week 17 of 40--a little late 6/21/2012

In the past week, I have been faced with some pivotal change...The hardest part for me-is accepting the change without challenge.  I question everything.  I reflect on everything.  I mull over things again and again.

I am the person who sends a text days after a conversation and reiterates what I meant just to be sure I was not misinterpreted.

I am the person who hashes a situation with several people just to get various perspectives.

I am the person who often cannot let go of something until I am sure my voice has been heard and understood.

I am the person who admits when I am wrong upon discovery and apologizes for my behavior...

and when I say I am sorry, I always mean it.

This past week, I witnessed a change in my friendships and my relationships at work...which often overlap. I used to see myself as the big sister, but while at a work meeting- a meeting where my role, my place, was ending...it suddenly hit me.  I really am not the big sister anymore. (how funny that I have been saying for a long while that I am going to stop doing this...and then it was just done for me)

and, I felt sad...

I felt sad because I like to be needed...and suddenly, it occured to me that the need simply isn't there so much anymore.

WOO HOO! I should feel a relief. Not so many phone calls and texts looking for advice, feedback, my 2 cents (which I always gave...actually I usually gave 5 cents=overachiever!!)...

but, there wasn't really a relief...just a little hole. like the hole in a piece of paper you've erased and erased until the paper frays into a little tear...growing bigger and bigger until there is an actual hole.

I mean, the paper analogy-that is kind of how it happened. a smudge, a mistake, an attempt to fix it, a disconnect...

but, as I have thought about this for well over a week, I also realized that as roles end, new ones begin...

and they begin in a place of truth--my truth--who I am inside

inside, I am:  a caregiver, a leader, a person with a great smile, a supporter, a mentor, a person people trust, a person who people believe in, a hero, an empowerer...

those are things I also discovered at a work meeting this past week (yes, teachers have meetings after school is over for the summer...)

the one thing I discovered that I am not...is someone who reaches out to others (from the work meeting, again)

That discovery makes me think of this quote I saw recently:

 

yes,"I'm fine."  I do say that ...a lot. 

but this week, I learned:

                                                                        endings become beginnings...