Hiya Chrysalis Camp,
There comes a day in every chrysalis journey when one must examine the full breadth of the tasks at hand (as well as the relative progress) and make some sort of big generalization about just what is being achieved, exactly. In other words, I need a reality check.
I think today is an excellent day for this. I'm sorta losing my nut. I've got my cell phone no further than six inches from my right wrist as I type, awaiting a call--any call--from a broker--any broker--regarding an apartment--any apartment. I've got two separate email accounts open in addition to my Blogger screen in the event that any one of fifty landlords/brokers/building owners I've contacted in the last few hours should happen to take a five minute break from walking people through empty, painted-over, poorly-lit, slightly aging apartments to sit down at a computer and compose a return email. I jump every time I hear the "new mail" alert and race to the little yellow envelope with my mouse only to find it's yet another "keep this flame going" email from a woman I worked with five years ago.
I've got each and every communication from Federal Application For Student Aid sitting in my email box acknowleding receipt of my application for the $3.50 they'll likely qualify me for but can't tell me about until after I've been accepted at a school I haven't decided on yet. Better than that, I have the auto-response from New York state's Tuition Assistance Program, which tells me its contribution is based solely on FAFSA's. Right on.
On the subway escalator this morning I was thinking about what all of this year's hanging about, flailing, faltering, hoping, sucking it up, letting go, accepting, resisting and resolving has amounted to thus far. And I decided that the measure of movement, however resembling of an iceberg, is the answer you get when you ask yourself where you are in comparison with this time last year. Asking myself that question is like dropping a big hit of Xanax (or binge drinking at a bar crawl--but that's another post). It slows me way down.
Last year there was no chrysalis. It wasn't even a concept. There were no empty apartments, financial aid forms, dream schools or polished up resumes. There was only the desire to be different in spirit and form and me, frozen solid under a lake of complacency.
So, five months in, what's my big generalization? The truth about change is that it's all relative. Timelines are abstract. Nothing ever takes as long as I think it will. Nobody else's timeline is the same as mine. Phone calls get returned at will, opportunities come and go more frequently than I have time to notice, my urgency is not necessarily anyone else's, and life is just simply not linear. If absolutely nothing else, the chrysalis concept has given me that big reality check.
I'm trying to learn that getting insane over stupid shit isn't necessarily the mark of regression but rather, growing pains. Part of the expansion process. Waiting for broker phone calls is a weird sort of blessing. Because, I suppose, they mean something is happening.
There comes a day in every chrysalis journey when one must examine the full breadth of the tasks at hand (as well as the relative progress) and make some sort of big generalization about just what is being achieved, exactly. In other words, I need a reality check.
I think today is an excellent day for this. I'm sorta losing my nut. I've got my cell phone no further than six inches from my right wrist as I type, awaiting a call--any call--from a broker--any broker--regarding an apartment--any apartment. I've got two separate email accounts open in addition to my Blogger screen in the event that any one of fifty landlords/brokers/building owners I've contacted in the last few hours should happen to take a five minute break from walking people through empty, painted-over, poorly-lit, slightly aging apartments to sit down at a computer and compose a return email. I jump every time I hear the "new mail" alert and race to the little yellow envelope with my mouse only to find it's yet another "keep this flame going" email from a woman I worked with five years ago.
I've got each and every communication from Federal Application For Student Aid sitting in my email box acknowleding receipt of my application for the $3.50 they'll likely qualify me for but can't tell me about until after I've been accepted at a school I haven't decided on yet. Better than that, I have the auto-response from New York state's Tuition Assistance Program, which tells me its contribution is based solely on FAFSA's. Right on.
On the subway escalator this morning I was thinking about what all of this year's hanging about, flailing, faltering, hoping, sucking it up, letting go, accepting, resisting and resolving has amounted to thus far. And I decided that the measure of movement, however resembling of an iceberg, is the answer you get when you ask yourself where you are in comparison with this time last year. Asking myself that question is like dropping a big hit of Xanax (or binge drinking at a bar crawl--but that's another post). It slows me way down.
Last year there was no chrysalis. It wasn't even a concept. There were no empty apartments, financial aid forms, dream schools or polished up resumes. There was only the desire to be different in spirit and form and me, frozen solid under a lake of complacency.
So, five months in, what's my big generalization? The truth about change is that it's all relative. Timelines are abstract. Nothing ever takes as long as I think it will. Nobody else's timeline is the same as mine. Phone calls get returned at will, opportunities come and go more frequently than I have time to notice, my urgency is not necessarily anyone else's, and life is just simply not linear. If absolutely nothing else, the chrysalis concept has given me that big reality check.
I'm trying to learn that getting insane over stupid shit isn't necessarily the mark of regression but rather, growing pains. Part of the expansion process. Waiting for broker phone calls is a weird sort of blessing. Because, I suppose, they mean something is happening.
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