Nov 7, 2010

You Belong to Me

People often ask me how I come up with ideas for my blog, how long it takes me to write a post, whether there's any kind of hidden message (there isn't), is there a method in the madness (nope), etc.

While occasionally I do actually have an "idea" - usually dreamt up in the middle of the night, while sitting on a metro (or now, a tram), or when I'm actually supposed to be working - most often I just sit down because it's time to write and whatever comes out, comes out.

This is one of those.

I'm in Paris this weekend.  Back home.  Curled up on the sofa while the deluge does its thing outside.  God, I missed home.  My apartment.  My furniture.  My books.  My painting of Alina.  My little NescafĂ© and Kellog's muesli ritual in front of the TV (so much better than the real stuff I get in the hotel back in der Schweiz).  My loud, crazy, dirty street.  My friends.  My family.

All the things that are mine.  In Switzerland, nothing belongs to me yet.

Except the job.  The job is definitely My Job.  It helps that no one else has ever had this job before.  That no one knows exactly what the job is.  The job is whatever I decide it will be.  And so it is very much Mine.  And I love it.  Not just because of the hours, or the colleagues, or the overlapping of languages, or the man-magnet effect of saying I work for CoolCo Sub.

Mostly, I love it because I can create my own little world.  And my boss trusts me.  If I say I need something to happen, it happens.  I never realized how empowering it is just to be trusted.  I feel like I can do anything, achieve anything, go anywhere.  It's an incredible feeling and one that, in my experience, is all too rare in the workplace.  Don't worry, I'm not going to go all Leadership Seminar on you, but still, think about it.

So I have My Job.  Finally.  Although I still wonder how exactly I got here.  Litigation, consulting, novel-writing and now...  Strangely, it all feels rather fated somehow.  Dr B thinks it all has something to do with The Boy, who apparently wasn't simply put on this earth to break my heart over and over again, but also to edge me a little closer to this new life at CoolCo Sub, this new life where I feel confident and capable and ready to conquer the world.

If that's true, I suppose thanks are in order.

Still, couldn't My Job have been in Paris instead?

2 comments:

stallie said...

NO!!! And I am very tempted to use our very 'inspiring' moto of the Hoover Highschool Speechteam in this case. 'Just Deal With'! You will be fine! Settling in is always hard and wherever you go you will bring in a piece of yourself and then you need to reshape/recreate a part of you in order to make it work for you and in the surroundings. You can do it!! And yes I can see why people trust you, you have got that flair and attitude it takes to be up there but stay true to all the things you believe in! Never give up!

Anonymous said...

Wow! You jsut made me realize why I dislike my job... my boss doesn't trust me. I am more educated and experienced than her, yet she second guesses all my decisions. You are so lucky to have that respect from your boss.