2 Questions Every Girl is Asking Herself

Chapter 83

The interview went well. I got the job. As I joyfully wake up to the sound of alarm at 7:45, my mind recalls the last time I had to wake at this hour during my consulting days. I am happy to report that my mornings are no longer grumpy. Since then, I have circled the globe, ventured out into the world for the first time on my own, chased a character out of a movie all the way to Bali, lived my dream for an unforgettable month in a cottage of a tropical island, survived a public appearance on a TV show, fallen in love for the first time in seven years, found a new job in a new career in a new city. I am happy and excited and feeling very lucky.

There are moments, brief fleeting moments, where I marvel, almost in disbelief of the life I've recreated. The one I am now living, how unthinkable it was to me, years ago, when I was still knees deep in the consulting life. Climbing the corporate ladder, feeling empty, like I was living someone else's life entirely. I'm pretty sure I didn't exactly picture this: Having a conversation with a best-selling author and then writing about it in a snazzy London office. My oddball protagonist who recklessly deviated from the traditional path has (finally!) arrived at the happy ending of her own story.

Yet, looking around at the snazzy office, the black windowpanes signaling its former piano warehouse days, and in it, our CEO, a former stage designer, running around bidding for projects, I can't help but notice how similar we are. Me, my boss, the piano house, we have all changed careers, gone through major transformations, abandoned whatever intended purpose we believed we served and gone on to create new ones. In that sense, maybe I am not such an oddball after all. Maybe it's okay to have more than one career in a lifetime. Maybe it is simply the forces of growing up pushing us toward the next stage of our evolution.

My thoughts turn to something I read recently. In a book by Paul Selig, he believes that when one's emotional landscape has changed, one's external landscape changes with it. You cannot be the new person standing in the old kitchen looking at the old pots and pans that cooked yesterday's dinner. When something no longer resonates with you, it will fall away, it cannot be held, and it will be replaced by something that actually resonates with you. That is why the relationships you were in suddenly seemed empty, or the path that you had chosen for yourself out of duty and tradition and fear and not out of wisdom and creation and joy made you wonder why you are still on it. If you suddenly realize that you have a joy to do something new and you are being encouraged by your soul's purpose to investigate that joy, things begin to transform.

In response, you may start looking for other work that suits you in your new place of being. Or you may find a new partner. Or you may resist, and then you will have a different kind of discomfort through the resistance. If you tell yourself "I'm not going to change and I'm going to hold tight to what I know," you're actually going to feel restless and angry. And restlessness and anger are two indications that you are blocking this process. And if you are resisting moving forward, then you will have teachers through your emotional experience coming to you to support you in the changes that you need to make.

When I came across this passage, I instantly recognized the familiar feeling. It was exactly how I felt at my old job. I felt empty and restless and angry. I was resisting change. Then a movie came along that tugged at my heart strings so deeply that even six months after watching it, I was still thinking about it. That was when I knew I had to act. In following that joy, I took on a journey across the globe, away from my familiar surroundings, my family, my peers, my vocation, which I sorely needed to leave. Not because I didn't get along with them, but because the way of thinking of that world (my habitual world) was so deeply ingrained in me, I needed to get out of it, to stand apart from it to figure out what I wanted to do. Unlike a lot of people who left home at 18 for college, I never had any practical reasons for leaving. I was so close to my parents that I felt a little guilty for wanting to leave them. But now in retrospect it was exactly what I needed. The joy that I went on to investigate, led me through many trials and surprises, and eventually brought me here, to this piano house having this conversation with this brilliant writer, where I feel once again, excited about life. Excited about the unknown possibilities, the next chapter, the next adventure.

Three months later, I fly back to Vancouver for a visit. Coming out of the gate, I see a tall, Asian guy in a red cap smiling at me. It's Matt. I'm happy but not surprised to see him, since he had already sent a card on my birthday (a subtle obvious sign). I let the familiar feeling of warmth and sunshine that always accompanies his presence wash all over me. It's nice to be back. Matt picks up my bags and strides towards the car. I catch a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the glass door. In her wrinkled shirt and jeans, the girl looking back has sparkles in her eyes. 

THE END