Yesterday was a momentous day. Not only would it have been my dad’s birthday if he were still alive, but it’s also the first birthday of my job in Gresham. That’s right! I’ve been biking out to Gresham for exactly a year and a day now: happy birthday, job!
(to celebrate, we scoped out Powell Butte for all its bird and amphibian life:)
It’s been a pretty good year. And by pretty good, I mean — work wise — damn great. Which makes it even funnier to me to think back to a little over a year ago when I was trying to decide whether or not I would accept this job. Funny now to think that there was ever any doubt. A good sign that I made the right choice, I suppose, that I can’t even imagine not having made it.
But choices are always easier in retrospect. From my position now, in which I fall in love with the kiddos I work with every day, in which I get to spend my time doing things that I think make real and positive change for the world, in which I get to have an amazing amount of control over what I do, get to share that control with young adults who astound me every day with their capacity for growth and change and wonder, get to continue always my own learning right alongside them — from that position, of course I made the right choice. But before I made it, how could I have known? When I was faced with an undefined potential job with people and a workload I didn’t know, with a really long commute, with leaving a job I also loved, how could I keep from being unsure and, admittedly, afraid?
(though really, who could be afraid of these amphibian-egg-mass-monitoring secret agent cuties??)
So today, I celebrate embracing change, embracing growth, following the tortured path in which you can only make the decisions that seem best at the time and hope they point you the right way — knowing, of course, that if they don’t, more decisions will be forthcoming. Today I embrace constant forward momentum, the steps that lead to more steps, the yearning for better that moves me along and makes possible these amazing things that I’ve assembled into the tapestry of my life.
Today, I feel grateful.
…here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years.
-William Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey
Congratulations on one year in! It’s definitely that moment at the beginning when there is the comfort of what you know and the unlimited number of possibilities (many of which could be bad) in the unknown ahead that differentiates the people who are willing to work at actively creating the life they want from those who just keep on keeping on. Thanks for being an inspiration!
Joyeux anniversaire, joyeux anniversaire…!! Bravo! James said it well; bravo for choosing, as opposed to just settling. (Both of you!) Always been my motto. . :-)
Aw, thanks you two! Never ever settle, right? ;)