Light and Dark - Spiraling into the Next Phase - My Intentional Life Change

I think I must have come through something. Maybe it's the sun. Maybe it's the air, still cold, but there's a damp that shoves the smells of musk and blooms up from the earth. It might be me, living out the myths of Persephone in the underworld, coming from the dark into the light. Ok, maybe it's just a case of seasonal affective disorder healing itself. No matter, I feel different. I sense light. And I didn't realize I was dark or depressed. It's Spring.

I picture a spiral. If I was asked to choose a symbol of some kind to illustrate my life, it would be a spiral. It conveys a sense movement... it may be up or down and always coming around. There's a near side,  the side I show, like the man in the moon, and a far side that only Sputnik sees, transmitting shaded glimpses back for study. As I spiral, I see the same sights, I go over the same territory but maybe with some movement... from a passage in a book, a conversation over wine, a Tweet, a poem, a fragment overheard from the stall in the Ladies...  something that swirls around  on the bright side and the dark and changes my view.

Ever since August, when I spontaneously offered to cut a day of work and agreed to take a 20% cut in pay and benefits, I've dwelt on this change. I organized it, named it,  monetized it to show value. I've refinanced my mortgage, reorganized my finances and done my taxes. I call my Fridays, my Serial Sabbatical. I schedule something to learn, experience or see on those days off.  I've spent time with friends in Spain and continue to renew my Spanish with Duolingo. I've made time to paint plein air, planned a vacation in Maine to learn about color and began an online sketching course.

With pressures for space at work, I gave up my office, moved into a cube and now work, most weeks, two days from home. I put in cabinets, bought a fancy bungee desk chair,  cleaned out two closets, made three trips to Salvation Army to do so. It's brought me an unexpected sense of expanded time at home, by myself and with a luxury of un-hurry.

All the while, I've stewed about these changes as a gateway to retirement. I equate these changes with the next phase of work or non work or different work as time will reveal. I'm living with a cut in salary. I have a day each week to fill. I'm searching to find meaning and purpose and organization in my life. And,  I wonder about how I'll live, where I'll live, will I live with someone,  and how well I live.

Last Saturday night, my friend... my friend with boundless patience agreed that I'd been spiraling round the same topics for quite some time. She reminded me that I already knew what to do. She'd seen this before, from another perspective... when I talked (and talked) about divorce... And knew all along I knew exactly what to do.

My spirals repeat the topic sometimes and they repeat a process. Even when I know the truth, my truth, I sometimes don't like it, and ask the question again like a Magic 8 Ball, hoping for a different answer. My 8 Ball is consistent, I'm just not ready to do what's best for me. Fear, inertia and fatigue block my momentum. I know that in the meantime, I continue to spiral, like I got pg and the baby's going to come whether I want it or not... (well that's exactly) what happened twenty nine years ago. This birth into a new life will be on my schedule and my sense of readiness whether I like it or not.

So, I think I came through something that I didn’t realize I traversed. This morning I felt a lightness that may be a sign of SAD lifting or maybe a sign that I can stop fretting. I have more of an understanding of my process. I have pieces of a plan, some of the what, some of the how, a sense of the when and now, I'll use my Fridays to discern more of each and always learning about the who.