I Woke Up Like Gene Kelly

I woke up like Gene Kelly today. And not looking like him, of course, but rather feeling like the emotions he conveyed in his iconic scene in Singin' In The Rain. It was a nice feeling, especially after I'd had a pretty shitty morning the day before.

I'd been late getting started and I was in a bad "it's Monday again" mood. I'd also been up sick most of the night, was mad at my cat, and had attempted to ignite my motivation by dragging myself by my shirt collar into my office. I subsequently plopped down and shot venom at my Monday morning To Do list, which I'd long ago decided was indeed a list of mindless crap (to me, I'm sure someone somewhere loves updating websites all day long).

But my day took a different turn partway through, and that's why I woke up feeling like Gene Kelly. Because I'd decided around lunchtime that I was finished with that damn To Do list. I was finished wasting my days on something that I hated, something that made it impossible for me to enjoy the things I didn't hate, and something that made me think I may as well keel over from my chronic illnesses and call it a life.

I talked to my husband, put a plan in place for a graceful exit over the next two and a half months, and then I sat back, crossed my hands behind my head, and basked in what felt like my first deep inhale in years.

Now this freedom does not come free. There are financial issues to tend to, there is an element of risk, there is the unknown, and there is a lot of fear. But I find that when you get completely fed up with something the fear just kind of drowns itself in a puddle. All you can see is the ugliness of where you've been stuck and the promise of cutting the chains and running off into the sunlight. And this is what makes you decide to finally change.

I just drove up to the grocery store after having being stood up for a conference call, and I bought some stuff to make tomato soup tonight. This is the first time I've felt like trying a new recipe in I don't know how long. It's like I found my old self again.

And last night? Well last night I wrote an essay for my book that now puts me at 30 essays, 157 pages and almost 46k words. I'm finally moving on my creative work again and it feels like this is my old self coming back too.

It's amazing what a difference a decision can make. My life is no different today than it was yesterday, except that I finally chose to stop being stuck and to put an end date for said stuckness. To shift back into something that has meaning for me and to get off this hamster wheel that I keep talking about.

The best part about this story is that I just had a really great interview today with, of all places, a medical group of gastroenterologists. How perfect is that?

Serendipity? Synchronicity? I sort of think it's both.