Now Would Be Good

Something is stirring. I’ve been around long enough to recognize the signals, the whispered prompts, to know how to notice the coincidences and connect the seemingly unrelated dots. 

I chose the word ENGAGE this year, as my standard, because... well, truth be told, I don’t know why actually. I certainly had a vague notion but I think it’s more accurate to say the word chose me. Therefore I now suspect a threshold has been met, a learning curve straightened out to a path to some place specific.  But what? Where? How to begin? 

Let me back up a bit.

I lunched with a friend yesterday. She is on the brink of experiencing the dreaded empty nest syndrome as her only child prepares to graduate and launch into her own future. My friend has been a stay at home mom for fifteen years. She has been trying to find work in anticipation of her looming life change but it seems her credentials aren’t official enough. She has no aged paper with a seal, no pay stubs to prove her worth. She has been rejected so many times of late, she admits to feeling as though she is not just a failure but a complete waste.

Those who know me also know that them there was fightin’ words that awakened the Meemanator. Hear me roar!

Since this is not the first, nor apparently will be the last time, I have been presented with this specific opportunity to speak a battalion of words that have been assembling together in me for the last seven decades, I gave my friend a well-practiced two hour lecture on her worth, both perceived and real. 

I also gave our server an extra $5 tip because we took up his table for so long.

Since I chose to be a stay-at-home mom long before the term was coined, I know the drill. I also know how this slippery slope began in the early seventies and I have written thousands of words about it. Cutting to the chase, it has been my experience that there is only one solution - that ever worked for me - for not fitting within a fixed criteria - is to identify your passion, what you can do and just do it anyway. Do it your way. 

But first, take all the negative criticisms swarming like angry wasps in your head and the long list of all the things you are not, put them in a box, seal the lid and kick it to the corner. 

In retrospect I might have overwhelmed the poor thing giving her both barrels at one sitting but I am, at the same time, charged up and weary of this rampant attitude that the only value someone has must be based on the current consensus of what success is. 

Here’s my conclusion - if something inspires you, gives you a reason to get up in the morning, charges your brain and energizes you, makes you think forward, creates and adds to you, is that not success in the doing? Where is it written that you are not qualified to apply yourself to that kind of success, use all those bits and pieces that make you uniquely you, those skills you have acquired by simply facing each life challenge as it came? 

We brain-stormed, discussed her real skill sets, her dreams. I gave her some options that I hope she will follow up on. When the mountain won’t come to you - go to the mountain. Then, when you can’t go over the mountain, go around or blast a tunnel through it. Frankly, in this digital age, the opportunities for entrepreneurial endeavors is staggering. Who needs credentials anymore? 

As we concluded, or should I say, as I wrapped up my rant, she seemed encouraged but she still felt her goal was about proving herself and she was fearful that if she failed she would be even worse off. 

I shook my head and interrupted her, no. No. NO. NO! The point is about stepping off focused only on calling upon all those undeclared, uncredentialed skills, for the sake of doing it - for no other reason than because you can! You can. You can. Just begin. Just do. At the point where you have nothing else to lose, there is no gamble. Sometimes you just have to free fall. If you are already at rock bottom - how can you crash?

This morning, I’m playing the reruns in my head. I’m thinking about the others I’ve given this same pep talk to lately. I’m frustrated that so many are so bogged down with myopic, pre-channeled thinking, that seems to be a rampant disabling societal condition. 

So... something is stirring. I recognize the signals, the whispered prompts, the coincidences and now I just need to connect those dots... 

For Him,

Meema

(Colossians 3:23) whatsoever ye do, work heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto men;  

Halt and Catch Fire

While I admit to loving serendipity, I do not have the same affection for being blind-sided. Therefore, I have developed the life-long habit of looking up and out, ever vigilant and attentive to the random details that have potential to come together as a force beyond my control. 

But real life is often full of surprises and therefore it’s a given that one simply cannot be prepared for every contingency. All that is to preface a story I am compelled to share.

Hubs and I recently completed our binge watch of a four season Tee Vee show re-aired on Netflicks - Halt and Catch Fire. A period piece carved out of a ten year period from 1983 to 1993 when personal computers went from ‘what is the point?’ to the life-altering emergence of the World Wide Web.

Both timeframe and storyline were totally relatable to us because we were so there. Full disclosure, Hubs was there first, always the visionary, he pulled me in not exactly kicking and screaming, but not entirely both feet in either. He bought his first Mac in 1984 and my first Mac, a redesigned Lisa, 128k, in 1988.  

We are nothing if not cutting edge.

The point of this ramble is not a review of the show, but an airing of what happened to me as my husband and I were re-immersed into that particular decade of our life story.

I was blind-sided. Days later, I’m still sorting my way out of it.

First of all, allow me to grumble that resorting to the label ‘period piece’ conjures up a reference to antiquity, the early American pioneers taming the wild west or the French Revolution. It’s something of a bitter pill to realize one is now old enough to be able to apply the term to one’s own personal middle-aged adult experience. 

Secondly, the essence of the show - not merely the unfolding of how digital technology, first played with like Legos in the hands of young, impetuous, dreamer/ visionaries - exposed the essence of how I have always had to do things. Seat of my pants, dive in to the middle and work my way out to both ends, now known in modern vernacular as fake it to make it. Until the last three episodes of season four, I could not decide whether I was being forced to relive my enormous failings or celebrate that I tried at all.

And there’s the crux of it - hindsight is indeed 20/20 but it’s also an opportunity to review all the good and bad, the many starts and restarts, the energy expended, the investment in spite of all the unknowns looming that ultimately resolved themselves in success or failure, either of which turns out to be much less significant than we are supposed to believe. 

We live in the moment in a constant state of ‘what ifs’ and that’s because, in the moment, we can’t trust ourselves to pick our options rightly. Only in hindsight can we see that we did choose wrongly sometimes but here we are - in the now, and it’s okay.

There’s an old saying - Everything turns out in the end. If it hasn’t turned out yet, it’s not the end.

Whew. I can move on now. 

For Him,

Meema

What's In a Word?

Instead of making new year resolutions that I won’t keep past mid-January (if that long) I  took the practical path other bloggers have and last year adopted a single word as a guideline rather than a list of ambitious intentions. I’m not sure that I chose the word or if it chose me but in retrospect for the most part I do think I lived up to the word - Stand. 

This year, mulling over the thing(s) I want to focus on in the coming months, as I tested out different possibilities, a particular word kept buzzing in my ear like a flying pest. I kept brushing it off - telling it to hush. I didn’t want to dig into the whys and wherefores that the word annoyed me. I just wanted it to go away. It bothered me.

That’s likely why I finally had to consider it. I had to give it a chance to explain. I conceded it wasn’t going away until I did.

Since I think I know what I have to do this year, as I begrudgingly granted the word a shot at being the selected standard bearer of my quest, I took the time to do a dictionary/thesaurus search that concluded with me making an audible gasp.

Sometimes we plod on, day to day, assuming we know what a word means, using it as we always have only to discover that our definition isn’t completely representative of all a word can say. Being a lover of words and all the ways words can be assembled to communicate, I have to admit being delighted when a word stands up for itself, determined to get my attention, to show me it is more than I thought it was. 

So, yes, now I have my word for 2018.  In the coming weeks I will be sharing what this word symbolizes and, more than that, the task it calls me to. I am both nervous and comforted that it appears that the word chose me. I’m walking forward in faith that this is a good sign that this is supposed to be. 

And more importantly that I am up for the endeavor.

For Him,

Meema

Overheard

Satan: “What do you think you are doing? You aren’t qualified, credentialed, or even relevant! No one cares what you think. No one is going to read what you write. Get over yourself - you have no voice! You have been less than mediocre since the day you were born. You will never do anything the world would acknowledge or accept. Stop trying. Stop speaking. Stop writing. Stop. Give up foolish human.”

God: “You aren’t paying attention to him again, are you? Look here. Look up at me. Focus. Listen! I didn’t create you for nothing. I made you uniquely devised to step up to every challenge that I planned for you. I never promised that you would be successful or even feel accomplished as the world defines those words, did I? 

All I said was, follow Me. Trust Me. You know the world will never understand how I work all things together. Big, small, miraculous, mundane - unnoticeable. Human words! I called you to do things that the world is not able to see or applaud. 

The world is temporal, fickle and often foolish. Why would you want the world to see you? I see you. I know you. Don’t give up here in the last hour. Be good and faithful. If I am not done with you, you must believe there is much left I have for you to do.”

Me: Okay then. Bug off Satan.

For Him,

Meema

Happy NewYear!