Why...

Got my paperwork almost completely together for my first day of work... on October 14th. My hire letter and temporary practice license for Washington State are now in my hands, as is my ORCA (mass transit) card and just other little stuff. I guess you could say that I prefer to be prepared. It's been weird adjusting to knowing that I'm NOT going to be here in 3 weeks, as a matter of fact, I will be in Missoula, Montana 3 weeks from tonight... arriving in Seattle the next afternoon, on my birthday.

I am getting a new job for my birthday... and a whole new life. In case it's not clear why I am making this change... I can honestly say that the reasons are many. I will miss many things, and not miss many others. It's a very mixed emotional bag right now for me. I have so many great friends that I want to miniaturize and pack in a box, then embiggen when I get there... but sadly a radical change is an equally radical thing.

In so many ways, I have gotten tired of the rut I feel like I have been in for many years. The mobilization with the Army to Texas woke something adventurous up in my soul, and a sense of freedom and independence, that was quashed when I got home... not by any person or anything in particular... more just by the natural circumstance of being expecting to step back into the exact role & slot that I filled before I left and changed. Not sure what I grew in TX... be it wings, stature, or both... but enough of me changed that going back to who I was before really became impossible.

The mobilization to Texas was really a profound experience for me.  I had the time to build confidence in myself as a person. I found that I like me, quite a bit, and I like a challenge... and I had a year of them and met them head on.  The Army isn't perfect, but has overall been very good to me.  Then I came home to take on the XO position in my unit... again a challenge.  I wouldn't seek these challenges if I didn't want them. And though I love my job at Callaway County in every way except the pay, it was a small box to try to fit myself back into... I have the best coworkers... the best boss... the best in so many ways... but it is time to move on.

I am also moving because of the weather, the extreme cold and extreme heat of the midwest has finally gotten too much for me.  I have become a runner... and I love running outside, but the weather here limits me to a very small part of the year... the snippets of the now-nearly-nonexistent spring and fall that we experience and the few cool breaks we have in the rest of the year.  I've never been a fan of the heat and humidity, but have always accepted it as part of life... but ever since I had that heat injury in 2007 on Hoover Dam, I have to be extra careful and certainly do not run if it's much over 70 degrees F.  I'd rather run at 17 deg F... I've done it... with proper clothes, it really isn't as brutal as it sounds once you get going.

Politics is also driving me out of Missouri.  The Missouri I grew up in was sensibly conservative with a very small "c".  People made change when needed and not when it wasn't.  At least that was my recollection.  Mind you, I grew up in suburban St. Louis, the daughter of a union shop steward.  So I was raised to understand the value of the tax dollar, but also that the little guys had to stick together to protect themselves from most companies... not all, but most.  I was also taught that it was important to vote and stand up for what you believe in.  Honestly, I am tired of working for peanuts, accepting with gratitude, a couple more nuts each year.  I am excited about joining a union in my new job... I am proud of that.  I wish Pop was still alive so I could tell him about it.  The political turn to the stupid that Missouri has taken scares the hell out of me, honestly.  Mark and I held on for a long time, not wanting to be beaten or to let the stupid win.  We are finally waving the white flag and running like hell.

Of the things that I will miss in Missouri... the land. Maramec Springs is my heart, I go there about once a year just to fill my soul's battery.  Columbia... the best big little town ever.  It has been my home for 20 years, it is where we have raised our kids, but it is also a crucible.  I have had the extra shit burned away and an essential truth remains in my soul... it's time to move on.  Despite my love of the parks, the trails, the parks and so much of Missouri, it is time to move on... time to seek new vistas and adventures.

I will so miss my friends.  I have managed to collect the best friends ever... walking with Jas, going shopping with Kimberly, doing fiber festivals with Renee, running with Kayla... and everyone else.  And my coworkers who are extended family to me... damn guys, I have to break in a new batch... I wonder if they will appreciate the singing nurse in Seattle too?!

Then there is the mix of trepidation and excitement about my new job.  I am sure I will do great, but there is always the little niggling doubt that fears I won't make it past my probationary 6 months and will have to crawl back to Missouri in disgrace. So for all the self confidence, there is always that little voice... and why it's there after excelling in a new field of nursing for a year with the Army at Ft Hood... even earning an Army Commendation Medal.  It's just daunting to feel like I'm going from the Fulton, MO Little Leagues to the St. Louis Cardinals in one swell foop.  But I will be one member of a team... a team that I have already been welcomed to... so the caseload may be 10 times what I'm used to, but I will have amazing resources that I've not had here, and I won't be alone.  So I really do feel like I'm leaving home to go home.

The trip up to Portland & Seattle in April was wonderful.  I really liked the people and the place, it felt good. It felt right... and this whole job process has felt so "meant".  The skeptical side of me wants to "poo poo" it, but it's just gone with amazing ease... which of course makes me look for the other shoe... but I think the other shoe must have been the other job I applied for in Oregon.  Everything for the Seattle job has been downright slick, whereas the Oregon job has been just glitched.  It's funny but Mark and I both felt like Oregon was gonna be it... but Seattle said, "Ummmm NO! You are coming HERE!"  It's like the Oregon job made me look at the possibilities but I was supposed to get the Seattle job.  Even the nursing license process reflects this... my fingerprints have been twice rejected by Oregon, while they seem to be fine so far in Washington, and the latter will grant you a temp license while the background check is completed.  So I can go up there and get everything squared away.  Not that I'm worried since the Army gave me a clearance and my worst infraction was a speeding ticket in 2009 in Jefferson City... so yeah, I'm a dangerous criminal there.

The power of good-bye...

Sometimes, life forces you to cut your losses and go.

Sometimes there are people in your life that you love, but you just have to stop helping and giving everything to and let them go off on their own path because you know that they will never grow or progress if you don't.

Sometimes there are people in your life who have hurt you so deeply that only time and space, of indeterminate amounts, will allow you to heal enough to start rebuilding a relationship.

Sometimes you really get to a place beyond blame, to a place of resolve in which you know what you need to do... no matter how hard.

There comes a point in parenting where you just have to let go, and hope the scraping of the butt in the gravel isn't too hard.

There are some voids that can only be filled by the hard lessons in life, not by anything given to you, wheedled out of others, or by blaming others. They can only be filled from within.

Sometimes the truest love you can show another is by being true to yourself.

Letting paths diverge in love.

23 days...

So much to do, so little time.

I spent most of the last week battling an overuse injury in my shoulder that invariably spreads into my neck and hurts beyond a lot.    I decided that needle-felting a textile project that is very large, by hand, was a great idea and it was fine until about Wednesday when the pain, numbness and tingling set in.  My Thursday, my neck and right shoulder were starting a painful freeze up... I was never so grateful for the Chinese massage therapists at the mall for their walk in services! 20 minutes of work on my back and shoulders did the trick... it was a little better Friday and tons better today.  I have also keep up a steady dosing of naproxen to prevent swelling.  To mostly NOT be in pain after several days of severe pain is a blessing. However I felt compelled to reneg on my volunteering for the Tough Mudder tomorrow... don't want to exacerbate my shoulder and I need a day to clean.

I also think I had a very small version of whatever in the hell the rest of the family had the previous week...  something sinusey and energy draining.  I was in a weird fog all week, though very effective at work, clearing many disease cases that had backlogged during August... the month of Tdap Shots & TB tests galore... especially the latter!  We did 45+ tests in the month of August, 36 of which were in the last 2 weeks... which is a staggering number considering our usual 5ish a week.  I don't know why they were all crawling out of the woodwork, but crawl they did. However, all the clinic busy-ness, prepping for our annual employee health fair,and stress over waiting to hear about the job applications just made for a very distracted month. The good part about quickly clearing the backlog is that I know that I can handle a large volume of cases in a short time, which will be very useful in a place as busy as Seattle/King County will be sure to be.

One important FYI, since we are deep into tick season... wear repellent and long pants/sleeves if you go into tall grass or the woods.  Ehrlichiosis has been remarkably bad this year with most cases meeting at least what we call "probable" case definition, if not confirmed.  In years past, the number of probable/confirmed cases has been quite low... but we are seeing the opposite this year.  I also haven't been seeing a great deal of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever... just Ehrlichiosis out the wazoo.

I am looking forward to the new job where I can give up some of the hats I have been wearing for 7 years at Callaway.  A narrower focus and more honed specialization is appealing.  It will be nice to be able to buckle down to a task and not be called away to have to give a shot, take a blood pressure, or help someone with their computer.  I have already received welcome e-mails from my new co-workers in Seattle... I can't wait to get in and get going with them.

However, I am leaving a most excellent group of people at the Callaway County Health Department. I almost feel like I'm leaving home to go home.  I  also am leaving some amazing connections at the Missouri Department of Health & Senior Services, especially Drew & Terry.  I will miss having their voices on the end of the line when I have an outbreak to report or a question to ask.

Today has been a restful day, just kind of recovery from a long week of illness and pain. I got in a nice 6.25 mile run/walk on the MKT and managed to shave a couple of minutes off my previous 10K time.  It's a work in progress to be sure... and somehow, I am managing to progress.  As with other parts of my life, progress is happening.

And the dam broke...

My official job offer came in Thursday night, September 5th. The offer was 5% over what I was hoping for on the top end. So, for that, and so many other reasons, I had no hesitation in accepting the job. It was all contingent upon a background check, but I found out that I sailed through that process. So now I am waiting for my official hire letter.

I have also sent off my fingerprint cards for my Washington State Nursing license. It would be better if Washington was a nurse compact state but it's not, so the hoops must be jumped through. I have pretty much sent that off and it's out of my hands. It remains for me to pack, sort, and generally get ready to leave on 8th October.

I have tendered my resignation here at Callaway County as of last week. I have contacted the Army unit up in Washington. I am even looking at apartments online. The complex I like the look of the best even has a 1 bedroom apartment available. So I will take a tour and hopefully get the leasing taken care of quickly.

I am now down to 9 more days left of work here and then I'll have a week or so to get things together to leave. I am cleaning out my office and filling boxes with stuff. Amazing amounts of crap have built up in here over 7 years.

But I want to make this break as cleanly as I possibly can. I have been feeling weighed down by things, by life, by routine for a long time. I want to separate the wheat from the chaff, as they say and I want as little detritus go go with me. I am tired of carry so much baggage of the past... in terms of relationships and everything else. I need a place to start over. I think Texas was the catalyst of me realizing what I needed to do. Coming home was very difficult, I could not fit into the role I left or the one that was expected of me. It was like I grew new appendages, I would call them wings... and so the old anything was an awkward fit at best. I loved being in a place where I could answer mostly to myself. I found parts of myself that I lost and I couldn't come back home with the way things are and be any semblance of comfortable or happy.

So now I set off on a new adventure...

Moving into September... and on beyond zebra...

Yeah, you would think that I'd already be moving myself mentally into September... but it's been a strange week and a very slow transition due to a lot of factors. 1) I feel rather like I'm in limbo waiting to get the job offer I have been told is coming. I checked on progress via e-mail the other day, but they are still hashing out money. 2) It's been a weird energy week at work, yesterday felt very much like Friday when it was actually only our 2nd day of work. I still can't believe I have tomorrow to get through. 3) Knowing that I will be moving soon, everything is in motion, but not knowing the timeline. 4) Being so freaking tired this week despite actually getting much better sleep than last week.

So it's sort of like that rocking chair that keeps you busy but doesn't get you anywhere. It would be helpful if I hadn't been so tired this week so far. Running helps a lot, be it on a treadmill or on the road. I mayn't be going anywhere, but I am moving, which helps so many things stay in perspective and burns off a lot of nervous energy. Last night was the doughnut orgy, which turned more into an exercise of self administered aversion therapy. I am really looking forward to my salad at lunch. I am sure the doughnuts were a reaction to the limbo-stress.

I guess the good thing is that I know that I am in limbo and that I am stressed because of it. So I can do something with the stress, though sometimes it will devolve into doughnut orgies. My current plan includes continuing to pack and sort piles of old crap... and to start slowly removing personal things from my office. At least I will feel like I'm moving something. Leading us right back to a previous blog of giving those with addictions something to do, and pretty much the same when people feel like they need to do something... rather than leaving them helpless, give them something to do... like knitting, giving blood, or donating money... pretty much anything that can make them feel less helpless. So I am trying do find my own "something" to do.

The real question now is... if I hear that Washington County, Oregon wants me to come for a 2nd interview and I've not heard from Seattle yet... should I go? My gut says yes, even though the chances of NOT getting the Seattle job are very small at this point. They have told me point blank that an offer is coming, but it's a union job and they are in budget cycle negotiations.

I am happy about the prospect of joining a union. The thought of paying someone to help safeguard my rights as a worker is amazing, rather than just taking what the employer is willing to give within the bounds of the law. It's a concept that people have forgotten, sadly. However, I think the pendulum on that may be starting to swing the other way... with all the WalMart and fast food protests for a living wage, we can only hope. I know that I personally prefer to shop in places where I know the company actually values the little guys working for them and pay/treat them accordingly. Hence I avoid WalMart and many other companies as much as I can... and will spend a little more, knowing that the people helping me are okay and not just modern slave labor.

So today, I'll leave with an obscure, but favorite song of mine...

An African American Man takes a power stance... the Teapuglicans are outraged...

I'm feeling kind of political today... not about Syria, how could I be bothered to worry about that little thing when we have the latest Teapuglican outrage being stirred up?  Foreign affairs and mideast policy don't rise to any level of importance when President Obam is putting is feet on the desk in the Oval Office...

... but it was perfectly if it was Gerald Ford or George W. Bush put their feet up on the desk...

Double standards aren't fun and we imperfect humans find them easy to apply when our ideals, beliefs, and other idiotsyncrasies (my own neologism, but probably not original), conscious or not are in play.

So why can the Right stir up so such ridiculous faux outrage when it's President Obama? Could it be something deeper than just not liking the man?  I think the answer is yes... and it has nothing to do with feet on any desk.

I recently went through the interview process in hopes of landing a new job in another part of the country and did a lot of research on how to interview and one of the most inspiring and interesting things I found was a TED talk about power stances and how just how you carry your body can affect your attitude and how you carry yourself.  Amy Cuddy is pretty amazing and the talk is very well done.


I did some power stances and strutted my stuff about my house before my Skype interview. (By the way, I am waiting on the official offer for that job.)

So what do feet on a desk and power stances have to do with Faux outrage on the right?  Well, this kind of tied itself together in my head on the way to work this morning and it seemed to make sense. President Obama having his feet up on the desk in the Oval Office is a Power Stance, whether he is sitting or standing. He is making himself larger-than-life, more than he just is, being the very man he is every other day.  I believe that is the root of the reaction.  For those who find an African-American in power either repugnant or unnatural, the image of our African-American president owning his turf and expressing his power is untenable, despite any evidence of previous Presidents exhibiting the exact same behavior.  Perhaps, it is an explanation for Obama Derangement Syndrome as well, President Obama is in many ways, as previously mentioned, a larger-than-life figure owing to his personality, charisma, meteoric political career and being our first African American president. It's almost though his very existence challenges the deepest held prejudices of a certain segment of our population.  "How dare he rise above his race and station?" seems to be the unspoken question, and, to make it worse, many of them don't even know they are doing it.

This has led to the most insane campaign to discredit him in any way possible... from the Birthers ... to the Republicans simply opposing him at every possible turn... to disagreeing with him on things that they previously supported or believed.  The Republicans can't let the President have even a single victory and they appear to be willing to take the country down to make this happen. The best we can hope for that their behavior will not, make them and the United States "absolutely ridiculous", and (paraphrasing from Pride & Prejudice), with "ignorance and emptiness of ... mind, wholly unable to ward off any portion of that universal contempt which their rage for ...votes... will excite." (I am picturing Elizabeth Bennet pleading with her father to not let Lydia go to Brighton, or perhaps Elizabeth Warren pleading with the electorate to not let the Republicans go on...)
Racism is an ugly thing, overt or covert. I think the covert type is, in some ways, worse since it's harder to root out since it's in a "more acceptable" form.  It's also harder to recognize in yourself and others.  Whereas, with overt racism, you can point at it and say "BOO!"... though there is much about overt racism that is more directly evil and dangerous.

Ridding our country of racism and other "-isms" is a journey on which we have come a long way and still have a long way to go.

So I'll just leave it with this song for today:

Approaching change and finding things to do...

Change. nickels, dimes, transitions, breaking life from dollars into smaller component parts... random thoughts flitting through my head today.

I was stuck behind a slow-moving vehicle most of the way to work today... and I started to get annoyed and then realized that I had plenty of time, so I chose a path of calm acceptance rather than the path I'd started down.  Which made me extrapolate to other situations in life... like the kids living in the basement and being seemingly unable to keep their messes to themselves.  They annoy the ever living daylights out of me, but... I cannot change my basic emotional response to that, but I CAN choose what I actually do about it.  And using the old "acting as if" technique really does help you change your emotional response.

This is a toughie for me, though.  I have almost always been a cluttered person, but I have never been filthy... and one of the people I am sharing my home with rises to that level, not so much in terms of personal hygiene but environmentally.  So combine the way I have always been with the good habits I finally learned while living alone in Texas for a year, it is very hard.

So in the meantime, I will find things to do... things are easier to deal with if you have something you can do to fill it.  I remember in nursing school, one of the principles in mental health nursing is that you don't remove someone's addiction/fixation/etc. without replacing it with SOMETHING.  And often when people are stressed, positively or negatively, or in a middle space like the meantime, they need to fill it with something.  So I am choosing to focus on my packing and cleaning and running and knitting and spinning and writing...  I prefer these pursuits anyway, they make me feel less stressed.  I am also working on lists of things to do and things to pack and things to remember until I can firm up my timeline.  It gives me things to fill this funny space between where I have been and where I am going.

I am expecting a phone call today, sometime, to get this ball rolling.  As I said in the other blog, they are waiting to hammer out the $$ end to make me the actual offer... so to all intents and porpoises (yes that was intentional), I have the job... it's just waiting to get the devils out of the details.  So more sitting in the meantime, luckily it's been a busy day, that helps a great deal.

In the meantime, I will continue to Push That Knot Away...

Out with the old... in with piles of new.

It's quite humorous in a way, within an hour of having written the previous post, I got home and noticed that there was a call from Seattle.  It was a fraught 20 minutes until I got 'hold of the lovely lady calling. The news was absolutely stunning to me... she wanted to call and tell me I was their #1 candidate, and that they would have made an offer Thursday or Friday, but they were having some troubling hammering out the financial end. She also said that she didn't want to leave me hanging over the weekend.

It was humorous to have the ending of the blog entry followed so soon with the notification about the job, but it makes sense too.  It was like I had to clear something of the old out before I could get that little thing to move forward. Now it's just a bit more of a waiting game for the official offer with dollar signs attached.

Yesterday I spent with Renee, my best friend since forever... well, third grade... driving up to Bethel, MO for the Sheep Festival.  We looked around, petted some sheep and bunnies and bought beautiful purple roving that will need to be spun into something fabulous.  Then we had snow cones and a funnel cake and hopped int the car and left since it was so hot.  It was looking to be nearly 100 degrees.  I got home and went horizontal for 2 1/2 hours... mostly due to the fact I have been short sleep all week... it's amazing how stressful transitions like this one can be.  Even it it's a transition you want, it it still change and that is never something that human beings deal with very well.



I can't say that this change isn't sad, it is... there are a lot of things I am giving up to make this move now.  I will be missing my son's last few months at home, though I plan to come back home for his graduation and subsequent departure for the Air Force in May... just 2 days apart.  I will miss watching my granddaughter grow and change... despite the frustration of having her around sometimes, it's also a blessing that I will miss.

On the other hand, there will be things that I won't miss... living in a house constantly full of people... not being able to just leave my stuff in one place and having it still there when I return... not having to clean up after others all the time... just so many things.

So it's bittersweet as even the best of changes can be.

So I have begun the sorting and packing process... and throwing a lot more stuff into the dumpster today... that is very liberating. I have most of my kitchen put together, I think one more box should take care of that. I have a bunch of stuff up on Freecycle, I'm just waiting for people to call me to come pick stuff up.

Tomorrow morning will be fun. I am volunteering with the Heart of America marathon, I'll be posting race results at the finish line, not sure what that will entail, but I love race day atmosphere. I don't know if I'll ever run a full marathon, but I am already planning my first half in May... hopefully the Hippie Girl Run in Hillsboro, OR.  It was going to be the Go Girl Run here in Columbia, but I won't be here then... or maybe I will, looking at the calendar.