What works for you? What makes your life work. Around my home there has been a tremendous shift in a few moments this week. Music has returned to our home, not just the go to practice on Wednesdays and sing on Sundays kind of song, but one that has included our whole family in the chorus. I learned to learn again in one area of my life this week. Engaged in a life long love affair with learning and sharing learning I was surprised to see that one lesson learned long ago has resurfaced as a need to know…
You have to know who you are not to become who you are. You see I’ve been hiding out. Staying away, denying self and choosing to ignore what can be a problematic existence. It’s a problem our children face, my brothers faced and one that I see my client’s schools and families face. Deborah Mersino knows this place and it continues to get past adequate steps for solving despite it being of great importance. Life as a person who embraces their imperfections as well as their gifts. Engaging excellence is something I love, not to compete, but to achieve, reach and be who I am…I appreciate excellence.
As a young child I knew I created differently than most. My stories were more vivid, drawings were of great importance to me. Music a form of therapy of the heart.. There are many brighter, millions smarter, and no matter what else is true, so many more who use the gifts of their existence to give to others. Each of us possess gifts and they are for others. The most able child and the child with the most abilities to teach us to love despite the need. Joy is in the giving and when intelligence is stripped away, often the heart teaches us that we over think life. period. The dreaded “assimilation” had taken over my world again. Too much pleasing. Too much hoping to be enough. Too much trying to deny the areas of life where I am truly able. Many parts of life simply have to be achieved to survive and for high creatives who are also high analytics…well without proper support (life would be SO much easier with a staff) it’s alot to dream, create, and launch without supportive environments. My roles often mean I work with five development teams as the hybrid strategist that speaks the speaks of marketing and technical, product development and people ILT. Then there’s the country girl part of me that simply loves to paint a barn.
Engaging to develop sequenced strategy for start ups and speakers, I am often called to do the work when its crunch time. Teams often have ruffled feathers when someone is brought in to align scope and sequence once and for all and deal with branding issues. As a wordsmith I help direct the aesthetic design as well as the voice pieces of branding. The short version is the personnel often think I am a threat, but the truth is I’m simply there because there is something I can do. My work involves launching magnificent concepts into realities and yes, there are a good many messy parts of brilliance. They aren’t all big deals, in fact some of the most important things I do involve one to one interaction like teaching a child to swallow at 17 after 16 years of never having been able to swallow and solving the issue of his failure to grasp a cup by himself. It was a moment I’ll savor forever, to see his joy in knowing he could get a sip by himself, trapped in a body that no longer works. A mouth that cannot talk, legs that won’t walk. Being able to do 1 thing for yourself matters. Intelligence comes in many flavors, the least of which is “easy to manage”…we are given these dreams, abilities, and hearts to use them. I spent the last 9 years trying to live someone who wasn’t me. I love home, I love family, I love creating splendor too, but I.am.not one to be quiet, reserve, or not thinking and acting to create. You see it’s hard to be different, its like having on a Dr. Suess hat when everyone else was in matching clothes. You think differently, you see things differently and then you add the joy of additional issues to your life like a visual impairment. Well, I can’t speak for anyone else, but after two failed marriages and continued inexperience at living my existence on a public forum twenty years ago. I. hid. out. I’m alot to take on a good day, the exuberance and joy is real and I simply love life and working hard. I don’t know why it works, it just does, and I know how to repeat processes. I tend to work with monster big issues because they get monster big results when you creatively resolve them. It’s time to admit it and just own it if I am to be who I am.
This week reminded me that I am a Creative. The kind that lives life in green clouds and purple moons. The kind that likes Math and sees it as its own art. It’s a different perspective than many wear, but my truth is that its mine. Music makes me come alive, the right color giddy. I love working problem solves and I just prefer a good mud puddle than the route around it. The music of my life returned this week in a most unexpected way…and I remembered…I am enough as I am…despite the imperfections.
Are you ready to start this season from a different place? Change happens in an instant says my friend Allyson Lewis (@Allyson7Minutes) and her take on the MORE life is worth a read. She has reminded me who I am, she has shown me as Gail Hyatt and so many others have that it is our own paths that we must find. I’ve found my path and I’m making it mine! I am ever thankful for the friends and teachers in my life. My mentors have been so patient as they encouraged this part of my life to bloom. You see, an educator’s heart means you can never stop learning how to lead, teach, facilitate, and learn. It’s what I am, it’s what I am made to be…and the lessons to learn are endless.
So you have fair warning…she’s out of the box of trying to be enough, she’s gotten the lesson that pleasing others is pleasant, but being of yourself and obedient to the gifts God gave you to share with others matters more. You might want to pray for my dear husband who lives in a hot pink kitchen and eats off polka dot plates….real men do you know…and Les is indeed a man among men. It’s not as though the world is on fire, dinner still is my priority with family, but I know that I know that I know that I’ll never pretend it’s okay not to be me again. December 1st changed that forever.
I know I am blessed this day, and every day and I just can’t wait to unwrap this for living.
“A gift is as a precious stone in the eyes of him that hath it: whithersoever it turneth, it prospereth.”
(Proverbs 17:8)
xoxo
Sweetie
That’s a nicely made answer to a challeningg question
That’s a nicely made answer to a challeningg question