The re-entry phase to "real life" has been almost as challenging as the sabbatical itself. Especially coming off the week at Holy Cross it's hard to settle into the groove of get up, go to work, deal with details, come home, eat dinner, go to bed, repeat.
Suddenly nothing looks quite the same. Now each part of my day is upgraded somehow to an event worthy of consideration. Why do I do this? What is the "profit" of it? Suddenly house cleaning has a new place and a new respect. Yes, respect. Housecleaning isn't something that is forced on me, a chore, one more "job" to be done. It's something that needs to be done (unless I want to live in filth and mess. Which I don't). Beyond that by doing it I offer the same to the rest of my family and friends. My daily workout is no longer a chore that has to be endured. I gain because I feel better. My family gains because I'm healthier and generally in a better mood when I do. It is a gift to my wife who gets a better looking, stronger husband. There is literally nothing in my day that can't be analyzed this way. The results are surprising. Suddenly I'm less interested in watching TV just for something to do (my daughter is cheering at this) because there are things I can do that will be more fun, better for me and will "profit" my various relationships much more than yet another re-run of NCIS which I've probably seen at least five times already.
Every part of my life is just that. Part of my life, a small segment of a larger whole. My life is not a hodge podge of disparate items stuck together. Or least I don't want it to be. Now I try to find the pieces that work together, that support each other, enhance each other. The final product feels better, more logical, more...what's the word I want? It feels smoother. It feels like it belongs together. It feels RIGHT. That's an important feeling for me.
For years I suffered anxiety attacks. They mostly woke me up in the middle of the night. One thing was consistent. The feeling of profound "wrongness" of the world in those moments. I described it for years as a "Twilight Zone" feeling. If you know the classic TV series you remember that many, many of the stories were about people who found themselves in situations that seemed normal but were just that tiny bit "off". That sense of wrongness has been a part of my life for a long time.
Now I find the beginnings of this opposite feeling, this feeling of things being "right". The process isn't complete. I'm still analyzing parts of my life, still sorting the pieces and considering their place in my present and future. Hanging onto that feeling of "right" is the center of my thoughts these days. When something begins to move me away from it I quickly stop and look at what's going on. Things that had begun to slide out of my life are re-surfacing (like music. How did I spend so little time with music for the last 10 years? It was a reaction to the bad ending of my time in radio but I cut myself off from something that I love. Not any more.)
Through it all I find myself bathed in a feeling, immersed in a way that I don't ever remember having before. It is a daily feeling of happiness, a happiness that has infused itself into the daily routines of my life. Don't get me wrong. My life was not all misery before only now to be transformed by my sabbatical. The happiness that was there too often would be dragged under by an undertow of discontent and instability. As I slowly begin to clear away the detritus of those issues I can more clearly see the happiness that has always been there. In the midst of the struggles that every life must face there is happiness to be found if we are willing to open our eyes, if we are willing to accept it. It doesn't mean that we will not continue to strive to be the best expression of our gifts, to be the best expression of God's intent for us. Rather it changes the definition of what success looks like in that striving.
And that's where I'm headed right now. It feels good.
Peace
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