Twilight (I swear this won't be a rant about the Vampire books)

Hello my friends!  I hope as you read this particular set of musings that you find yourself safe and content.

This is truly my favorite time of day, particularly in the summer.  I'll avoid the cliches about the sounds of suburban children being called inside, but it really is a special time of day.  The time where we shift from drive into neutral, where we make the unspoken agreement that  anything else that needs to be done is just going to have to wait until tomorrow.  Where we get to rest, relax, prepare for the next day.  

Too often, my twilight is spent in front of the TV, or doing laundry, or frantically attacking some project that seems absolutely essential but really isn't.  Many nights, I go from full speed to shut down, from constantly trying to accomplish something to crashing.  There's no in between, no preparing for the next day, no time taken to just enjoy the present moments.  

It's not because I'm particularly important.  This isn't one of those "I'm so busy, I need to take time to stop and smell the roses" blog posts.  Rather, it's more a contemplation on WHY I feel the need to be so busy.  Why is it essential that I pull every weed in my front lawn?  Why do I need to be checking my work e-mail after I leave work?  Why can't I just be satisfied that I've done enough, and stop before I'm too exhausted to enjoy the rest of my evening?

As I thought about it, I was struck lately by how little quiet there is in my life.  There are so few moments when there's no TV, no computer, no music to distract me.  Constantly my head is being filled with other peoples words and thoughts.  Sure, I think.  A lot.  All the time.   But when do I take time to drown out all the other noise and words and thoughts to listen to my own?  

There are a lot of things going on in my life right now that are...scary.  Consuming my thoughts.  I guess I'll just come out and say it, for those of you that don't know: I'm getting laid off next month.  With this news comes a lot of different feelings-the ones you expect-fear, anger, powerlessness, self doubt.  And then...the ones you don't expect, the ones that keep your mind racing,  the ones that immediately assume that the unemployment path can only end with you sleeping in a makeshift cardboard box shelter.  The ones that think you're going to end up being a cashier at Dick's Sporting Goods again.  

However, I suppose that's the first stage of unemployment grief.  With the next stage, at least for me, came hopefulness.  The job I've had for the last five years has been such a gift in so many ways.  I've truly come into my own.  I've learned the value of self motivation, I've learned the things I'm good at, I've taken risks, I've started to really understand the concept of integrity, I've learned to stop telling myself I can't do things, and just try.  I've really grown up.  This job has been very rewarding, and to some extent, I started to look forward to taking this experience out for a spin.  I wrote my resume and thought....you should hire that girl!  I started to really think "you know, I can really be an asset somewhere." I started to think that so often, we go through life, just doing what we do because it's what we've always done.  This is my opportunity to evaluate where I am in life, and decide if it's where I want to be.  Perhaps it's time for a change!  

I'm still mostly in that phase, but honestly, it's been much rougher that I thought it would be.  I am positive, and want to be positive, but I suppose no one feels positive all of the time.  Whenever I've told someone about my job, a lot of times I get, "Don't worry, you're smart."  While I appreciate the sentiment, I have not yet found a job posting that says "Seeking smart person."  Moreover, it seems there are a whole lot of not so smart people who are very gainfully employed.  I don't mean to ramble on about this too much, but I suppose it's been on my mind, and so it wormed its way into this post.  

In the end, I suppose what I am getting at is I have let this range of crazy emotions take over my life.  I have let it cause petty fights with my husband over stupid things.  I have let it keep me isolated from my friends and family.  I have let it keep me from taking proper care of myself.  And all because I didn't allow myself the time and space to just accept it and move on.  All because I was so busy freaking out about all the bad things that might happen, with the projects I just HAD to do, that I didn't pay attention.

But in this quiet twilight, in the face of the big storm that's about to hit, I am finally finding peace.  In sitting in the waning light, I decided to enjoy the twilight of this chapter of my life.  I have loved working where I am and I am truly grateful for the opportunity I have had to work with amazing people, in a beautiful place, and be given the opportunity to grow.  I suppose it's easier to be calm, as I have a job prospect that looks like it's probably going to happen, but in this particular twilight, I have decided not to let fear and circumstance run my life, or determine my happiness.  I choose to be happy or be miserable.  And I am going to choose to be happy.  

I suppose it's a cliche, but my wedding day was the most joyful day of my life.  I felt...truly beautiful.  It was the first day I can remember in my life that I did not feel self conscious.  I finally got out of my head and just experienced the day. Sometimes I feel like people don't really get what makes Paul and I tick as a couple, but that day, I felt like we got to share it with everyone.  It sounds cheesy, but all around me, all I felt was love.  From Paul, from my family and friends.  When I look back to that day, I realize that while I was happy because I was marrying a truly remarkable man, I was also happy because I was surrounded by the love and support of my friends and family.  It was all concentrated into one place, and I just felt it in the air.   While I suppose I can't be surrounded by that in such a literal way every day, I can carry it with me and draw strength from it.  When I'm feeling nuts or angry, I can  remember how hard the people around me worked to help make it happen, how much insanity they put up with in the weeks leading to the wedding.  I can listen to the cellist play "In My Life" and remember that my amazing husband loves me, and that we have so many adventures ahead of us.  I can remember that no matter what conflict I am going through, I have been lucky enough to experience truly perfect moments.

Twilight seems to be a theme in my life right now.  The twilight of my twenties, the twilight of my job, the twilight of graduate school.  I hope that writing and revisiting this blog entry will help me to remember to take time to enjoy these twilights. To use this time to revel in the memory of the joy these experiences have brought me, and decide how I'll use them moving forward.  

Be well, my friends.  I hope to be posting much more regularly from now on.  Hopefully my future posts will be a bit more coherent :)