Crisis

For the past two years I have had the honor and privilege of working from home at the perfect job.

I mean it had its peaks and valleys but I was coming off of a five-year stint that was nothing short of chaos, high-level dysfunction, and a break-neck pace.

So a little exhaling was not only welcome but absolutely necessary.

However, my Shangri-La gig recently came to an end and I once again find myself back in the proverbial Rat Race.

There’s an hour-long commute compared to the 10 paces / seconds it used to take to walk from the bathroom to the kitchen to my computer station.

And can you believe people actually expect you to be awake and coherent, all made up, and wearing a decent outfit by 6:30a or so when I used to simply change loungewear and wash my face somewhere between the bathroom, kitchen, and computer station?

But I am not complaining.

Not only did I not miss a beat financially (thank You, God!), but I was getting a little lonely and bored.

No person worth their salt wants to laze around not fulfilling their potential forever.

But I must also say this: that work-from-home gig was also right on time because I was in the midst of navigating my darling offspring through the trenches of advanced adolescence and high school, which is way more hands-on than any other time I’ve experienced along the parenthood continuum thus far.

The teen years feel like this precipice where all the previous years invested could conceivably go out the window with just one or two bad turns.

So Teenage Princess Baby Growing-up Girl needed every ounce of my time and attention and hovering without hovering.

But now that things have leveled off a bit (again – thank You, God!), the Rat Race gig is right on time.

Every day I dash off before sunrise, kiss my about-to-go-to-college baby on the cheek, and head out to face the world…..

And wonder for what?

What’s ailing me NOW?

And it began to dawn on me.

I think I’m having a Crisis.

Mid-Life? Identity? Who knows?

But as I contemplate my daughter leaving the nest possibly next year, I wonder, yet again, what is it really all about?

Let’s do a quick double-decade recap:

My life plan was to have a happy, healthy loving marriage and home.

Didn’t happen.

I had a baby, got a divorce, and really beat myself up for not giving her the above happy, healthy, loving family and home and now she’s leaving.

I’ve run out of time.

I have a great job with a little financial cushion but the Rat Race is already gnawing at me.

I’m getting kinda tired and I want my cushy work from home life back even though I was restless with that.

I mean what is my effin’ problem?!

I suppose I’m looking for meaning, value, significance.

Relationships and careers and roles come and go so it’s not “out there.”

I know it’s “in here” but I don’t exactly know how to find it, pinpoint it, narrow it down, and – most importantly - make it stick.

All I can say is it’s a good thing Lent started this week.

I’ve begun a 40-day journey with author Michael Bernard Beckwith called, 40 Day Mind Fast, Soul Feast.

Thanks to him, in just a few short readings I’ve been reminded that I am not separated from God, the Source of life and all there is.

And so what does that mean?

I suppose for me it means remembering - with a measure of certainty, I might add – that the fact that I am in no way different or apart from God who gives me all things is critical to the peace of mind I think we’re all after.

Because, as Rev. Beckwith notes, believing that I am separate from God leads me to seek for satisfaction in sources powerless to give it.

That makes perfect sense to me.

I’m supposed to “know” that in and of myself, through the God in which I live, move, and have my being, that I Am enough.

And that looking outside of myself to satisfy my deepest longings, desires, and queries is futile.

So I’m going to refocus on tapping into what’s “in here” because, once again, I seem to have forgotten.

But thanks to this alleged Crisis, now I remember.

And that reminds me to be grateful for any and everything that comes my way – Crises and calamities included – ‘cause they all conspire to point me inward.

Maybe that, after all, is what it’s all about.