going on, concerning the end of a dream job and the confusions of the dating world.  A lot of what ended up on the cards were pretty spot on.

Basically, I've been too frivolous with my time and/or money, and have been partying quite a bit.  I'm keeping myself distracted by tons of social events (which is so true!).  But I've been pretty guarded with my heart.  It seems that I might need to be more guarded with my money and time, and less so with my heart.

The Star showed up in this reading.  Apparently, this means that the world is literally my oyster.  When she suggested that I pull another card to help direct me, I pulled out The Magician.  This shows that whatever I choose to focus on, I will succeed in.  The problem is that I have to figure out what I want to focus on and go full in.

It kind of blows my mind that I feel like I keep getting a similar message.  But the problem remains the same.  I feel like I always have an idea, but it's more about the "how."  How do I get there?  And how do I make it profitable enough to sustain a lifestyle?

20 Til 30 - Closing Doors and Opening Windows

My time with my dream job is quickly coming to an end.  By quickly, I mean by the end of next week I will no longer be an employee of Planned Parenthood.

It's heartbreaking to say the least. 

It's lead me to really think about what else I want to do in the sexual health field.  I know I'm not going to give up in trying to find my niche.

Yet, I do feel like I have to go through a bit of a mourning period.  It's amazing that I was able to get this dream job, even though it didn't manifest the way I ultimately would have liked, before I reached 30.  I think it is awesome that I get to put such a big organization on my resume.  I think I'm incredibly lucky to have the connections that I've made through the organization.

But now that this door is about to close, I'm ready to see where the next door will take me. 

I am scared.  Scared it will lead me back into the desperation I felt when I was unemployed and stuck.  But I know I am lucky to be surrounded by so many supportive people who can help encourage me and give me feedback and give me ideas.

I'm anxious about this challenge, but I know I have the tools now.

The Women in Business Manifesto
found here:
http://www.womeninbusiness.com.au/

Pushing Past the Clouds to the Dreams

There's been a lot of talk around me lately about following dreams, living dreams, and making dreams come true.

I'm not talking in the romantic fairy tale sense.  But about really pushing through with your goals and making things happen.

Earlier this week, I was listening to a teleconference call about this very subject.  The speaker, Marcia Wieder, spoke about living with intention and purpose.  She encouraged us to do what we love, value our gifts, charge what we're worth, talk about our dreams out loud to as many people as possible, and repeat these steps often.

I've been pondering this for the past couple of days.

I had to kind of take a step back, and realized that I'm just all over the place.  I'm conflicted with pursuing my passions and with the need to make a living for the purposes of surviving.

Being unemployed has really given me time to think a lot about what kind of nonprofit I'd like to open up one day.  But, I'm finding that it is difficult for me to follow through on it because I feel like it everything costs money.  Money that I don't have.

But I'm going to tell you all my dreams anyway.

I dream of opening up a skill-share studio and wellness center, but it will cost money to rent or lease a space, plus utilities, marketing, etc.

I dream of becoming a sex educator, but I need money up-front to pay for a certification course.

I dream to combine my passions, because why the hell can't I?  I can lead the sexual health portion of the wellness center, and be contracted to go out and teach sessions.  Eventually, I would want to open up the center to a youth program where the youth get to work on their creative endeavors as well as share them with others.

The only dream I've had that doesn't cost money is to work on a sex ed web-comic (but with an actual story and snippets of educational information).  But, I keep holding myself back on this one because I feel like I need to figure out how I want the comic to look.

Aside from the money, I know I have a lot of fears.  There were a lot of "but's" in those statements above.  Though, I do feel like it's mainly the money.

I fear the usual things - failure, making tons of mistakes.  But then I'm also nervous about not being "expert" enough in whatever I'm doing.  Though, clearly no one is an expert when they begin any endeavor.

I fear that I'm just a nobody.  No one knows who I am, so there isn't a name or reputation to back me up.  However, I know that while relationships with the community are important, I am a master at building relationships.  More importantly, people want to be satisfied by their experience, and practitioners and teachers want to feel like they have a stake in their space.

I fear doing it all alone.  I feel like I need to have a team behind me - almost like if others are behind me then I've been given an "ok."  I do wish that I could have other folks who would be willing to invest in a space with me.  But this is MY dream, one which will hopefully help others' dreams.  But it starts at MINE. 

So, there.  I've laid it out.

I've been working on a business plan, and I'm hoping to attend some workshops on how to keep building my plan.  While it's been really difficult to save money, I want to look into getting a business loan.  I'm attending several networking events, and I plan on talking about my ideas and dreams as well as what I love to do.

I don't want to just let these ideas fall by the wayside.  It might not happen tomorrow.  I but I will make it happen.  I know it.

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Moving On and Farewells

On the 23rd, I experienced my second 8th grade graduation.  This year, I had little involvement, whereas I helped to organize last year's graduation.

At last year's graduation, I realized how little appreciation was sent my way after all the help I gave.  Only the retiring Principal took the time to recognize my program's involvement in the 8th graders lives.  I couldn't hold back my, "Hells ya!" to my boss.

This year, as we saw that this other program that worked with the 8th grade was sitting on the stage along with the teachers, my boss and I rolled our eyes.  I joked that they were up there because they had certificates and prizes to give.  Considering that that program was talking about "what characteristics make a leader" with 8th graders, when I've been talking about that for 3 years with them already since the 6th grade, well...I have some feelings about that.

Moving On Ceremony

After the diplomas were given out, one of the students went to the podium to give out gifts to the teachers.  As they read out the names of the teachers, another student would give a potted plant to the teacher.  Suddenly, I hear, "Miss Cecilia" through the mic, and soon after they called my boss' name.  I was completely shocked that we were included in this list of people who they wanted to recognize.  I nearly started crying at the gift.

It's silly and petty, I know.  But I was starting to feel like all the work we've done there would go unrecognized.  It was truly a pleasant surprise.

With the 8th graders moved on, I felt ready to move on myself.  I knew that I had a couple of last things to finish up in the next two days, and I knew that I just had to buckle down and get it done before I closed the office door for the last time.

*****

On the 24th, I jumped right into our process evaluation.  I was so close to being done that I just wanted to push it out before the half-day on Friday.  Suddenly, I realized that I had one last project to finish off!  I almost forgot that our door was wide open, as I started to say things that were not so appropriate for the elementary school kids.  I promised one class an ice cream party, and I didn't have a single clue about what kind of ice cream they wanted nor had I planned what time to have the party.  Luckily, another teacher of theirs was planning a party at the end of the day, so I planned to join in.

As I ran back down to the office and got back on the computer, my boss and another clinician for another organization (and great friend of mine) were planning to meet about transferring clients.  The other clinician told me how exhausted he was, and if I wanted to grab some coffee with him really quick.  I just had coffee, so I told him that maybe we could just grab lunch.

Looking back, it didn't even occur to me how random it was that he wanted me to get coffee at the same minute that he was going to discuss clients with my boss.  But then he said that he'd really value my opinion, and I told him that I just wanted to keep working on my report.  He insisted that he would love to hear my opinion, so I said that I'd join in a second.  Again, I thought about how strange that was, but nothing even occurred to me.

Suddenly, my boss comes in asking if we have knives.  Now, being that we had so many family and kid events that featured food, we literally had a gallon bag of plastic knives.  I pointed to them, and she asked for my help really quick in a conference room.  At this point, I was getting a bit frustrated and thoroughly confused.  I joked with them, "What exactly are you guys going to do?  Get all stabby??"

Then I walked into the room, and there was a cake and a little finger food spread.  On the cake it said, "From the *school name (spelled wrong! Ha!)* Thank You Cecilia for Everything!"

I was speechless.  Then the tears came.  Then a memory book full of pictures, some of my first printed work, and quotes from kids and teachers was handed to me, and the tears came even more.  I couldn't believe what they managed to pull off!  Later, my boss tells me that it was so difficult to get messages from the kids as I was always around.  I congratulated her on managing to pull it off without me even remotely suspecting a thing.

Love that kids pick up on so much more than we think.

The messages were extremely heartfelt and sweet.  Some of them cracked me up.

Seeing that we talked about anti-violence, this just made me laugh.

And then there are the ones that just made me cry more.

:')

Apparently, my boss told me, the majority of kids told her, "Just tell her that we love her."  I mean, really, what more can you ask for from kids.

Several teachers and kids stopped by and wished me well, and soon I was able to finally compose myself and play hostess.  But really, I felt so overwhelmed with emotion...and still realizing that I needed to have that ice cream party.  Luckily, my boss helped to take care of that for me.

At the end of the day, I was full of cake and love, and I was still able to finish my report by staying a little bit later than usual.

*****

On the 25th, the focus of the day was to pack up and clean up.  I broke away for a bit to take pictures with and of some of the kids.  But for the most part, we were organizing and packing boxes.

The day really flew by.  We managed to put some things in storage, bring back some of my things (including the green office chair) to my apartment, have lunch, and load up my bosses car with the rest of the boxes (files, books, games, toys, office supplies).

I had already cried a bit on Thursday, so I tried to keep it together all day.  I also think we were so focused on our tasks that it was difficult to think of anything else.

As the boxes were packed completely into my bosses car, we did one last check of the room.  The coat hooks were removed, posters thrown away (except for a very special PRIDE poster still on the wall...mainly because we couldn't reach it...), file cabinet empty, keys returned, and door decorations gone.  The room was empty except for the furniture.

Before I closed the door, I turned back one last time to look at the office that I've known for the past 5 years.  I thought of all the kids I didn't see in the last couple of days, probably already on their vacations.  I thought of all the experiences of being in that office.

My boss drove me to my apartment, her last course of action as my boss.  She talked about all the times she's driven me home, after events, family groups, lugging heavy items.  She told me how much I've grown from being a social work intern.  I told her that I plan to keep in touch, joking that it's not very easy to get rid of me.

We chatted a bit longer, as I was consulting about tarot cards.  We hugged, and I tried so hard to keep it together.  "I'm going to miss you," she said right before hopping back into her car.  I nodded, saying how much I will miss working with her.  As I turned away, and walked up to hill to my apartment, I couldn't hold the tears in any more.  I sobbed all the way to my apartment.

She will forever be my first supervisor right out of grad school, and I don't know if I'll ever feel as connected with my future bosses as I did with her.  Aside from actual work, I talked with her about tarot cards, astrology, our families, alternative medicine, and paranormal activities.  We laughed about so many ridiculous things, and we cried (in our separate offices last summer) during the memorial for Michael Jackson (R.I.P.).  Our ideas bounced off each other, sometimes leading us into trouble as we would sometimes make more work for ourselves than necessary.  She can be extremely frustrating, don't get me wrong.  But at the end of the day, she was more than a boss to me.

I have been blessed.  She helped me understand that passion is something to never compromise on, because it will just lead me to struggles and possible failure.  It might be the end of an era, and I'm honestly still processing this all, but I will forever be thankful for these past 5 years.

8Things - Passion, You're Soaking In It

In the midst of all that is happening right now (some of which you know about, i.e. Greece, and some of which you don't know about but will learn of soon in an upcoming post), I'm trying to figure out and hold on to the things I feel passionate about.

This week's 8Things Thursday is about just that:  passion.  Where do you find it?  Is it cultivated from childhood?  Does it change with age or experience?  Is there such a thing as too much of it?

I know what I am passionate about, and I will list it below.  In my search for love, I've always felt that I would want my partner to feel passionate about something as well, something outside of themselves.

Being a social worker/community organizer, I've thought about whether I would be able to date someone who has the same level of passion for a cause.  If our causes matched, then I could imagine myself being very happy, but also tiring of it since I wouldn't be able to rest my passions even for a moment.  If our passions were different, I think it would be exciting, but I also wonder about whether we would end up having time for each other outside of our separate passions.

Nonetheless, I do know that I would want my partner to feel passionate about something.  Whether that be politics or music, I want their eyes to shine and  their speech excite at something other than me and the relationship.

These are the things that make my eyes shine.

1.  Working with kids.  An upcoming post will explain more soon.  But to say the least, it is amazing to see the young folks do things better than the adults would do.

2.  The ocean.  Swimming in it, being around it, sitting and watching the sunset (on the West Coast, of course).

3.  Yoni and Mencken.  Never did I think that I would be a proud mama to two kitties.  I feel that my life is so much better with them in my life, and I would probably go crazy on anyone who tries to hurt them.

Afternoon nappies

4.  Music, music, music.  I would rather cut off my pinky toes and pinky fingers instead of not being able to listen to music.  I also know that playing music would probably require a pinky finger.  But I will work my way around it, and still be able to play my instruments.

5.  Dance, dance, dance.  So, this is cheating, as it is an extension of music.  Being able to choreograph or perform for others helps me feel so energized.  I am proud to be able to use my body in such a wonderful way.

6.  My camera.  I love to be able to capture the strangest or most beautiful things at a moments notice.  Sharing is caring after all.

Cheesey

7.  Learning.  My brain is so full of bits and pieces of information, some of which I'm not even aware of.  I'm not necessarily book smart, nor do I test well.  But, I revel in little factoids.

8.  Being a tiny speck.  Though I'm not in any way religious, I know that I am just a tiny speck in the scheme of things.  There are people, ideas, unknown things outside me that I will never know about.  But the least I can do is leave my little area a little better than when I found it.

I'm one of those people!

Let Me Set the Record....

I'm not anti-marriage.

My parents have been married for 28 years, and I believe in love and Happily Ever After.  But I also believe that everything takes some effort and work. Even the Happiest of Ever Afters have some hardships.

Sure, one day, I'd love to have a family and house of my own.  Sure, once in a while, I feel this longing to have kids.  And..okay...fine...I have a couple of names picked out already.  When I was about 5 years old, I answered the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" with "A mother."  So, I do want to have children one day.

But I'm not wanting to rush into anything.  I'm well aware that being unemployed means that it's probably not a good time to do any sort of settling down or having a family.

Let me take another step back.

Once upon a time, I truly believed that I would be married soon after grad school (I would have been 24, the age my parents were married) .  My ex and I were totally planning for it.  We even took our parents to dinner to tell them our plan (that so didn't go well...and my parents felt so bad for my ex that they paid for dinner.....I'm pretty sure his mom hated me....).  But in the end, after almost 9 years together, we broke up.

It was quite an awakening.  A true reality check.  But I also reflected on how I played a part in the whole relationship and its demise.

I knew I hadn't grown up enough.

Now that I'm in another long-term relationship, living with the guy and all, I don't feel that he and I need to rush into any sort of situation.  I still feel that he and I both need to work on some things on our own before we're able to handle the responsibility of each other and a family.  Seriously, if he asked me to marry him right now, I'd have to honestly say (and he knows this), "I love you...but I'm just not there yet..."

Believe me, I've taken ALL of 2009 to think about this.  The year started with a wedding, and ended with one of my childhood best friends having her second child.

This past year was the first time I've had to attend multiple weddings of my friends - 1 in Hawaii, 1 in Los Angeles, and 1 in the North Shore of Massachusetts.  In true social work fashion, I've really had to check myself throughout the year.  "How am I feeling?  Am I jealous?  What is it that's bothering me?"

Now, weddings....well..that's a different blog post.

Jealousy, while I can be guilty of it, was not playing any part in my feelings of 2009.  I believe that all my friends who got married and are planning to get married are all at a point where they can be, and that's the right step for them.

I talked in one of my first posts about how I feel like I'm not physically, emotionally, or mentally ready to "settle down."  Most of what was bothering me was how fast everyone else was "growing up" and maybe even "leaving me behind."  But I just don't want to be an expendable part of their lives as they move on and create new ones.  The whole experience really had me feeling whatever transition period I might be going through.  Yet, I'm still not in any rush.

When I'm ready, I'll know.  It's my own pace.  And I'm quite satisfied with this pace.

***********************************************

Have you been told that you need to "hurry up" and get married or have babies?

What about feeling like you have to follow in your family's footprints?

Are you doing something you love even if it's costing you more than you make?

I want to hear about your experiences and feelings about being pressured to "grow up," following your passions, and whether or not your satisfied with your choices!!!

BE FOREWARNED:

I encourage those of you who are currently unsatisfied to think of concrete steps you'll take to take more control over your choices!

p.s. Self-proclaimed strengths-based social worker here.

Email me your stories, with your name, website, pictures, whatevers!

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thegreenestmermaid@gmail.com

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Unemployment Files: Not the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

As if things weren't any more difficult, another thing gets piled on to the list of things that just aren't going well.  I'm starting to wonder if maybe it's because I'm the bad luck that's walking around.  I don't want to be all negative about this, so I'm going to get that part out of the way.  I promise to end on a more positive note.

Let's review the facts, shall we?