The End of a Decade (and Hibernation?)

Well 2009 is over in less than 2 days. And I cannot even get my head around the fact that Christmas is over already too!  To say "Where did the time go?" sounds cliche and yet it seems to be what a lot of people are saying.  This year seemed to fly by and yet when I look back to January or even February, it seems like it was years ago! I wonder why?

One theory that I have adopted is that perhaps the amount of growing and learning I came through in this year is exponentially so much greater than in previous years that it seems like 2009 was longer than just 12 months.  And yet packed so full that it is over before my feet hit the ground!

I can reminisce over the all the trips I have taken this year (not even including the normal work travel to the 5 Midwestern states that my job covered) as well as all the visitors we had in our humble abode here in Tulsa, Oklahoma:

January took me to St Augustine, Florida for a week long work trip to head-office.  Although it was basically 5 days inside an office building, I still count it!

In February, Mom and I met in Los Angeles for The Conscious Life Expo.  It was a very interesting trip and my introduction to Dr Sha.

March was actually a relatively quiet month.  

April involved a quick weekend trip to Austin, Texas for the Natural Products Association's local trade show.

In May, Mom came to Tulsa and we all celebrated Mother's Day together, while my Dad went sailing off the coast of Vancouver Island.

June was hot.  Also we had a trade show to attend in Dallas, Texas.  Dallas is even hotter than Tulsa in June.

July was the NPA's National Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Weird.  I remember saying something about Dallas being hot in June.  I guess there really is nothing like going to the desert in July...

More Dallas work stuff in August.

In September, I travelled to the 5 states I covered (OK, AR, KS, NE and MO) even more than usual as I knew the next month was going to be hectic!  Marietjie arrived from London at the end of September and...

October arrived!  We flew to Austin for the Austin City Limits music festival.  I specifically remember Marietjie bragging to all her UK festival friends about how she was going to a dry music festival (as in weather not beer).  Day 2 it rained.  We now call it Mud-Fest '09.

Mom and Dad also came for a visit in October.  We went to see U2 at the Norman OU stadium as well as Star Wars in Concert.  October was a live-music month, indeed!

It was on the second day of November that I gave notice at my job.  I felt extremely liberated but committed to completing my four weeks of notice with the same energy in which I had worked all year.  However, I did not image that it would be so emotional.  In the few years that I have been "on the road" as a sales rep in the natural and organics industry, I have developed some great friendships with some wonderful people.  Most of them are independent-thinking entrepreneurs who have succeeded as independent retailers in this mass market world.  And so I had not expected to feel so drained as I went to each store in each state for four weeks telling the same story.  But thanks to modern technology (and Facebook) I am able to still stay in contact with a few.  

And here we are at December.  Ahh, December.  Some could call it 'the month of Dre', I call it MY MONTH OFF!  I flew to San Diego and stayed for a couple of days with Stacey, Scott's sister, before driving my rental Jeep up the coast to San Francisco.  I still cannot believe how easy it all was considering how little planning I did.  Although Willis (my GPS) certainly helped.

The nine-day trip turned out to be a lot about spending time by myself in the day and re-connecting with nature.  Being from an island, I forgot how relaxing and healing the presence of the Pacific Ocean could be.  In that time I saw lots of wildlife and beautiful coastline.  Thanks to Jill and Dave for the spare bedroom at their place in Richmond.  It was great to catch up with them in the evening too.

And then I returned to Tulsa.  To a sick Scott.  And I got sick.  And slept A LOT.  Amazon kindly delivered two seasons of Smallville to my door and I spent many days sleeping, eating and marathon DVD watching.  That little voice in the back of my head that always pushes me to be productive would start to speak up about my lethargy.  I would then remind it that I am sick, and therefore 'allowed' to be doing nothing.  Turns out that was the icing on the December cake for me.  As I thought I was relaxing on my solo trip to California, I still pushed myself to see and do more each day.  Wonderful as it was, I suddenly realized that I had not done nothing (really) for over four years.  I rephrase that to say, I have been pushing myself hard at work for at least four years with no real break.

And now...?  I break.  I break from needing a career to feel useful and productive.  I break from thinking I am required to sacrifice in order to succeed.  I break from spending the majority of my time doing things I do not like or agree with.  

I said to Scott yesterday that I had not written in a while as I felt like I was not ready to be completely honest and yet could not bear to only write about sunshine and butterflies.  Somehow in making that statement and looking at myself honestly, I freed myself from the fear of being judged by these words.

So we shall see... in 2010... a year of honest blogging.
And no more hibernating!