Boldness

Boldness: 15 January 2023

I quit my job. I’m mostly relieved and not a little heartbroken. As one colleague put it, I resigned the position, but I haven’t given up the mission. The frustration of the present finally overcame the fear of the future, though fear is working on a comeback. I don’t know what’s next for me, only that it couldn’t be this anymore.

I’ve never quit anything without knowing what my next thing was. It felt brave but crazy, like jumping out of one boat before seeing the next.

I really need another boat. I’ve applied to a few positions in the past months when the trade winds of my present position started to collide. I thought I’d be really good at some of those positions, and yet I didn’t even get an interview.  But then, I made it to the final stage of a wonderful opportunity. My hopes were really high—streaming aloft from the top of the mast! And right before Christmas I was told that I didn’t get it. I felt plunged into icy water, clinging to a sailboat without a breath of wind. I’ve been in the doldrums ever since. Doldrums. That’s how sailors refer to the Intertropical Convergence Zone, the place where trade winds meet and create an area of ‘monotonous windless weather’. Yep. That sounds about right.

I’m not sure when I was ever as low, as depleted, as forlorn, as I’ve been this past month. I’ve worried some people with my despondency. I was worried myself. Friends and family have been wonderful. Outraged on my behalf, sympathetic, supportive, kind, loving, and ready for me to feel better. But I didn’t get better. I was bereft, adrift, unmoored.

Floating there in the doldrums, these are the things I told myself. I wrote them in my journal to remind me for later: this is what to say to someone grieving:

It really does feel this bad. Don’t deny yourself the grief—whenever it comes. It is the building of the soil that will nourish the next, new life. Trust that it will come, and also honor the truth that right now life hurts. This is an important time. Don’t let yourself be talked out of the hurt by well-meaning friends who hurt to see you hurting. But don’t get stuck. Do not form an attachment to the grief as protection. Do not let it define you or steal the joy that surrounds and waits for you. Joy is there, and will be there, and when you catch a glimmer of it out of the corner of your eye, tuck that away. Use it to tend the flame inside you that feels so tenuous just now. And instead of defending yourself with bitterness and pain in the anticipation of having to do the things that still must be done, put on the whole armor of God, that you may continue to show up in the world as God’s beloved and vulnerable child. Let God’s armor protect the outside while you heal and nurture the inside. You’ll know when the new thing is ready to emerge.

I muddled through. I mostly rallied for Christmas, but then I was sick. Listless, achy, queasy. My sweet brother tuned the huge TV to a channel serving up instrumental Christmas carols in a cozy coffee shop with steam coming off the cups and snow falling gently outside. I dozed on the sofa, occasionally braving some saltines and tea, alternately shivering under or throwing off the weighted blanket I’d given Emma for Christmas.

When I started feeling better, I realized I hadn’t had any alcohol for two days. So I resolved to keep the fast and stop drinking for awhile. Not forever. 30 days. Maybe longer. It’s not a resolution that initiates the quest for an end point and sets me up for failure (lose weight! Gain a skill! Hydrate!), It’s just a resolve. For now. Because while I enjoyed the alcohol a lot in the moment, blunting the edges of the doldrums, it wasn’t helping at all with the undercurrent of despair and angst.

My children didn’t seem particularly interested in traditions this year. We limped along through the Advent calendar, with me velcroing on the last 10 or 12 felt figures to the nativity scene. They preferred Jingle Bell Rock to Christmas carols, if they listened at all. I didn’t suggest chalking the front door on Epiphany because I was away with friends. But those friends and I honored the wandering wise men by picking Star Words on Epiphany. I was not thrilled that my word this year is Boldness.

It's really been the Adventiest of Advents, lasting through and now past Epiphany. You know, for all their watching and waiting, the magi were at least still moving. Plus, they had that star. At times, a bright spark of vision has been enough to guide me, but at this moment I’d prefer an angel proclaiming, “do not be afraid!” and multitude of the heavenly host spelling out the Good News across the heavens. Instead, revelation has been a steady drip of discontent.

At some previous career crossroads, my dad told me, “When I was struggling with a job decision one time, your grandfather told me that I should pray that God lead me to the position in which I could best serve Him. That’s what I’ve done ever since, and God’s never led me astray.” I adopted it, too. It’s a scary prayer of surrender, but I’ve never been led astray either. So as sad as I am, and as hard as I’ve worked to make a go of this position, and as much as this was the best place of service for a time, it no longer is. It’s time to jump ship.

Friday morning, I had to take an hour of leave to buy children’s Sunday School supplies and deliver them to church while the office was open. I was kinda stewing over this new leave policy and also anticipating sending my letter of resignation while trying to find such random items—cream cheese, a jar of baby food, coffee beans, Chex mix—that I was distracted while reaching for my debit card. Instead, I pulled out a piece of stiff paper, a bit bigger than a business card, sent to me years ago by the Center for Action and Contemplation, in appreciation for a donation. I stumble upon these little cards from time to time, and the message usually hits home. Friday’s was a quotation from John of the Cross:

“To come to the pleasure you have not,
you must go by a way in which you enjoy not.
To come to the knowledge you have not,
you must go by a way in which you know not.
To come to the possession you have not,
you must go by a way in which you possess not.
To come to be what you are not,
you must go by a way in which you are not.
”

I sent the letter.

For awhile, nothing happened. I sat in a pool of calm detachment, mostly proud, slightly scared, of what I’d done.  Soon, though, I felt the first, faint stirring of air.