Take Two

As it turns out, I wasn't a blogger.

2014 me: not a blogger

Bloggers write and publish on a regular basis. To do that you have to believe in your own writing enough to hit the publish button after writing something. Like in academia, blogging is a publish or perish life.

Which means you have to own your own imperfections, accept that not everyone will like everything you do, and be willing to learn in public. These are three things I could not yet do ~10 years ago, and the result was that my blog's behind-the-scenes dashboard holds 

15 published posts and 

20 unpublished drafts

In other words, the odds of my being unready / unwilling / unable to publish were 4:3.

So why come back here to this space? What's changed since then? 

In June 2018, nine months after I wrote my farewell post on this page, I started a new job. I had been a freelancer for six years and went in-house with one of my clients. We knew this would be a huge transition -- going from a local firm of one to a global firm of 30,000 -- and Nick agreed that it made sense for him to "coast" for a while at work while I onboarded and accelerated. 

Then, while I was in Chicago at my orientation training, a headhunter called him about a fantastic opportunity. The kind that you can't not explore for fear of asking "What if...?" for the rest of your life. I was 100% supportive, of course, and so proud. I think my exact words were "Dude, WHAT THE F*<% happened to the coasting plan?!"

He started his new role (and commuting to a new city) six months later.

In 2020, my daughter graduated from high school, and we learned that car parade graduations are so much more fun than traditional graduations. Seriously, they should make that permanent. Later that summer, our family moved from Denver to St. Louis so Nick could stop commuting and, in my son's words, "we would only ruin one kid's life." 

I don't recommend relocating cross-country in the midst of a global pandemic.

Mad props to my son, who transitioned like a champ. In 2023, he also graduated from high school. While his ceremony had fewer neighbors ringing cowbells and holding up posters in their front yards, the Superintendent did pass out 200 cups of ice cream from Clementines, a local creamery, during her speech, which is about as good as it gets when you're stuck in a robe made from shower curtain material and a weird hat sitting on folding chairs in an auditorium on a hot and humid late-May afternoon.

Both my kids took gap years between high school and college. I've become a convert and sometimes wonder about the potential Sliding Doors storylines of my own life had I spent a year at age 18 recovering from Type-A burnout and giving myself the grace and space to ask who I am outside of others' expectations for me and my path. The good news is that I eventually got there. Or am getting there. Or will get there.

In April, I asked for a demotion at work, effectively undoing the 2½ promotions I had received since 2018. (See burnout, supra). This decision was made far easier once I found out that I was still being paid within the range of my original role and that, while my title would revert, my paycheck would remain the same. Again, I found myself asking, "Dude, WHAT THE F*<%?!"

2024 me: still not a blogger

That particular question has become more of a recurring theme in my life as of late.

Now the kids are barely grown and barely flown. I just moved the Thespian (who still loves but is no longer consumed by theatre) into his dorm for his first year of college, and the Equestrian (who still loves but is no longer consumed by riding) just moved herself into an apartment for her senior year. 

There's a lot to process. A lot to confront. And I find myself called back here. 

So should this page still be The Baloney Sandwich? Indubitably, as I still find myself sandwiched between

• parenting kids and coaching/befriending young adults
• navigating my own life and that of my aging parents
• what Richard Rohr would call the outer task (building the vessel) and the inner task (filling the vessel with purpose)
• mid-life and whatever's next

Not to mention that most days I feel like Oscar Mayer processed luncheon meat as I battle through perimenopause. (The prefix peri deriving from the Greek meaning "enclosing" or "surrounding." Because we are in it, my friends.)

It's all still baloney.

But this time I am willing to own my imperfections, risk your not liking what I write, and learn in public. This time, odds are better that I'll publish.