Taking the Leap

I am joyfully and terrifyingly in the throes of seriously planning my escape from

the day job with an early retirement.

The vacillation is receding, and I can acknowledge the reality of what it is I’m actually scheming.  I know what I desperately want, but I also know what I built and achieved over the last couple decades; how grueling, hard and rewarding that was too, the sacrifices it took.  And now I’m just going to walk away? 

If all goes according to plan – yup – that’s exactly what I intend to do (she says with a scream barely suppressed in her throat, threatening to erupt and terrify the neighbors, causing her son to once again approach her as he would a mad dog).

This is indeed an adjustment phase.  It’s a letting go of who I was, who I

struggled so hard to become.  That’s no small thing.  It’s not just a matter of the job.  It’s daunting to know I am letting go of everything I was once so passionately excited about, that I reveled in throughout the process.  I truly loved my journey.  And this decision heralds its demise.  I overlooked that part.  You can’t have a re-birth without dying first.  Duh.  And dying – news flash – is painful, monumental – it requires processing the obligatory stages.  So where am I –

what stage?  Anger, denial, depression, bargaining – I can see them all so clearly, and I’ve touched them all, traveling freely between them.  I can also see acceptance on the horizon. 

But ‘acceptance’ is so much more difficult.  It requires mourning and grieving first, to work towards the acceptance.  And I’m still ‘in it' right now, right in the

disgusting belly of the beast with all that acid churning, trying to break me down and apart, absorb me into its diseased system.  I say again, ‘I have given at the office.  No more.’ 

This requires giving up.  Giving up is also known as acceptance and the thought of no longer engaging in battle is very relieving, freeing, wonderful.  This must include not fighting myself as well though, fighting to hold on, to somehow be all things – a foot in this world, a foot in that, not letting go of anything.

It feels like a trapeze act.  I have something securely in my hands, keeping me from falling, keeping me aloft.  But if I keep holding on to it I’ll go nowhere;

safe, but swinging mindlessly back and forth.  Or, I can let go and leap.  Build up momentum on the swing where I am, to get me where I want to go next, to push my own boundaries.  Who wants to see someone just swinging back and forth?  Who wants to be someone swinging back and forth?  I have to make this next leap.  Use the

momentum I’ve built, then let go, trusting that the next bar will be there for me, that I’ve set it up carefully enough, that I can use all my faith and courage, the confidence in myself to leap in a free fall and trust – me.  I am ready to turn and grab that new bar at that new height – see what it has to offer, see what tricks I can do there, where I ride it, how I can ride it, what I can accomplish on it, how much fun I can have on it. 

In the meantime – well, I’m just going to carry on.  I find myself engaging more in the life I’m newly building.  I’m in writing groups, entering contests, keeping with this blog even.  I live intimately with my novel.  And on the other side, I find little ways throughout the day to let go a bit more, pry my own fingers from the bar; acknowledge the little deaths, mourn them, let them go.

I don’t know if this will be the quickest eternity of waiting, or if it will never

actually pass and I’ll find myself stuck in a Tarantino version of “Groundhog’s Day.”  I have more questions than answers.  But the plan – ah the plan – is

solid.  And if all goes according to that plan, in just over a year I will be happily ensconced in some shack, somewhere, writing my still ticking heart out. 

And I just can’t wait.