Friday, March 19, 2004
I am settling in to a comfortable pace of spending weekdays working, dreaming all day of our future; my evenings spent in rapt conversation with my husband, playing with my daughter and packing things away, sorting things for sale and gifting. our weekends are becoming devoted to the hard and time intensive planning. I am amazed at how much just makign the decision to leave has helped Greg and I connect again and how easy conversation flows...not just planning conversation, but willingness to deeply listen and talk about our dreams. I am so glad that work knows my plans--there are no secrets there and though I sometimes feel a bit tenuous about sharing details of some plan or the other, there is a freedom in just not worrying about what they'll think, what they'll do. If the "worst" is getting fired, well, there is a plan for that...and honestly, the "worst" would actually be them just treating me poorly as I'd have a tremendously hard time handling that without just leaving.
We had a staff meeting today and I met a woman from our southern CA office. She was such a wonderful vivacious person, I could immediately see why T bought her company. She would be incredible to just sit and visit with--she has such a love for southern Ca--particularly Imperial Valley and knows such history of the area. She talked about Mexicali--how it is this huge town on the US/Mexican border, and there is a American-side town just on the other side. If Mexicali if the size of a portfolio, Calexico is the size of a postage stamp. 35% of the population of Mexicali has the legal right to go into and live in the US. For that reason, any time a house is built, goes up for rent etc in Calexico, it is immediately occupied. One of the problems in Calexico is that each morning a huge number of farm workers troupe accross the border with their cerveza bags. In the evenings, the workers leave for Mexicali, leaving their cerveza bags and waste products behind...on resident lawns more often than not. The City doesn't have the money to solve the problem. J, from the s. Ca office is arranging funding to help the City build a huge terminal where the workers can come to in the morning with consessions and bathrooms.
I grew excited listening to her talk. Such opportunities...how to describe...if I wanted to move down there, I could be employed full-time doing something completely new each month. I could learn the housing element business, help with grant funding, write documents in S. Ca. I thought about trying to work out a deal to do remote writing, or help market when I'm in the area. It matters not if any of these ideas come to fruition...its the fact that I suddenly realized that for us, bright, good people and management skills...we could do so many different things. As soon as you strip off the fear of having to have X amount of money week to week and step out of the cycle, you can explore dreams again. If we want to just sit for a month, we can. If we want to try our hand at being camp ground hosts in Texas we can, if I wanted to start a second career in planning I could, if I want to do some weird old combination of something else...I can do these things now.
These weeks have hammered home over and over the buddhist concept that each persons reality is entirely controlled by perception. We filter everything about our reality. 4 months ago, my "reality" was that I HAD to have a job making XXX amount of money. Today, that reality is completely obliterated. ¶ 4:18 PM
We had a staff meeting today and I met a woman from our southern CA office. She was such a wonderful vivacious person, I could immediately see why T bought her company. She would be incredible to just sit and visit with--she has such a love for southern Ca--particularly Imperial Valley and knows such history of the area. She talked about Mexicali--how it is this huge town on the US/Mexican border, and there is a American-side town just on the other side. If Mexicali if the size of a portfolio, Calexico is the size of a postage stamp. 35% of the population of Mexicali has the legal right to go into and live in the US. For that reason, any time a house is built, goes up for rent etc in Calexico, it is immediately occupied. One of the problems in Calexico is that each morning a huge number of farm workers troupe accross the border with their cerveza bags. In the evenings, the workers leave for Mexicali, leaving their cerveza bags and waste products behind...on resident lawns more often than not. The City doesn't have the money to solve the problem. J, from the s. Ca office is arranging funding to help the City build a huge terminal where the workers can come to in the morning with consessions and bathrooms.
I grew excited listening to her talk. Such opportunities...how to describe...if I wanted to move down there, I could be employed full-time doing something completely new each month. I could learn the housing element business, help with grant funding, write documents in S. Ca. I thought about trying to work out a deal to do remote writing, or help market when I'm in the area. It matters not if any of these ideas come to fruition...its the fact that I suddenly realized that for us, bright, good people and management skills...we could do so many different things. As soon as you strip off the fear of having to have X amount of money week to week and step out of the cycle, you can explore dreams again. If we want to just sit for a month, we can. If we want to try our hand at being camp ground hosts in Texas we can, if I wanted to start a second career in planning I could, if I want to do some weird old combination of something else...I can do these things now.
These weeks have hammered home over and over the buddhist concept that each persons reality is entirely controlled by perception. We filter everything about our reality. 4 months ago, my "reality" was that I HAD to have a job making XXX amount of money. Today, that reality is completely obliterated. ¶ 4:18 PM
