Hope Springs Eternal

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Yesterday was my first day working two new part time jobs.  I am now working for the Abbott Northwestern Hospital Foundation.  I also am working a very short term position in the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management.  I felt a bit mentally exhausted by the end of the day; starting the climb of the learning curve of not one but two jobs on the same day was quite demanding.  I am an intelligent person and can learn quickly.  I can confidently say that I gave it my all on Monday.

Being on the campus of the University of Minnesota among the new energy of incoming students wandering about was an exhilarating experience though.  There was a stout breeze in the air; the mugginess of the past weekend has been blown downstream of Minnesota.  And this may sound almost a bit unwise to proclaim but I will do so anyhow: I am starting to feel ready for the coming of autumn.  New seasons bring new possibilities, different holidays, different weather and different qualities of being.  I believe people living in locales that feature four relatively distinct seasons experience corresponding distinctly different qualities of being that you don’t really find in the tropics.  I have wondered what it would be like to live in a tropical place like Hawaii.  Perhaps one day I will find out.

Autumn is a time of harvesting that which has grown during the year while simultaneously beginning to slow down and look more inwardly in preparation for the coming of winter.  I have long appreciated the special magic of autumn.  It is a time like no other.

I accomplished a lot this year.  My primary priority has been my own physical, emotional and spiritual regeneration.  I am well on my way.  I still frequently feel my sadness quite intensely.  But somehow I also sense that the sadness is morphing.  It is transmuting into something else which I still cannot easily put words around to describe.  Patience is necessary during this process of transformation.  Who knows who I will become with the passage of more time.  I suppose some of the anxiety I still feel is like that which an adolescent experiences when he traverses the bridge between childhood and adulthood.  Because my own development was sidetracked at a few critical stages I feel it necessary to re-explore those times in my life now.

It’s also relevant to mention that something significant changed in my own interior life after this past weekend.  I feel I am growing more fully into my true self.  I am revealing my true self in a way I had not done earlier in my life.  It’s easy for me to feel confused (very much like a teenager might feel) quite often.  I realize that this is only natural though.  Confusion is not an uncommon part of the very human experience of transformation.

I am looking forward to this new day.  I will spend much of the day at the ANW Hospital Foundation.  I will be meeting ‘new’ people this morning.  I will leave work a little early to once again see my physician assistant regarding my shoulder.  I intend to continue moving in a positive direction.

As the sun moves further and further south in the sky and the days shorten I feel a much greater sense of peace compared to this time last year.  I long ago moved beyond the phase of crisis management (which characterized much of the second half of 2013).  I now find myself solidly in the phase of rebuilding.  I still have quite a journey ahead of me.  But I feel fortunate to be where I am now.

Hope springs eternal.