Four Faiths

I have had just about enough of "no."

There's a reason "no" is among all babies' first words. "No" is useful. Critical, even. To become fully human, we need to be able to say, "No, I don't like that," "No, I don't want that," and "No, you may not treat me that way."

Yet some of us, along the way to adulthood, lost our "no." We learned that our "no" might hurt someone's feelings or disappoint them. We came to believe that other people's feelings and expectations were more important than our own. Our "no"s grew fainter, and weaker, until they almost disappeared.

That sucks. Because until you can truly, unapologetically say "no," your "yes" just might be meaningless.

My last 8 or 9 months have been very much about developing my "no" muscle. I said "no" to work, to the corporate career path that had been defined for me. At the same time, I said "no" to many of the traditional activities of a stay-at-home mom. I said "no" to what I perceived as other people's expectations for my life (and what were really, more importantly, my own preconceived notions of my life at this age).

And then, because I still wasn't quite getting it, I got sick. Along the path to greater health I found a whole host of additional "no"s: No sugar. No dairy. No gluten. No alcohol. No corn or other grasses. (The list goes on.)

The gifts from this have been immeasurable. For the first time in my life, I have experienced a direct, minute-by-minute connection between my food choices and my health. For the first time, I have felt truly in control of what I eat AND how I feel. For the first time, I have put how I feel first -- before habit, before convenience, before social niceties.

And yet ... it's been a whole lot of "no."

Now I have found something that offers, instead, to heal me through "yes." It's a protocol called NAET, and it is said to cure food and environmental allergies. Yes, I said cure. Given that traditional medicine's approach to allergies consists almost exclusively of identification and avoidance (allergy shots notwithstanding, and they can take years), this is a pretty big claim.

NAET views allergies as blocked energy. Once the energy in relation to a particular substance is freed, the body no longer perceives that substance as a threat, and the allergy is cured. In other words, it removes the "no" and replaces it with "yes."

Wouldn't that be great? If, having regained the power of "no," I could start to let my guard down a little? Start practicing my "yes"? Not a helpless, codependent "yes." Not a "yes, because everyone else is doing it" or "yes, because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings" or (maybe worst of all) the unconscious, habitual "yes" -- but a conscious, welcoming, joyful "YES" to food, to the universe, to life?

I'll say more about some of the reasons it was difficult for me to choose NAET, despite (or perhaps because of) this outrageous promise, in another post. But for now, I will just quote Bernie Siegel, who writes in Love, Medicine, and Miracles: "Four faiths are crucial to recovery from serious illness: faith in oneself, one's doctor, one's treatment, and one's spiritual faith."

I'm starting there. I say "yes" to myself: "Yes" I deserve extraordinary health and whatever it takes to get there. I say "yes" to the promise of this unconventional treatment, and "yes" to the lovely, gentle doctor I've found to perform it. I say "yes" to having a little faith in the Universe and all She has done to bring me to this point.

To borrow from James Joyce's Molly, because no one has ever said it better:

yes I said yes I will yes

Slowing Down (Part II)

"The bigger the task, the more we have to slow down."

I came across this quote yesterday in one of the many guides to gluten-free living I have checked out in the last few weeks. I think it was used in relation to cooking, but it struck me as an apt description of my healing process.

It is taking a long time to feel better, and I am not a patient woman. With each new bout of sinusitis (and they are coming more frequently now, albeit with less severity and shorter duration), I rage at the universe. What do you want from me?! I demand. When will this be over, so I can get back to my life as it was? See, I don't always know exactly where I'm going, but I'm always in a hurry to get there. For months I've viewed this period as an inconvenient detour on my way to wherever I was headed next.

But another possibility has been nagging at me these last few weeks. What if this illness is not just a detour? What if the universe is saying, in no uncertain terms: Greene? It is time to change the way you live.

* * * * *

Celiac disease is an autoimmune response to a single trigger: gluten. However, if the immune response is strong enough, it can cause the body to become confused and attack other, more beneficial foods as well. The result can be a vicious cycle with food: the body wants more, rejects more, absorbs less.

I have often felt that I needed to eat more than most people--and certainly most people my size. I've lived with a constant, gnawing hunger that I (in my ignorance) tried to fill with more and more carbs. Wheat carbs, for the most part. Not that there's anything wrong with wheat; many people seem to tolerate my former diet relatively well. For me, though, it wasn't just too much of a good thing. It was too much of the wrong things. Satisfying in the short term but failing, ultimately, to truly nourish me. And in the process, blocking my ability to be nourished by other, more compatible foods.

Viewed in this light, the past several years of symptoms weren't just a random collection of pesky complaints to be medicated away, one by one. They were my body trying to tell me what was happening. Since I didn't listen, my body had to speak louder and louder, until I could no longer ignore it. Hypothyroidism? it nudged. Yep--runs in the family. No problem, there's medicine for that. But ... depression! Tougher to find the right medicine, peskier side effects, but I can live with it. OK then, how does SINUS SURGERY UNDER GENERAL ANESTHESIA WITH NO PROMISE OF A CURE sound?! OK, body. You win. I'm listening.

It is the curse and blessing of natural medicine that it is (at least in my case) not as fast as Western medicine. I am treating my symptoms, but gently. And while I am experiencing them, I am also learning from them.

For instance: Corn. Turns out, we don't like it. It has taken three major bouts of sinus swelling and pain in the last month for me to hear my body say so. But there is hope, because as I learn to listen, the reactions are getting quieter, more subtle. Yesterday my body used an almost-civilized tone of voice to inform me that it's no great fan of grapes. Grapes. I said. Got it. And (after a conveniently timed acupuncture session), the swelling and pain stopped in its tracks.

My body is also telling me what we do like. Spinach. Marinated zucchini. Quinoa. A perfectly ripe avocado. When I eat these foods, you can almost hear my body sigh with relief.

* * * * *

It's all one hell of a metaphor, really. Most of my adult life I have lived with another kind of hunger, an aching need for the taste of someone else's approval. I have tried to fill that need with many things: good grades, publications, the right partner, even my children. All have been wonderful aspects of my life, no question. Yet the hole just seemed to grow deeper. I pursued promotions and pay increases. I bought the house I had always wanted in the kind of neighborhood we had long envied. Still, I felt unsatisfied.

I can see now that my life has been one big case of too much of the wrong things--the things I thought I should want--getting in the way of truly absorbing, enjoying, and being sustained by the things that are right for me. Worse, it was getting to the point where I couldn't tell the difference anymore.

It's time to start paying attention to that inside voice, the one that is telling me: More of this. Less of that. If only I can remember how to listen.

Change takes time, and practice. I am still unearthing hidden sources of gluten in my diet; still gravitating to the wrong foods (for me) out of habit. I am still too easily caught up in wanting to be successful by someone else's standards. But I am also investing in myself as I never have before: comprehensive healthcare, organic produce, high-quality supplements. I am surrounding myself with people who support me in becoming who I am truly meant to be. I am beginning to see there is another way to live.

More and more, I am allowing myself to be guided by these questions: How would I feel if I refused to take one more bite that does not feed my unique body, and feed it well? What might be possible if I refused to live one more day--one more hour, even--in a way that does not nourish my soul?

White Crane

Sprout is getting ready to take his very first karate belt test. (There is much to love about his karate class, but I will save that for another post.) So the other day, while we were waiting for Sweetpea to get out of school, he was practicing his White Crane pose on one of those long, flat wood pilings that seem to be a staple of public school landscapes everywhere.

White Crane is the pose I'll bet we all remember from The Karate Kid: both arms up and bent like wings, one leg bent at the knee, balancing the body on the remaining foot. As I watched Sprout struggle to stay even a few seconds in this challenging pose, waggling his arms and airborne foot for balance, I made a simple suggestion: "Just focus on your tummy, kiddo."

The effect was dramatic and immediate. For about 5 seconds, my son was a perfectly still, stable White Crane.


I've been thinking about the question of balance a lot lately. I took this sabbatical, I thought, to correct a significant imbalance between my work and creative lives. It seemed pretty simple at the time.

Except my solution, going from one extreme to another, didn't work either. The days I spend deeply (obsessively) immersed in writing projects can bring on that same choking, drowning feeling that my job often did. I type frantically until the moment I absolutely have to leave to pick up the kids, then race out the door, distracted and mentally unprepared to be present for my family. Then, out of guilt, I will sometimes avoid writing for days, focusing entirely on home and family. Also no good. No--I'm learning that achieving balance is (sigh) far more complicated than I had thought.

Most recently, I'm learning how my lifestyle of the last 8 to 10 years has thrown every possible system of my physical body out of balance. The other day, a friend suggested I look at the Blood Type Diet as another way of understanding how best to restore my body to health. And because the Universe has, as I have mentioned, completely given up on subtle, here's what I found regarding my blood type: "B is for Balance."

As a Type B, you carry the genetic potential for great malleability and the ability to thrive in changeable conditions ... At the same time, it can be extremely challenging to balance two poles, and Type B's tend to be highly sensitive to the effects of slipping out of balance.

Sounds familiar. I don't exercise at all, or I push myself to (beyond) the limit. I swear off sugar completely for two weeks, then eat an entire candy bar in one sitting. I ignore my health entirely for years, then spend weeks exploring every natural remedy on the market. You get the picture.

So this morning, I was thinking of that image of my son in White Crane, still and stable. Wondering, what is my core? What is the muscle that, when I am reminded to use it, stops all of the flailing and restores me to balance?

The answer I hit on? Self-care. Sounds deceptively simple, perhaps. Maybe the rest of you figured this out years ago. But when I look at my own life, it's frightening to realize how easy it is to get distracted by old habits and motives. How rarely still the motive for my behavior is to take care of myself in a gentle, loving way. Even though I know from experience that the question, What's the most loving thing I can do for myself in this moment?, has never steered me wrong.

Self-care will graciously offer me a square or two of that delicious dark chocolate I'm craving, but it certainly won't allow me to eat the entire bar. It will nearly always get me off the couch and into my sneakers; it will never push me to run farther or faster than my body is willing to take me that day. It'll solve the endless riddles of social engagement ("Should I take on that responsibility? Keep that commitment? Go out with friends or stay home and rest?") with one simple question: "What do I need most, right now, today?"

Or, in simpler terms, this reminder: "Just focus on your tummy, kiddo."

Walking a mile in old shoes

Sweetpea eyed me suspiciously across the breakfast table.

"Why are you wearing that?"

The that she referred to was a fairly unremarkable outfit of dress-casual black capris, a blouse, and a light sweater. A year or two out of vogue, perhaps, but she wasn't questioning my sense of style. What she meant was Where are the sweatpants and baseball cap that you usually wear when you take me to school?

"A friend from Mommy's old work is in town--my boss, Miss Patricia--and I'm meeting her for lunch," I replied.

Her eyes widened. "NO!"

I must admit, six months after ditching my high-stress but concretely rewarding consulting job to focus more energy on home and family, I found her reaction a wee bit validating. Observations about the benefits of putting my career on hold are not my kids' strong suit. I am more frequently compensated with comments like, "But I want Daddy to come on the field trip with me--not you again!"

So, a look of horror at the thought of me going back to work? That's about as good as it gets around here.

Nonetheless, I have been missing my work life lately. Sure, it has something to do with the dwindling savings account and the closet full of clothes that "will just have to do" for now. But there's more to it than that.

Last Friday, I happened to be in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle around lunchtime. I was checking out the gluten-free bakery there, on my way home from yet another exhaustingly thorough appointment at the Bastyr Clinic. Homeopathy this time. Countless questions about every aspect of my life from a team of earnest student clinicians.

It was a beautiful day, and everywhere you looked, 9-to-5-ers were taking advantage of their lunch breaks to soak in some rare Seattle sunshine. I found myself eyeing them with more wistfulness than usual: the 20-something co-workers with their bag of sandwiches on a park bench, clearly in the throes of a serious office flirtation. The corporate types who had loosened their ties and kicked off pinchy shoes while picnicking on nearby steps. Even the group clustered around a table just outside their company's cafeteria, working through lunch, seemed to brim with an enviable energy.

I'll bet they haven't just spent the last two hours talking exclusively about themselves, I thought. No, I'll bet they're working on Real Issues. Solving Problems and making a Difference out in the World. That world I used to be so much a part of, before I made this strategic retreat.

So yesterday morning, when I put on my presentable, grown-up clothes (jewelry, even!) and sat down to breakfast, I enjoyed the sense of purpose I felt--not greater than usual, perhaps, but different. I had a Schedule for the day, an Appointment that didn't involve discussing the failings of my digestive system. I relished it all--from nosing my car into morning traffic, to pulling my ticket crisply from the machine at the downtown parking garage, to keeping pace with brisk city-dwellers crossing at a light.

I enjoyed making my way through a crowd of badge-wearing, booklet-consulting conference attendees to find my friend. Being seated in the expensive hotel restaurant and catered to with care. Catching up on the projects I'd left behind, as well as the latest office gossip. These pleasures I had grown to take for granted all seemed shiny and new again.

But when lunch was over, I was equally content to leave it all behind. The conference topics held no strong pull on my attention. My cell phone didn't ring once during the meal; I was alerted to no urgent problems requiring my attention. I raced home at full freeway speed, hours before the traffic would begin to jam up again with commuters heading home. I met my daughter at school, heard about the deliciously mundane ups and downs of her day, and started garlic broth for the vitamin-packed risotto I planned for dinner.

As I kicked off my work sandals, I winced a little. Though I hadn't noticed the pinch as I was rushing through my day, the shoes had rubbed the outside of each of my baby toes raw. I only felt the pain when I stopped moving.

I made a quick mental note to wear stockings with those next time, to better protect my tender feet. Or better yet, find a pair with a more comfortable fit. Next time. Whenever that may be.

Making peace with the mess

I am addicted to the moment in writing when the magic happens -- when a collection of words and images I'm playing with begins to form itself into a poem, and I can suddenly glimpse order within the chaos. In that moment, though I still have many drafts to go, I feel grounded again. I am "home."

I stick to short, lyrical works in part because I know bigger subjects would mean more words, more chaos, and a longer wait before order and meaning emerge. I haven't wanted to stay in that uncertain (and often uncomfortable) place any longer than I have to.

But ... I find myself lately pestered by a subject that is far too big for a single poem. (Trust me, I've tried.) There is just too much here. New angles appear at every turn. No clear meaning or neat structure is revealing itself -- just occasional moments that whisper, Something real is here. Moments promising enough to keep me plowing blindly ahead, deeper into the uncertainty.

For perhaps the first time in my writing life, I am 10,000 words into something and I don't have a clue yet what it wants to be.

It's a little like cleaning out a closet. I began with great enthusiasm, focused only on dragging everything into the light, a faint image in my mind of a spare and tidy future. But now I am surrounded with the years of clutter I've hauled from the closet's bowels, and it's time to start organizing the mess. Suddenly I have an almost irresistible urge to flop down on the floor and stay there, weeping and twitching, until someone makes it all go away. Or to stuff it all back in and slam the door.

It's not just about writing, I know. Marriage, kids, career, friendships ... anything worth loving eventually brings me to a point where my mess spills out of the closet and all over the floor. Then I have a choice. I can do the things I've done in the past: Stuff it quickly away, make it look tidy. Cut and run, let someone else clean it up.

Or I can attempt something infinitely more difficult. Stay in the chaos. Breathe. Let patterns and meaning emerge in their own time. Wait for the magic to happen.

The stories of my life -- the one I'm attempting to write now, and the one I'm attempting to live -- are messy and complicated. Rushing to easy conclusions will not do them justice. No neat structures, no tidy morals here.

Just, every once in a while, a moment that whispers, Pay attention. Something real is happening. Moments interesting enough to keep me taking one more step, then another, into the unknown.

Of all the things I've lost ...

OK, I admit it. I miss my paycheck the most.

It would be much more professionally savvy, I know, to talk about how much I miss working. (I can feel you cringing from here, mom.) The intellectual stimulation. The adult companionship. Career advancement and feelings of accomplishment. All good stuff.

I don't miss any of that. Not yet, anyway. And since I didn't take this time off so I could mindlessly follow my children around and catch up on what's been happening with Oprah these days, I don't imagine I will for a while. I have eight years of unread books and journals, unwritten poems, and unthunk thoughts to catch up on.

What I don't have ... is direct deposit. And I am of two minds about it.

It's like this. Every year at Christmas, I start off the season with the noblest of intentions. I wax poetic about family, the true spirit of the season. I expound the virtues of simplicity and generosity. Our family is so blessed, I lovingly note with tears of gratitude, we don't need anything more than each other.

Then, because I do not learn, I walk into Toys R Us.

I don't know what happens in there, people. I have my suspicions that they somehow erase your memory with that scanner thing at checkout, while distracting you with a mind-boggling number of requests for personal information and credit card offers.

The next thing I know, I am standing at the exit. Two hours have passed, I am holding a receipt totaling twice the gross national product of a small country, and I am weeping inconsolably because unless my children get a full-size walking, talking robotic dinosaur baby for Christmas, they will be social outcasts forever.

In a similar vein, I can tell you at length (and likely have) why this sabbatical is worth any amount of lost income. No amount of personal sacrifice is too great for what I will gain in sanity.

But when it comes to the kids making sacrifices? That's tougher. I have, with much effort, finally reached the point where I can justify doing things for myself. But I am not yet in a place where I think it's OK for my kids to suffer in the least in order to do so.

As a result, my ability to say no to "extras" like gymnastics, karate, piano lessons, and the occasional cheerleading clinic (please note that if you do not have an 8-year-old girl who has just been offered the opportunity to have lunch with a CHEERLEADER! In her UNIFORM! you are forbidden to judge me for this) has not yet caught up with the reality of our steadily-dwindling savings account.

On the other hand, money can't buy quality parenting, right? You can't overestimate the value of your kids waking up in the morning to a home-cooked breakfast, a stimulating family discussion, and creative lunches complete with love-notes on hand-stamped stationery.

Or ... what I do. Set out cereal, point the kids to the spoon drawer, throw a PB&J in a paper sack, and wait for them to go to school so I can write about them. Priceless, right?

Hey -- it's a sabbatical, not a personality transplant.

Giving up the ghost

After all that good, solid rationalization ... I turned the job down anyway.

Even now, the reasonable part of my brain is raising a ruckus. (OK, that part of my brain isn't really the ruckus-raising type. But it's definitely grimacing uncomfortably!) See, it believes there are only two good reasons to turn down work that doesn't involve trafficking in 13 year olds. (1) I already have some work, thanks, or (2) Gee, I'd love to, but I have so much of this dang money I couldn't possibly manage any more.

We all know #1 isn't true, and let me assure you, #2 isn't either. So what's the deal?

For years, I have done what can best be described as ghostwriting. We don't call it that in my industry, but that's what it amounts to: taking what someone else wants to say, and helping them say it more clearly and effectively.

I've been told I have a knack for this. At my best, I can rework a piece of writing so that the original author says "Yes -- that's exactly what I meant," even if they didn't know exactly what they meant until they read my version.

The trick to this is to be, like a ghost, invisible. What matters is the content, or whatever version of the content the intended audience needs to read. Your own thoughts and opinions? They don't enter in. Your voice doesn't exist. Those things all stay safely locked up behind the attic door. They may rattle their chains once in a while late at night, but they keep pretty quiet during the daylight hours.

Let me be clear -- there's nothing inherently wrong with what I've been doing. It's good work, challenging work, necessary work ... and I may very well return to it one day. But at some point, locking yourself up in that attic becomes a habit.

For now, I'm tired of speaking in someone else's voice and limiting my thoughts to what some imagined reader wants to hear. In the last few weeks I have begun, for better or worse, to let loose the ghosts.

And you know what? I've got some ideas up there, people! Trunks full of 'em! They're a little wrinkled and musty, but they're there. I suspect there may even be a voice lurking somewhere among these cobwebs. I intend to throw open the attic windows, let the light in, and root out what's been hiding all this time.

So hold my calls, please. This may take awhile.

Welcome to my life.

The universe is having itself a good chuckle about my plans.

November and December were consumed by kids' birthday parties, a family vacation, and the holidays. But January was going to mark the beginning of my 'official' sabbatical. Six blissful months of Me Time. No work -- just long, quiet hours of reflection, meditation, writing ... focus.

I was also going to Get Organized. File those stacks of bills and papers. Print and arrange into albums the last two years of photos. Sort the kids' toys into neatly labeled bins. Alphabetize the pantry. (You know, the basics.)

So last Monday the kids finally went back to school, the house was finally quiet ... and I got a job offer. It's not a permanent, full-time job, but it's not a small job either. I'm thinking about taking it, in part because the birthdays, vacation, and holidays all turned out to be a little more expensive than anticipated. Money? Money sounds real good.

I tend to fantasize about my life being organized into neatly labeled bins. Time With the Kids. Time to Write. Time to Be Sad. Time to Laugh. I have this theory that I'm at my best when I can focus on one thing at a time.

Maybe that works if you live alone.

My life -- like my house -- is a bit messier. Ideas for writing come when the family needs dinner. The kids make me laugh in the midst of an otherwise depressing day. Thinking time gets (ahem) interrupted.

So what if this sabbatical isn't, as I had envisioned it, a time-limited, neatly-wrapped-with-a-bow-at-both-ends 'break' from my life? A time when the world just stops, and waits for me to get caught up? What if this is my life?

True, I'm not working a steady job at the moment. But the family will still get sick. The phone will still ring. I will still be jotting down notes for the blog on the back of a grocery list while watching piano lessons, or racing home from the gym to get the dog to the vet. And apparently, opportunities will pop up before I am ready for them.

It reminds me of why I rarely bother to organize the kids' toys. I can get some of them grouped into bins, sure -- Legos, doll clothes, cars -- but in the end I'm left with a bunch of stuff that belongs in two places at once (Lego cars), and other stuff that defies labels altogether (pretty much anything that comes in a Happy Meal box). Oh -- and while I'm organizing the toys in one room? The kids are building a fort with my Tupperware in another.

One of my new favorite writers, Brad Warner, writes in Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate, "It's a common romantic dream to want to live completely free from other people. But it never really happens. You can meditate for nine years in your cave, but someone's still gotta bring you sandwiches."

I choose these people. I choose this messy, disorganized life. Even if I'm usually the one who ends up bringing the sandwiches.

Therefore I am

I'm now a week into this blog, and it's giving me some angst. So yeah ... we're pretty much right on schedule.

The blog is definitely inspiring me to write more, and to write things beyond my comfort zone. (Perhaps beyond yours, too, but that's not my intention. Just a bonus.) Still, I have moments where I question whether it's distracting me from the more important work, the serious work, the "real" writing I am "supposed" to be doing.

See, when I decided to quit my job, I told everybody I was taking a sabbatical to Write A Book. Of Poetry, with a capital P thankyouverymuch. That felt weighty and important, and much more focused than saying I was quitting because I was tired, or bored, or needed to "find myself." (None of which was true, of course. Especially if you happen to be a potential future employer. I really am very focused and not at all the flighty type. I swear! Please stop reading now and check my references.)

Yes, I planned to do other things as well, like parent my kids more effectively for example. But capital-P-Poetry was my Real Work. But the truth is that since leaving my job, I haven't been inspired to write much of that. And what I have written? Well ... most of it just isn't very good.

Which was making me feel like a capital-F-Failure.

Then I realized: I've done it again. I've gone and made something I do a stand-in for Who I Am.

Funny things happen when I do that. I might, purely hypothetically, get so obsessive about running that I push too hard and injure my knee. (Repeatedly.) I might worry so much about how my parenting looks to others that I stop paying attention to what my kids actually need. I might start spending a lot more time shopping for the perfect Laughing Buddha statue and a lot less time sitting on the cushion. (Where is that cushion, anyway?) Or, I might put so much pressure on myself to produce capital-P-Poetry that I stop writing altogether.

There are all kinds of reasons why defining yourself by what you do is a bad idea, but the bottom line is that it's just plain inaccurate. And as Buddha said, inaccuracy creates suffering. (I might be taking some liberties with the Pali there, but I'm pretty sure he'd agree with me in spirit.)

I am the sum of all I have experienced, of everything I think, feel, and do. As such, I am changing every minute. Every new thought, feeling, and experience creates a new version of what I call "me," with the potential to think, feel, and experience new and unprecedented things. To expect otherwise (of myself or others) is to set myself up for certain disappointment.

So. Right now, I am ... not a Blogger ... but blogging. In a minute, I will be throwing a toy for the dog. In an hour, I will be having lunch with a friend. Tonight, I will be parenting my kids with the fullest attention I can muster.

I hope that soon I'll be writing a poem. But until then, I'm giving myself a capital-B-Break

Help Wanted

A couple of months ago, I quit my job.

There were all kinds of reasons not to do this. It's a bad economy, and mine was a good job: it paid well, the people were nice, it was flexible for my family. Oh -- and I didn't have another one lined up.

It's not that I didn't think about getting another job; I did. I looked around every so often, as one does. I browsed Craig's List. Searched Monster. But nothing in my field really seemed to "fit." Mostly I just wasn't interested. Or I was sure they wouldn't be interested in me. That there were several thousand people more qualified for the position than I.

For a while I considered dropping everything and choosing a new career path altogether. But after all these years of schooling, did I really have it in me to go back to square one, head back to school, start again at the bottom? Wasn't it easier just to stay in a profession where I had already achieved a measure of success? Where I could rest on my laurels, such as they were?

Assuming, then, that no better job awaited me, I pressed on. Yet as the weeks and months passed, it became more and more apparent to me (if not, it seemed, to anyone else), that I was faking it. Phoning it in. I needed a change.

In an 1864 campaign speech, Abraham Lincoln popularized the notion that it is unwise to "swap horses in midstream." He was referring, of course, to the Civil War that was tearing the country apart, and making a case for his continued leadership to see the country through its present crisis.

I recognize that my middle-class job dissatisfaction doesn't meet most people's definition of a "crisis," midlife or otherwise. But I reached a point in the last year or so when I realized: the horse I rode in on doesn't have the chops to take me where I want to go next. The fear that has guided so many of my life decisions up to this point--fear of offending someone, of being wrong, of making a mistake, of not making, doing, or being "enough" ... that fear, like a horse with a bit in its teeth, was running wild. And I was just along for the ride.

So I humbly beg to disagree with Lincoln in this one respect. Sometimes a change of horses is precisely what is called for.

And as luck would have it, I've stumbled upon the perfect job. Sure, I have the typical first-day jitters. It's a new position--there's no manual, no set procedures to follow. I'll probably make more than a few mistakes along the way. On the other hand, there's no supervisor to please, no 3-month probationary period, and no "measurable goals" to meet. And as it turns out, there's not a soul better qualified for the role than me.

It's the job of being myself. Let it begin.